Word: viewer
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...frustration these questions caused was scarcely allayed by Sven Nykvist's captivating photography. Familiar locations--the stairwell or facade of an apartment building--are transformed into eerie backdrops by the weird angles Nykvist chooses. Indeed, the film's vision of Paris charms the viewer from the neighborhood cafe where Trokovsky has his morning hot chocolate to the seedy bars and cinemas he visits with Stella. Details, like the outrageous flares, pendants and sheepskin jackets she wears, are convincingly retro. The only contextual problem is the accents. Ironically, the only French-sounding actor in the mainly American and British cast, Polanski...
...important, really -- just another banal triangle. Though based on a 1969 French film, Les Choses de la Vie, Intersection made at least one viewer think of Blue, the 1993 French movie that's also about infidelity and life's sad ironies. There was a felt reality in the intimacy of Blue's textures, and its elliptical style kept the eye puzzled and alert. Not for the first time one wonders why American moviemakers can't get the hang of, the fun of, the higher trivia...
What strikes a modern non-Russian viewer most is Socialist Realism's unabashed fantasy. Realism in Stalinist terms did not mean painting things as they were or even as they might be: the inevitability of Socialist progress erased that conditional "might," along with the gap between present and future. That which will be already is, under the world-sustaining gaze of Comrade Stalin. Ideology ascribed to Stalin the actual role of God, the creation of reality itself...
...film in black and white serves him well. Besides lending the movie the feel of a documentary, the black and white serves the film thematically in the play of light and shadows. Black and white also gives an unnerving sharpness and clarity to whatever is portrayed. It forces the viewer to focus on what is on the screen; there is no color to distract the viewer or to provide an escape from the intensity and impact of the material...
...film is lacerating. It provides an unflinching look at acts of incomprehensible barbarity. This renders it incredibly difficult to watch, and at times the viewer feels battered and bruised inside. The movie sears images into the viewer's head: a small boy up to his chest in excrement because he has hidden from the Nazis in the latrines; an old man being shot in the head; piles of photographs, suitcases and shoes. Here, precisely, lies the film's power--it will not allow anyone to look away, to ignore, to forget...