Lifeforce (1985)
At the end of it, I really liked the crazy thing.
Lifeforce's problem is that it wants to be a cult film and doesn't know how to go about it, which results in a very awkward opening of the film.
The secret to succeed in this matter is to do something completely unexpected.
Take The Italian Job for instance, a film that also wanted to become a cult film and succeeded. You think that film is dull, until some stuff happens that you don't quite get at first, but when Michael Caine says Big: B.I.G. it sort of starts to sink in that he'll be the somewhat dimwitted group leader for prison director Mr. Bridger and the film is on its way to become a hoot.
Lifeforce on the other hand tries to make England proud by christening a spaceship Churchill.
Doesn't work. Actually, it's awkward, because you feel the intent. Now, if they had christened it Henry VIII and launched their dialogue from there (The Henry VIII is bringing a naked woman back and she's extremely dangerous!) they might have gotten somewhere, but then again that is not the kind of film that Lifeforce aspires to be.
Nevertheless, as things stand, you can't make it through the film until the return of Col. Carlsen without thinking of a it as a satire of the most primitive kind about older men with boring jobs facing the sudden and mixed blessing of the sight of a young naked woman.
Mathilda May doesn't do a lot of acting, btw., her facial expression varies between WTF? and wild eyed. But this is a strength of the film that it doesn't go for seduction. When May says Use my body. she avoids sounding robotic or sleazy rather splendidly - actually, she makes it sound like The mail has arrived.
So, what you have there is a smiling nude woman and a lot of stiff older men breaking out in sweat. That has a certain ring to it, and that's what the first half hour of the film is.
But then Col. Carlsen returns to earth and the film becomes more overtly psychological in the vampire tradition, that is it deals with lust, consuming the resources that would have otherwise lasted for a lifetime, not unlike in The Picture of Dorian Gray. But it goes about it a bit clumsily at first and very declamatory throughout, the problem being: How to change a sci-fi into a vampire flick?
But, hey!, it worked for me. I really liked the dramatic arc that Carlsen went through from denial over sensible use of an acquired larger understanding to uninhibited affirmation, not despite Railsback's and May's declamatory acting, but because of it: People dying everywhere, energy explosions and academic dialogue about fate and hunger!
It doesn't even feel poorly acted at that stage, by then this film, which started out with Now she has clothes! - shouted in alarm, after the corpse of another woman was found - has become a gripping reflection about taking away from life what you have to take away from it, and its abstractness only makes it more applicable.
Lifeforce's problem is that it wants to be a cult film and doesn't know how to go about it, which results in a very awkward opening of the film.
The secret to succeed in this matter is to do something completely unexpected.
Take The Italian Job for instance, a film that also wanted to become a cult film and succeeded. You think that film is dull, until some stuff happens that you don't quite get at first, but when Michael Caine says Big: B.I.G. it sort of starts to sink in that he'll be the somewhat dimwitted group leader for prison director Mr. Bridger and the film is on its way to become a hoot.
Lifeforce on the other hand tries to make England proud by christening a spaceship Churchill.
Doesn't work. Actually, it's awkward, because you feel the intent. Now, if they had christened it Henry VIII and launched their dialogue from there (The Henry VIII is bringing a naked woman back and she's extremely dangerous!) they might have gotten somewhere, but then again that is not the kind of film that Lifeforce aspires to be.
Nevertheless, as things stand, you can't make it through the film until the return of Col. Carlsen without thinking of a it as a satire of the most primitive kind about older men with boring jobs facing the sudden and mixed blessing of the sight of a young naked woman.
Mathilda May doesn't do a lot of acting, btw., her facial expression varies between WTF? and wild eyed. But this is a strength of the film that it doesn't go for seduction. When May says Use my body. she avoids sounding robotic or sleazy rather splendidly - actually, she makes it sound like The mail has arrived.
So, what you have there is a smiling nude woman and a lot of stiff older men breaking out in sweat. That has a certain ring to it, and that's what the first half hour of the film is.
But then Col. Carlsen returns to earth and the film becomes more overtly psychological in the vampire tradition, that is it deals with lust, consuming the resources that would have otherwise lasted for a lifetime, not unlike in The Picture of Dorian Gray. But it goes about it a bit clumsily at first and very declamatory throughout, the problem being: How to change a sci-fi into a vampire flick?
But, hey!, it worked for me. I really liked the dramatic arc that Carlsen went through from denial over sensible use of an acquired larger understanding to uninhibited affirmation, not despite Railsback's and May's declamatory acting, but because of it: People dying everywhere, energy explosions and academic dialogue about fate and hunger!
It doesn't even feel poorly acted at that stage, by then this film, which started out with Now she has clothes! - shouted in alarm, after the corpse of another woman was found - has become a gripping reflection about taking away from life what you have to take away from it, and its abstractness only makes it more applicable.
Labels: 17, filmkritik, metaphysik, präsentation, rezension, ἰδέα, φιλοσοφία
Eingetragen Am/um
14:12
