It's a Terry Gilliam movie with pretension taking the place of a meaning or message.


It's quite beautiful, though.

if this is the movie i'm thinking about, it's not from Terry Gilliam but from Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro with Ron Perlman, and it's very weird

Not pretentious at all holmes. One of my favorite movies.

I realize this. I'm saying it resembles a Terry Gilliam movie so much that it could be mistaken for one. Except it's missing the social commentary.

Wouldn't not having social commentary make it less pretentious?

No. I don't consider most Gilliam movies pretentious because the commentary is presented in a humble yet hilarious way (ie the paperwork in Brazil). Here we have people fighting inside dreams, and a poorly defined, opium addicted former sideshow owner who has a pet flea that can deliver some sort of syrum that makes people go on a killing spree when triggered by a music box.

Don't get me wrong, I thoguh the imagery was fantastic and I really enjoyed the movie, but I just came out of it wondering what the whole point was. If taken solely as a excercise in set design and cinematography, it was an A+ film, but if there was supposed to be a point to it all, it's not very apparent.

Not all films have points, dude.

Fantastic movie. Amazing...I've bought it twice over the years.

This movie is what goes on in Tom Waits' mind.

Your right.

Perhaps I went into this movie with the wrong fram of mind. Given its absurd, dark plot, epic title, and crazy dystopian setting I expected some visually overwhelming, ostentatious essay about life and soceity. And while it was certainly visually overwhelming and ostentatious, I was looking for a point the whole time, and maybe that's what frustrated me.

If I watched the movie again, and looked at it as a fantastic fairy tale, I think I would enjoy it much more. In fact, looking at it from the perspective, I already like it more. It wasn't what i expected and that's what i didn't like about it. As a fantasy story set in a fantsay land, it works very well.

I love Dominique Pinon in this movie.

I like movies with Ron Perlman. This one is included in that statement.

call me what you will:

i wonder what the girl looks like now, it's been like 10 years since the movie was released, she sure must be one hot french lady.