MovieChat Forums > The Limits of Control (2009) Discussion > Tell me why I should appreciate this fil...

Tell me why I should appreciate this film.

posted 15 years ago by babyxfirefly
34 replies | jump to latest

I do like off-beat, artsy films. I appreciate visual beauty and music in a movie. I can appreciate a slow pace when it's done with a purpose. I have a broad mind and I'm not stupid. But I still thought this was a piece of crap. Yes, the visuals and music were good, but they didn't mean anything. If you're going to make a symbolic film, there has to be purpose to the symbolic content. Randomness is not symbolism. This movie delivered its symbolic message at the end, but the two hours leading up to that didn't give the audience anything to go with because the film went nowhere.

The message in the film was not enlightening to me in any way at all. The filmmaker's point of view is something that only people who very passionately share that point of view can appreciate. To others, it isn't controversial, it isn't interesting, and it doesn't open the mind.

I think it's fine that a filmmaker decides to take an unconventional approach - but in order for it to be a good film, he needs to succeed with the unconventional tools he chooses to use. I just thought this was completely terrible.

I am open to countering opinions, and yes, I do have the capacity to understand abstract ideas so please don't respond if all you want to do is insult my intelligence.

[–] alan_ryder 13 years ago

'Sometimes the reflection is more precient than the thing being reflected' to borrow a quote from the film. I found it very 'cinema verite', truly. And he really achieved his goal for me. I guess it's context, but the criticisms I've heard of this film (and others like it) fall flat. It's like a 'genre'. Started by the Italian realists and expanded on by the French. The more like actual life the better. I seems that when viewing a 'movie' many want anything but simulated reality. Personally I've found that some of these 'cinema verites' have much more weight with me than most of the fantasies. Antonioni's THE PASSENGER for instance (which LOC reminds me of a lot) sometimes feels like my own memory.

As far as you, I would suggest, if you actually are interested, looking up some of the genre, I'm sure there are many in your library. Maybe start with early Fellinis. And there are a few good books on the subject.

Again, I'm vastly entertained by life, everyday. Growing up in the '60's I saw quite a few of this type of film, very stylish then. So I do have a different perspective, to be sure. I have no problems with films that attempt realism. Often the phenomenon occurs of things happening (perhaps in your own mind) that the filmmaker did not intend.

'How did you get in here?' 'I used my imagination'

[–] ciprianl 12 years ago

You should not. Appreciation is arbitrary, as is reality.

[–] james-mac 9 years ago

That's your job to figure out isn't it?

[–] KnockKnock1 9 years ago

I liked it and I don't know why. I'm not sure that will help you, but it's just how I feel about it. I've seen this movie five times now. On some level I really dig it.

[–] LTUM (1037) 5 years ago

[deleted]