Cloverfield
We went out to see Cloverfield this evening. It left me feeling more unsettled than probably any movie since Children of Men.
I am so utterly willing to completely suspend my disbelief that movies like this are profoundly effective-- I empathize with the characters, and it really makes it hard to watch, because they appear to me to be real people suffering in real circumstances. It's effective, but I don't know that it's enjoyable. Watching people suffer and die? By removing the elements of fantasy, the obvious conventions of cinema and the normal narrative, it makes the story seem doubly real. One of the reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes criticizes it for being manipulative by playing on the anxieties of 9/11. I don't think that's the case, but the effect on me ends up being the same: it's really like watching real people suffer through a tragedy, and although the monster is damn awesome, it's just too hard to watch a realistic simulation of horror and suffering.
Where oh where has my Cthulhu gone? I prefer my doom to be abstract and impending, rather than visceral and sad.
I am so utterly willing to completely suspend my disbelief that movies like this are profoundly effective-- I empathize with the characters, and it really makes it hard to watch, because they appear to me to be real people suffering in real circumstances. It's effective, but I don't know that it's enjoyable. Watching people suffer and die? By removing the elements of fantasy, the obvious conventions of cinema and the normal narrative, it makes the story seem doubly real. One of the reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes criticizes it for being manipulative by playing on the anxieties of 9/11. I don't think that's the case, but the effect on me ends up being the same: it's really like watching real people suffer through a tragedy, and although the monster is damn awesome, it's just too hard to watch a realistic simulation of horror and suffering.
Where oh where has my Cthulhu gone? I prefer my doom to be abstract and impending, rather than visceral and sad.
posted by Nate at 11:32 PM
1 Comments:
I also very much liked Cloverfield. Like you said, "enjoy" is not really the right word. But I definitely am seeing it again to try and catch things I missed before (like the Easter Egg at the very end where you see something fall out of the sky, apparently).
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