Word: realm
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...vacation, and it becomes obliquely clear that Robert knows about the affair. Perhaps he knew all along. Who knew what, when, constitutes the sole suspense factor of the evening. A confirmed philanderer, Robert is not about to incite a showdown. But it goes rather deeper than that, into the realm of male bonding. Jerry does not really feel remorse about betraying his unseen wife, but he feels terribly guilty about betraying his best friend. Similarly, Robert complains that they never play squash any more, a symbol that they are no longer close...
Unfortunately, Skolimowski's stodgy, symbolically obsessive style continuously undermines Bates' intensity as he tries to shove this unwilling film into the realm of the magical. There are endless shots of people walking and walking and walking the dunes, people stroking and stroking and stroking ancient magical rocks, and bicycle wheels spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. There's also a male peacock in there every once in a while for reasons which the director has evidently sealed in a bottle and thrown into the Mediterranean. The problem with all this is that the form of the film consistently interrupts...
Other directors have gotten into trouble with movies involving Aborigine magic and the dreamworld versus the real world. Invariably, as happened with Peter Weir's The Last Wave, the characters are sacrificed in order to explore the realm of the imagination. Yet however fascinating this theme might be to a director, it must be remembered that the "normal" characters in the film are the springboard into this mystical world. If such characters are one-dimensional, the audience is left with no horizon line against which to judge the increasingly strange happenings...
...ignore and dismiss. One wonders why it is that schizophrenics are so often shown on split screens, or with funny echo-chambered voices whispering on the soundtrack. And what does this have to do with the genuine condition, which is abnormal precisely because it is not occurring in the realm of special effects...
...leave signposts, cinematic Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs in an attempt to give a frame of reference. And this is the killing blow to a film which already takes place within the world of magic and symbol. It completely removes the film from life, takes it out of the realm of emotion, out of the realm of possibility, and hence of out of the realm of genuine horror...