To be honest, I went for the Hiddles (shutup, shaddap, SHADDAP!) and have been fascinated with Tilda Swinton ever since she landed on top of Keanu Reeves and proceeded to steal scenes from him in Constantine (along with Peter Stormare, who clearly had a whale of a time as Lucifer), but I ended up cutting the film apart in my mind as if I were sitting at my computer at home, going through submitted stories in the slush pile.
“Knock it off, and enjoy the film!” I told myself often. To like, no avail.
It’s not a bad film. I just–even with two shots of Irish cream in me–couldn’t shut that part of my brain off.
I also didn’t expect to be so sharply reminded of my own place when we were shown Adam’s (hi boys!) and to be reminded that yes, I am an artist, and that my place is an artist’s cliche. Yes, I have a 25+ year-old guitar hanging about; just replace the other musical items with papers, magazines and books.
Only Lovers Left Alive leaves its stuff for the end. That’s about as much as I would say without risking spoiling it. Which I was hoping it was going to do, because I appreciated all the atmosphere, the characterization, the costuming- the hair even works quite well. I’d have done even more with the hair, but that’s not my film, is it?
Had Only Lovers Left Alive not delivered on some sort of action but kept leaning on its unique quirks, it would not have worked. It so reminded me of those pieces that have people up in arms, literary versus non, words for the sake of words versus something with something actually happening. (I might be revealing the tendencies of the sort of things Abyss and Apex publishes, I think…)
The art-house, foreign film sort would love this film. I’m kind of that sort. The vamps do not sparkle or have some similar lame worldbuilding excuse.
Yay.
On the way home, I wrote in the blank spaces of a book I carried along to occupy my time. I should know better than to go out without a pen and paper or something by now.
So… yeah, that’s my two cents.
Spiderlilly's Web 