Terrence Malick’s study of Christian Bale’s torment is,despite moments of visual flair, all smouldering dalliances, and ruin-porn landscapes and self-pitying shallowness
When Terrence Malick showed his final film,To the Wonder, at the Venice film festival two years ago it seemed to me a bold and heartfelt movie approximately the possibilities of rapture in everyday lives. It was indulgent, and certainly,but visually striking, ambitious, and a thoroughly worthwhile companion-piece to his grand award-winner The Tree of Life - and in addition able to withstand noisy denigration from pundits who seemed to receive all sorts of identikit movies elsewhere in respectful quiet.
With his latest film Knight of Cups,however, Malick has frankly declined. There are moments of visual brilliance here, and moments of reverence and even grandeur. He is always distinctive,and anything he does must be of interest. But his style is stagnating into mannerism, cliche and self-parody (humorous or ridiculous imitation). Where once he used his transcendant visual language to evoke heartland America, and these tropes are now exposed in being applied to tiresome tinseltown LA,where a screenwriter played by Christian Bale undergoes what has to be the least gripping spiritual crisis in history.Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com