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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Trajectory: The Pulsing Global Balls of Coincidences, September 30, 2005
CARNAGE is a stunning film - though from the outset it should be made clear that it is not a film for all audiences. For those who cringe at gore, those who are frustrated by nonlinear storyline, and those who feel uncomfortable with magical realism - beware. This is a two-hour plus journey that demands concentration and suspension of belief to glean all of the multilayered meanings it holds.
Stylishly opening with the elegant dressing and preparation of a handsome young bullfighter discussing his incipient time in the ring with his father, the film moves into a the bull ring in Spain and while the young bullfighter is gored, a young girl watches in horror on a television in France. Thus the sequence of coincidences begins. The dead bull is dragged from the ring, butchered, and his various parts (meat to restaurants, horns to a taxidermist, testicles, eyes, etc) are sent to unrelated places in Spain, Belgium and France. Along the way we meet the child who observed the goring on television and discover she is epileptic and draws pictures where dogs are larger than humans (because her's is!), an actress searching for her center, a therapy group bonding and yielding primal screams while nude in a pool, a taxidermist who lives with his mother (the wondrous Esther Gorintin of 'Since Otar Left') and his estranged anatomist brother married to a woman pregnant with quintuplets (neither brother speaks to their damaged father), and so many more. Each of these characters encounters one form or other of the dead bull as food, souvenirs, gifts, etc: each time the consequences of these coincidences add greatly to the story.
Meanwhile our gored bullfighter lies in coma in need of a liver transplant and it is one of the various women touched by the bull's demise in some way that dies in an accident and becomes the saving liver donor to the young bullfighter. The manner in which all of these myriad coincidental effects of the original bullfight mesh (altered relationships, rejoined parent/child schisms, deaths, altered lives) are sewn tightly together by the end of this apparent conundrum of a story.
The cast is uniformly exceptional. The camera work and pacing are mesmerizing, making the willing eye of the viewer see far more than previously thought possible. Writer/Director Delphine Gleize is truly a talent to closely observe. The audience for this artwork may not be large, but for those souls seeking unique films this one is Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 05
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Insert standard bull joke here., December 13, 2006
Carnage (Delphine Gleize, 2002)
The last thing I expected from Carnage was that it would be such an amusing little movie. Gleize's conceit is a now-familiar one-- take one item and show the lives through which it passes-- but instead of taking one item and passing it whole (as in Robert Altman's famous series Gun), Gleize takes a bullfight from the movie's opening scenes, in which the bull himself is killed and the enthusiastic young toreador is horribly gored, winding up comatose and needing a new liver in the hospital. The bull is rendered, and the movie follows various pieces of the bull's remains, and the intertwining stories of the characters who end up with some of them.
Much has been made of the initial bullfighting scene, which is choreographed and shot in a beautiful, almost dreamlike manner. And while all the praise of that scene is justified, it eclipses the scene of the rendering a bit farther into the film. It has the same qualities, but they are applied to a much more mundane setting, and they are almost intensified in the application. It's an utterly fascinating, if short, scene, that gives some insight into Gleize's talent as a director.
As for the rest of the film, it's almost on, but not quite. It never seems to get a handle on what it wants to be, and thus pinballs from tragedy to silliness, with hefty doses of cleverness and with thrown in for good measure, as well as more than a modicum of coincidence (one can explain this away by the sort of magic-realism trope that seems inherent to this subgenre); while watching Carnage, you get the idea that there's a great film buried somewhere close to the surface, but that it is never quite realized. Still, what's here is usually fun; it's not a failure by any means. ** ˝
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great film, new cinema, March 17, 2004
With this film, I had to work through it, but the reward is well worth the effort. Magical coincidences connect people that seem so distant from each other, characters so different, and yet so similar. The film is full of symbolism. I especially liked the scene when the mother in the trailer dies and the captured animals escape, the trailer is bursting with life that the mother had freed by her death. The film is full of misterious connections, and it is well worth exploring these connections. The style is not continuous, but still descriptive. I can only compare it with CODE UNKNOWN by Michael Haneke. If you liked CODE UNKNOWN there is a big chance you will like this one as well.
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