21 Grams
[Rating: 9/10] [Note: No plot spoilers] As any student of filmmaking would tell you, a crucial component of a film is its montage - “the fluid integration of the camera's total range of shots, so as to produce the most coherent narrative sequence, the most systematic meaning, and the most effective rhythmic pattern". However, like most post-modernists, Alejandro González (Amores Perros) believes that rules are meant to be broken. Coherency, semantics and rhythm are for the meek. A masterpiece flaunts all and manages to entertain nevertheless.
In 21 grams, he has created a movie that is narrated in chaos. The storyline seems haphazard, the scenes inconsistent, the characters unfathomable. But there is a method to the madness (I always wanted to use that phrase in a review). The story is told in a non-linear fashion - a glimpse at the ending, then a scene from the middle, or was that the beginning? Then another one from after the ending. Then one from… where - I can’t tell yet. Your brain is constantly trying to piece together a jigsaw - except you’re moving scenes around in time, not pieces of the Golden Gate bridge on the coffee table.
The idea of playing with montage to create a new third meaning from combining the meanings of the original two adjacent scenes is not entirely new. Memento told its story running backwards in time in ten minute chunks. Run Lola Run replayed the same scene with many variations, Magnolia intertwined many different stories. Timecode - my favorite - showed four scenes at the same time (they were also shot at the same time, with NO cuts for editing, making it truly exceptional)! 21 grams is different because it breaks all regularity - no repetition, or reverse order. There is no order at all. Which makes it so much harder to tell a tale that keeps the audience’s attention.
I’m a sucker for movies that make me think. There is sense of Immersion, then Disorientation, and then the Aha moment. Such movies take a medium of passive entertainment and turn it very energetic, very personal. Many people are distressed by this, hence the unfortunate unpopularity of these movies.
The story (or rather, stories) he tells are just as gripping as the presentation - their intertwining making them richer.
I shall say no more - go and watch the movie for yourself. Before it disappears from the theatre.
In 21 grams, he has created a movie that is narrated in chaos. The storyline seems haphazard, the scenes inconsistent, the characters unfathomable. But there is a method to the madness (I always wanted to use that phrase in a review). The story is told in a non-linear fashion - a glimpse at the ending, then a scene from the middle, or was that the beginning? Then another one from after the ending. Then one from… where - I can’t tell yet. Your brain is constantly trying to piece together a jigsaw - except you’re moving scenes around in time, not pieces of the Golden Gate bridge on the coffee table.
The idea of playing with montage to create a new third meaning from combining the meanings of the original two adjacent scenes is not entirely new. Memento told its story running backwards in time in ten minute chunks. Run Lola Run replayed the same scene with many variations, Magnolia intertwined many different stories. Timecode - my favorite - showed four scenes at the same time (they were also shot at the same time, with NO cuts for editing, making it truly exceptional)! 21 grams is different because it breaks all regularity - no repetition, or reverse order. There is no order at all. Which makes it so much harder to tell a tale that keeps the audience’s attention.
I’m a sucker for movies that make me think. There is sense of Immersion, then Disorientation, and then the Aha moment. Such movies take a medium of passive entertainment and turn it very energetic, very personal. Many people are distressed by this, hence the unfortunate unpopularity of these movies.
The story (or rather, stories) he tells are just as gripping as the presentation - their intertwining making them richer.
I shall say no more - go and watch the movie for yourself. Before it disappears from the theatre.
