Word: torments
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This skittery manner has worked for Di rector Roeg in the past, notably in Don 't Look Now, but it does not really suit a study in obsessional behavior. As anyone who has ever suffered that peculiar form of mental torment knows, it tends to fo cus the mind narrowly and dully, rather as an aching tooth does, permitting it few enlivening leaps or juxtapositions of the sort this movie keeps attempting...
...asserts the need to end human suffering; on the other, he has a fierce desire to sprint blindly into the open arms of a beautiful woman. With no resolution of this dilemma at hand, and unable to make a choice and stick to it, Allen muddles through his inner torment. He turns his attention from suffering to death and from death to all his old themes: sex, religion, beauty, driving, California and cooking. It's predictable comedy the worst kind. Allen seems to be questioning both the limits to his own talent (which once seemed limitless) and the scope...
...children away when they protest that his son has beaten him fair and square. The situation defuses quietly after the initial heat--but the incident rips wide open a blister in the family that has festered since Bull Meechum's return, sowing the seeds of hatred that will later torment the characters with guilt...
...pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred...
...this vein, The Shining draws from 2001, where man was overcome by man-made constructions. The Overlook's power to shine and torment its guests recalls the malignant power of HAL, the computer in Kubrick's space odyssey. the walls of the Overlook breathe; in one scene, mention of the hotel creates a physical space between Jack and Danny. "I love it," whispers Jack, leering...