delphivagi Reviews

Quadrophenia (1979)

life's core brutally and artfully revealed - 10+++

[10/10 · 12 August 2002]

What a wonderful film. If you ever thought you were safe, or that your world was impregnable, then you must see this film. Watch as every important elements of a young man's (Jimmy's) life is stripped away, piece by piece, until he has no anchor, no magnet, and no direction in life.

Without his familiar crutches (hooliganism, drugs, girlfriends, Mod clansmen, job, parents, home and 'scooter'), Jimmy is faced with a terrifying realization that he - alone - must completely rebuild and reinvent himself.

In a way that is hard to describe in words, director Franc Roddam exposes the raw core of life, unadorned by all the temporal things by which we measure success, worth and happiness. Better still, he forces the viewer to examine the very definition of 'a life'.

The movie generates ever increasing momentum, culminating in one of the most intensely disturbing realizations ever captured on film, with the white cliffs of Dover as the foreground, and the The Who's equally monumental and haunting "Love Reign O'er Me" in the background.

With the possible exception of Bill Murray's version of "The Razor's Edge", this is about as perfect a chance as we are ever afforded to examine the foundations of our own lives (...what more can you ask of a film?). Though this is not an uncommon cinematic theme, it has never been so brilliantly achieved.

An emotional and spiritual tour de force, and simply one of the best films ever made.

The Razor's Edge (1984)

Virtually unimprovable - 10+++

[10/10 · 11 August 2002]

Those who don't get it are perhaps the most enlightened of us all: that is exactly what this amazing movie was all about. In the end Larry's search was fruitless. No book, no bottle, no friend could provide the answer because it did not exist. Life, meaning, purpose, all of these things were succinctly, artfully and convincingly tossed aside as incidental, even distracting to the true meaning of life, which is nothingness.

Hopefully that's not too disarming, because the film is simply one of the best ever made (top ten? certainly.). It was an almost incalculable improvement over the 1946 version, which was truly awful. Murray did not preach, he showed by example, whereas the early version was like a post-WWII government instructional film on how to attain karma. Murray's performance was so subtle as even to be missed all together (in my opinion the best acting of all), whereas Power was begging you to see the light.

Please, don't miss this film, and if you don't "get it" first time around, empty your mind of distracting clutter and see it again. See it fifty times if you have to. When the message finally does come through, you'll know it was worth it.