There will be Blood

[toblerone3]

I liked it a lot. It isn't a *great* film but it is a good film. And the ending was one of the best bits - I don't think I'll ever forget him roaring "I AM THE THIRD REVELATION" as he chases the godboy around the room

What were the first and second revelations?

 

[El Jefe]

You're a very literal person, aren't you?

 

[toblerone3]

You're a very literal person, aren't you?

Absolutely not.

I am not the sort of person who goes around trying to find plot holes. If a film is artistic and holds together as a work of art then a lot of licence can be taken with other aspects of the film. I love left-field arty films that are image, dialogue and atmospherically-driven rather than plot driven.

The trailers to this film looked really good because there all you see is a series of 5, 10 and 15 second clips. And it was visually spectacular. Also some of the dialogue sounded like it was out of a Shakespeare play. But as I said before the plot did not justify some of the one-liners.

The film had fragments of poetic brilliance that looked good to Hollywood previewers but the film in my opinion did not have legs and certainly not the legs to sustain an audience's interest for two and a half hours.

To take the legs metaphor one step further. This film had pretensions of being a classic but it was trying to run before it could walk.

 

[El Jefe]

Well, have to disagree on almost every point, but there ya go

 

[Brainaddict]

What were the first and second revelations?

I assume the name of the church (church of the third revelation) was taken from Christian mythology in which the first great revelation made to humanity was the law given to Moses and the second was the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It's quite an amusingly immodest claim for a church to make and even funnier when a businessman starts shouting it

 

[laptop]

first great revelation made to humanity was the law given to Moses and the second was the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It's quite an amusingly immodest claim for a church to make

(((((((Saint John)))))))

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

OK

1. No sympathy with any of the characters
2. No character development
3. Too long

I think if a film fails on all three of those points, its completely valid to think that its not a good film.

And that is NOT having rigid conception of what constitutes a good film

1. why do you need sympathy? seeing how their character unfurls, develops, reflects, reveals himself in a thoroughly engrossing manner had me wrapped up.
2, ? DDL's character developed in a seriously mad way. as did his son. and the religious nut was everything you'd imagine him to be.
3. i was completely engrossed. i'm glad that there are still directors brave enough to make something that isn't an 80m-epic of stupidity or inane shite.

 

[toblerone3]

Quite apart from having sympathy with the characters. I didn't feel that the characters were developed at all.

They were two dimensional and the narrative was also extremely weak. I just seemed as though a lot of money had been thrown at the film which was used to make a pretty vacant movie.

I can't believe that this film is doing well at the box office. The cinema where I went to see it was almost empty and several people walked out.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

So how was DDL's character 2-dimensional? As you yourself noted above, his character was confused and contradictory imo. and it, his character, definitely developed over the course of the movie, esp considering that he was the main momentum of the whole thing anyway. narrative? the film started with a 15 minute sequence when no-one spoke, which helped establish his distance and insularity from everyone else. it was superbly plotted and presented, at least for anyone with a degree of patience and/or intelligence simply. the cinema you went to see it at sounds like a shit-hole tbf....like say, remind me never to darken your doors eh?

 

[toblerone3]

I was surprised at how few people there were in the cinema. It was Camden Odeon on Parkway on the night before a bank holiday weekend FFS.

Will reply to your comments later when I've had a think about it. Perhaps this film is better to talk about than to actually watch.

At the moment am getting ready to go for a long walk along the Thames in Oxfordshire. Hope it stops raining