Artistically: 9 out of 10. Fun: 1 out of 10.
There are some amazing ideas in here. The sets, the costumes, the lighting, the outside snowbound landscape - it all looks fantastic. The basic premise is compelling enough: it's a train that never stops, with a repressed underclass fighting their way up and forward against everything thrown at them by their privileged masters.
Unfortunately not one jot of it holds up to any sort of critical analysis. As soon as the viewer starts to ask awkward questions, it falls apart. It doesn't have anything close to a sense of humour either. Quite a few of the characters are cardboard cutouts or even - and it is not often you see this - a parody of a cardboard cutout,a walking joke in a costume. By the halfway mark, almost everyone has started indulging in ludicrous behavior and / or acting like overemotional idiots. By the three-quarter mark, some truly ridiculous speeches have started to appear, then the plot itself (such as it is) clearly runs out of ideas and the movie paints itself into a corner.
It's visionary, it's trippy, it's wildly eccentric and certainly has elements to it that I've never seen in another movie, but what could have been a great trick story ends up shooting itself repeatedly in both feet. This happens (repeatedly) because the director seems to be far more interested in making artistic points than he is in coherent, competent storytelling, or storytelling at all for that matter. There are attempts to rescue it, but they just add to the mess that results.
I simply don't think that this director understands people very well. He knows about how to make something look stunning, but good looks alone do not a movie make, and once it was finally over I couldn't believe I'd wasted my night on it.
There are some amazing ideas in here. The sets, the costumes, the lighting, the outside snowbound landscape - it all looks fantastic. The basic premise is compelling enough: it's a train that never stops, with a repressed underclass fighting their way up and forward against everything thrown at them by their privileged masters.
Unfortunately not one jot of it holds up to any sort of critical analysis. As soon as the viewer starts to ask awkward questions, it falls apart. It doesn't have anything close to a sense of humour either. Quite a few of the characters are cardboard cutouts or even - and it is not often you see this - a parody of a cardboard cutout,a walking joke in a costume. By the halfway mark, almost everyone has started indulging in ludicrous behavior and / or acting like overemotional idiots. By the three-quarter mark, some truly ridiculous speeches have started to appear, then the plot itself (such as it is) clearly runs out of ideas and the movie paints itself into a corner.
It's visionary, it's trippy, it's wildly eccentric and certainly has elements to it that I've never seen in another movie, but what could have been a great trick story ends up shooting itself repeatedly in both feet. This happens (repeatedly) because the director seems to be far more interested in making artistic points than he is in coherent, competent storytelling, or storytelling at all for that matter. There are attempts to rescue it, but they just add to the mess that results.
I simply don't think that this director understands people very well. He knows about how to make something look stunning, but good looks alone do not a movie make, and once it was finally over I couldn't believe I'd wasted my night on it.