An immersive experience, Schrader's hyper-expressive direction evokes the disorienting psyche of Patty Hearst as her world, and everything she knows is turned upside down in a matter of minutes. Confined spaces, contrasting light with darkness, and a general observational approach that is rigorous in its attention to detail, the opening act of Patty Hearst is effectively a masterclass in atmospheric filmmaking. Schrader's film may be classified as a tad reactionary when it comes to his examination of this far-left movement yet how the film uses spatiality, juxtaposing Patty's bourgeois upbringing with that of her revolutionary present, is a beautiful exhibition of the pervasive ways in which privilege itself is detached from ideology. While It seems fair to say this film struggles to maintain the inertia of its opening act, Schrader's film is not so much about politics as it is about a portrait of privilege from a non-pejorative perspective, demonstrating through its narrative schematics a character in Patty Hearst whose never had cognitive autonomy. Whether it be the ideology of the bourgeois persuasion or that of the revolutionary left, Schrader's key focus here is not in politics per se Patty Hearst's lack of identity, in a sense exhibiting how her inability to forge her own perspective has left her susceptible to persuasion on all fronts.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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