Slipstream

If you want to see an extremely strange movie perhaps you can give a try to Anthony Hopkins oeuvre (he directs, wrote the script and performs) but gee there is much violence -especially with words- and the editing is unbelievably disturbing that I ended with a big, big headache not to speak about the bad taste in my mouth.

I have to admit that I forced myself into watching the complete movie and well, it was very hard to sustain the whole picture. The only thing that I’m glad to have seen is the very-very end after the extremely fast forward part of the credits where supposedly is the real end to the movie.

This movie has the most crazy editing I have ever seen and I cannot say that I like it, it was too much for my head and to my eyes, but I have to admit that it is quite unique. Think that the whole purpose of this film is to generate dizziness and make you feel sick.

That’s exactly my spontaneous reaction after seeing the movie, but you have no idea of HOW WRONG I was.

I was wondering what slipstream meant as I was not familiar with the word meaning, so what a surprise to find what it means and here I reproduce the definition: "...this is a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility." By the way the word is also related to Magic Realism, New Weird and Speculative Fiction.

The surprise is because this movie totally fits the definition and now that I know what the word means the movie totally makes sense… should have found about the word meaning before seeing the movie, perhaps I could have been able to see it with different eyes. Hmm.

There is a story here, which haven’t read about the movie before seeing it became difficult to understand, but I gather that it was about the “crazy” mind of a writer and how his characters take up his mind. While thinking it was about that matter I related to Dutch Ober (Waiter) and keep thinking that the Dutch movie was better. But as soon as I started to find info about the movie everything changed.

I believe that this is a movie that you have to read about before watching it, as perhaps will change your attitude toward what you will see. I’m sharing an excerpt of an interview with Sir Anthony Hopkins.

“I'm fascinated by time. I've written a script about the nature of reality... It's about reality and the illusion of life because life to me, as I get older, is so illusion-like, so dream-like, that I think it's all a dream. It's about a man, who's caught in a slipstream of time falling back on itself and he remembers his own future. My own interpretation is if there's a God, that God is actually time. I'm fascinated by the fact the older I get every moment just slips past. What is real? You grasp this moment and then it's gone. I was talking 10 minutes ago but that's all gone, it's all a dream. Maybe the puzzle of life is asking what it's all about. I've got a theory that at the moment of impact of death we'll wake up and say, 'Ah, that was it all along.' My life has been governed a lot by those thoughts and feelings”.

Well Sir Hopkins tells in that interview what NOW I know the movie story is all about and accurately describes what you will see.

I could go on writing a lot about this movie that the more I read about it the more it fascinates me, as definitively gives a lot of sense to what I saw and could not gather just from watching everything; even the violence and editing done in such a way becomes congruent to the plot.

Who could imagine that Sir Anthony Hopkins could write and do a movie so complex? Not me. Then I just know him from his outstanding performances; but this movie can give you a glimpse at the human being. Thinking about what I just wrote, the man must be very interesting to meet… only if I could!

The movie premiered at the 2007 Locarno Film Festival where was nominated for a Golden Leopard and won the Youth Jury Award. The last award makes me think that this movie is exactly for young (age and at heart) people that still want to see and live new experiences and where “the establishment/established” is just one option.

Absolutely not for all audiences, not even for those that like art cinema. Most critics and viewers hated the movie and this seems to be one time that both agree lol! Perhaps the best genre that this unique film relates to is Experimental Cinema.

Gosh, I really regret not having read about this movie before watching and I strongly suggest that if you feel like giving it a try read/inform yourself thoroughly before seeing it. But with all the intellectual knowledge now I have about this complex movie I can say that my spontaneous reaction is totally dismissed. I liked this very strange and unique movie.

Enjoy!!!

P.S. Just one more thing, I love David Lynch movies and some people are relating this movie to Lynch. In my opinion this film has nothing to do with Lynch, this is quite unique as a movie. Similar stories have been told before, but no movie –as a movie- has gone this far... until now.