Would this HORRENDOUS story be produced into such a Wonderful Film? Only Peter Jackson of the Time Period could pull this off. Strange Cinema like this has always appealed to people who just want to get away, just like the duo we see in this film. In the hands of a hundred filmmakers, this comes off too strong, too dramatic, too real maybe... Not with PJ. Not in 1994. It's genius.
shareI agree, this is one of my favourite films. Stellar acting from Lynskey and Winslet, beautifully shot, mesmerising stuff. Credit to a wonderful director.
shareIt felt like an older way of telling a story, like something Hitchcock would have done back in the 50s.
shareYeah, Jackson's focus on the girls friendship and their crazy, out-of-control imagination was what makes the movie so compelling and unique. Any other director would have just made a cold, bleak drama out of it but Jackson went the complete opposite route. He made us feel the zany, imaginative world the girls lived in and made us fall in love with it to the point where we could actually somewhat understand and sympathize with these people who wound up committing murder.
It takes a director who truly has the heart of a child to make a movie like this. To get us into the heads of two deranged individuals who were, at their core, just kids with a lot of imagination. Had if this were made with a bleaker director, one who specialized in making murder movies perhaps (David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Roman Polanski etc.), it may have missed that element.
I think it had to be made by someone from a country that is used to low budgets. The whole film has that low budget feel to it, not a bad thing as it completes the vibe of the film. You also wouldn't have had the story telling parts of the film which gave some insight into the girl's mindset.
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