I don’t know quite what to say about this movie, so I don’t think I’ll say too much.
My overwhelming feeling toward A Serious Man is one of indifference. This is pretty odd for me, especially in light of the fact that this movie represents a largely underwhelming project by some of my favorite writer/directors; Ethan and Joel Coen.
I liked the cinematography, which produced many a beautiful and crisp portrait. I also could tell that the filmmakers had put a lot of effort into the sound design. I enjoyed all the Jefferson Airplane songs. I thought the opening vignette was quite disturbing, and subtly so.
However, the plot was sort of wandering and I could not engage with any of the characters. I thought the pacing was too slow. There were too many non sequiturs and unexplained events. Somehow the whole story felt overwrought yet also devoid of any significance whatsoever. A pointless exercise in raising the blood pressure of the audience.
Pretty blah. It just felt to me like a wasted afternoon. I think I’d rather have hated it.
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I really enjoyed "A Serious Man" when I first saw in a few months ago. Partly I was impressed because it was such a subtle dark film from two directors whose "dark" sensibilities are far from subtle in their other projects. Also, this movie followed a long string of crap movies I've had to see in theatres. So context and circumstance had a lot to do with my enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteBut asides from that, what I particularly liked about the film was its ability to build a sense of existential angst without a hint of romanticism or anti-heroism (there was nothing heroic about the protagonist, in either the positive or negative sense). The film's narrative and pacing gave one the sense of a sinister growing vaccuum -- a vaccuum of moral and human connection that can only lead to an impending storm (say, an oncoming hurricane?) I also think, though, that one really needs to have a familiarity with the American-Jewish community, especially in its middle-class form, in order to appreciate some of the finer details of the repressed despair and absurdity in this film.
I certainly don't feel like I got all of it.
Yet having said all that, now that a few months have passed, all these impressions have sort of faded away and left merely the intellectual memory that I HAD the impressions in the first place. If a film deals in mood and atmosphere, it should have "staying-power" in those terms -- meaning, its mood or atmosphere should stay with me for some time, and should be evoked every time I remember the film. This is certainly true for other Cohen films I've seen, even those I havn't enjoyed. But this has not happened with "A Serious Man", which is rather unfortunate. As much as I liked it at first, time quickly replaced the angst with indifference.
Alla--
ReplyDeleteThanks for such insightful and careful comments. I agree with you on your point about building existential angst without romanticism or anti-heroism-- a good point that was lost on me when I viewed the film.
And yes, the lack of staying power is the crux of why this one was a disappointment to me. I just felt so... not affected by this movie as a whole. It was like listening to someone you don't know too well telling about a nightmare-- troubling while you listen but afterward, largely irrelevant in your own life.
Again, thank you for the comments!
:)
Just had to comment on this because I watched A Serious Man last night and fell utterly in love. I suppose I find myself in the Coen Brothers' camp -- I see the worst of the world through a glass, darkly and what I see is moral nihilism. That said, I still want to believe there may be a shred of mystery, that spark of the divine, that I'm simply missing due to my inferior human brain. I want to "accept the mystery" (as the Korean student's father insists.) I found in A Serious Man a kind of homespun autobiographical account of the Coens' religious experience and existential grief that often pops up as a theme in their films. And I found myself agreeing time and time again with that grief. Accept things with simplicity, but never stop searching for answers, and be able to look at good, evil, and coincidence with curious awestruckedness... otherwise you resign to the life of the dentist who simply goes back to playing golf after finding a curious messages inside his patient's teeth. Closed off from mystery. Closed off from the good questions for this weird, often unfair, world.
ReplyDeleteIt was a dark film, and a shaggy dog, so it's destructive, bleak ending was not a surprise, but I really loved it. Again, this is just a personal reaction... not a real film student-y reaction. Couldn't help but attempt to defend it!
Emily:
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading!
I think your interpretation of this film is beautiful. I wish I could see it in the way you do (which I think is more along the lines the directors/writers would have wanted)! I too love the Cohen brothers, but for some reason, I just could not love /A Serious Man/. Where you read an encouragement of questioning and an endorsement of mystery I found only a relentless and inescapable confirmation of meaninglessness. Maybe if I had watched it in a different context I would have felt differently. I think it is definitely a film that you have to bring a lot of yourself to when you watch it.
Again, thanks for reading and for your entirely thoughtful comment!