Paul Thomas Anderson
The Master

The pacing is so slow, sticky, stretchable like pizza dough that it feels like watching the film in slow motion; during the screening, while Philip Seymour Hoffman sings a chilling a cappella song, I easily look around and find an ever-moving audience, as if they're sitting on hot coals. Adults slumping into their seats as if their spines were flexible enough to allow such poses. Tomorrow morning, they'll be cursing to get out of bed! Some gasp like a fish on the shore, their chins, often double, dangling near their chests, occasionally trying to wake up, perhaps pinching their cheeks or eyelids between their fingers. Watches are consulted frantically, pushed forward as if the hands were glued to the dials. The long line leaving the room is like runners after an exhausting race. I'm no exception and find myself splashing water on my face in the cinema's restroom, thanking or cursing the long coffee that got me to the end credits. And to think that I loved "There Will Be Blood": luckily, "Django", Tarantino's new film, is out on January 17th.

I lack the cinematic expertise to critique with substantial understanding what has already been considered one of the masterpieces of 2013, sure to win a fair number of statuettes, including one for Joaquin Phoenix, and so I use this space not for a review but to ask for a key to decipher this tangle of images. For me, the door doesn't open. I can say that the beauty of the shots and the photography is indisputable, as is the acting expressiveness of the two protagonists and so on. At this point in the sentence, it’s obvious there should come an adversative conjunction, a brief pause to seal and underline the break, to start firing one's critiques.

Most likely I didn't get it, and so with this de-provocation, I hope to provoke someone into explaining it to me with a review/comment. Because the plot must be much more complex than what I understood to justify the complex and dense stylistic arabesques of the film. "The Master" deals with the post-war disorders of an alcoholic ex-military man in the post-World War II era. His inability to adapt to civilian life intersects with the fortuitous encounter with a guru, a magister, who, with a particularly trained and affable tongue, exploits others' ignorance by selling hot air. The crux of the film is the paraphrased line "everyone needs a leader to follow, freedom does not exist". Freddie, with his partially repressed rage combined with often uncontrollable frenzy, is the only one able to escape the clutches of the great master (see motorcycle scene). An inevitable attraction/hatred arises between them, with its ups and downs prolonging till the end. Strong and complex characters, brought to life by two great actors challenging each other with monologues and close-ups for 130 complex and hard-to-digest minutes consisting of excellent shots, very little soundtrack, and plenty of yawns.

I find a similarity with a contemporary art exhibition from some years back. A great burning sensation because behind those monochromatic and torn canvases, it seemed to me that the artist was laughing out loud, pointing and clutching his belly at those trying to find non-existent meanings, having paid to do so. But perhaps, and it’s likely given the unanimous superlative reviews online, the cinema room in my provincial town yesterday had only an appointment of sleepy people without any critical cinematic acumen.

So, I step back and listen; this time, however, I take a pillow.