Word: visualizers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...willingness to die for the state. In short, we're looking at a happily fascist world. Maybe that's the movie's final, deadpan joke. Maybe it's saying that war inevitably makes fascists of us all. Or--best guess--maybe the filmmakers are so lost in their slambang visual effects that they don't give a hoot about the movie's scariest implications...
...things don't quite pay off: The red flag planted by the speaking Maenad (presumably to signal bloody devastation) might have never been unfurled; the novitiate (Alison Howe on 10/30) sitting on a pillow, singing the Oro supplex, is a bit much. But the production boasts tremendous visual appeal, thanks to a wonderfully spare set by Helen Shaw '98, spiffy costumes by Jessica Jackson '99 and--especially at the play's beginning and end--skillful and tricky lighting, designed by Alan Symonds...
Directorial flourishes such as these elevate Eve's Bayou and bolster the story. The film is a collection of indelibly etched images, from the casual falling of a hat to a spider weaving its web. But Lemmons and cinematographer Amy Vincent never allow visual flair to obscure the story. Lemmons uses these tricks sparingly in favor of understated, poetic imagery...
First-time director Andrew Niccol, who also wrote the script, brings considerable visual style and an intriguing, only-too-timely premise to this story of a Brave New Worldish society in which the preplanned, genetically made-to-order elite get all the honors and opportunities, and the "natural" births are relegated to the grunt work. Ethan Hawke plays Vincent Freeman, a natural who borrows the identity of one of the elite to fulfill his lifelong dream of leading a mission to outer space. The film suffers from unevenness, sketchy characters and muted acting; however, Niccol's striking images make...
Once the motorcade passes out of sight, the crowd immediately loses most of its enthusiasm, as if its only real purpose in gathering was to place a particular image in Jiang's personal visual narrative. And yet I can't help but realize that if the Chinese President was sitting on the wrong side of the car as it turned past the crowd, there's a good chance he missed the whole thing...