fritz

Beautiful film, perhaps somewhat overshadowed by other films from the same director, quite unfairly I would add. The ending is haunting, just like the perfection of the direction in the shooting scene...
Very similar and heavily influenced, I found the Italian "Uomini Contro," with Gian Maria Volontè, beautiful as well, although not, of course, at the same level. What do you think, if you’ve seen it?

Absolutely underrated film that has been dismissed as just another piece of junk, while films like "Alexander," "Gladiator," and "Kingdom of Heaven" are praised... it doesn’t deserve a five; I give it that rating out of spite.

Beautiful!

Beautiful film, completely overshadowed by Saving Private Ryan, quite undeservedly; Spielberg in SPR had the merit of leaving a milestone on how to make a war film, a technical milestone, but empty of content, a John Wayne-like film... this one, on the other hand, I found truly splendid, not to be missed. Of course, Malick in the following film dropped significantly...-_-.

I misspoke: I have NOT seen 4 mosche... but I read that it’s practically unavailable, and yet I would definitely like to see it at this point!

I, on the other hand, am not so negative; while it's true that the plot is quite weak, and the double ending isn't really much to write home about, I want to emphasize how this "Opera" is nonetheless a technical triumph for Argento, a film with moments of considerable visual beauty, and interesting experiments in the shooting, with the exaggeration of the subjective perspective, as if to follow the central theme of "seeing"; there's even the invention of bullet time, or at least, chronologically speaking, it's the first one I know of at this point! I don't know, for me it holds up, and (heresy!) I want to say that I prefer it much more to Inferno, of which I would be curious to read a review, as I consider it the weakest among Argento's early (and only) films, from the first to Opera, excluding The Fly, which I have seen.

"Ah, Jenkins, your mother is dead" asd

I remember being really pissed off by the ending... O.O
I liked the movie, but frankly, the Body Count is just way too high, damn... the review is definitely worth top marks, especially since it manages to praise a film often considered "minor" in Argento's career; I found the themes and atmospheres of Phenomena and Suspiria, or those of Profondo Rosso, even more interesting. However, despite a setting that feels much more "realistic" and so damn White, Tenebre still has a certain dreamlike and surreal dimension, like the white walls turning red, the murder scene in the square, Neal’s memories... Nicolodi's scream is the fitting conclusion: horrifying.
A note on the Goblin soundtrack, which I found a bit less convincing than usual...

Splendid. I should find it and watch it again... I have such a great memory of it :)

In general, I must say that I liked this film overall; the political subplot, which I want to specify was not in the comic, was horrible, but other than that... the work is faithful to the comic, except for a few inventions, like the orcs, the leprous samurai-style immortals (in the comic they don’t carry katanas), and it’s nice to see how the panels are reconstructed and animated in an absolutely faithful way.
Regarding the pseudo-fantasy inventions, the transsexual effect, and the disproportionate number of Persians, upon reflection, I don’t view it so negatively; I suppose that for the era, an army like the Persian one would have had the same effect on people like the Spartans as the represented army does on us in the film, a huge thing; just as orcs and such peculiarities are things that do not exist for us, fantastic monsters, for the Greeks things like elephants were the same; in the end, I see the inventions as an interesting proportion between the perspective of the modern viewer and that of the Spartan.
However, I don't think a message, war-mongering or not, needs to be sought after; it’s epic, beautiful, and good; there’s no pretense of minimal historicity, the comic itself was loosely based on Herodotus, who clearly invented some things; it may be true that the Persian Empire was one of the most peaceful empires, but that's not the important part; therefore, the accusations of pro-Nazi sentiments, Americanism, etc. are out of place (by the way, 300 losers against an empire of lazy, slimy, money-driven people with spectacular modern weapons sounds more like terrorists against Americans—not that I defend terrorists, but if we are really to put it in a modern context).
In essence, it’s a film superior to certain films with pretensions of historicity, like Alexander, The Crusades, or Gladiator, which only manage to be a great boredom rather than a great historicity.
As for the declamatory phrases, I liked them quite a bit; it felt like reading a typical version of Greek, they uttered so many clichés that in the end it was even amusing... "I brought more soldiers than you!" XD
Anyway, the comic remains superior, even if a bit pricey ;) The film is not a masterpiece, but it’s not the horror I’ve heard people talking about either, absolutely!