Hey,
Just saw Match Point and it has three things going for it.
The first is it's really photographed well. The second is the
music, and the third is that Woody Allen is nowhere to be
seen.
What finally struck me about Allen -- and it's a similar
response to Truffaut and especially Hitchcock
-- is that he just doesn't care about his characters, he just
cares about their situations and that's why -- for the most
part -- I can't become involved in his films.
Now Fellini, there's a guy who loved his characters great and
small, even the con man of Il Bedone -- a film that is far
more on topic than Match Point -- or Nic Ray -- who took it
to sentimental extremes in They Live By Night -- another on
topic film -- or Jules Dassin -- who like Fellini had the
sense of the individual as an individual and Dassin is always
on topic.
The most you can say about Match Point is that it's clever --
I'll make believe I didn't see the ridiculous scene with the
dead victims in the kitchen and I really didn't hear that
absurd dialog. But it's math and not humanity. Who cares
about any of these people and Allen never gives us a reason
to care. The people in Match Point are as flat and
predictable as Allen's typical Upper Eastsiders. And that is
why Allen is fluff. It looks like a movie but it doesn't move
anything. A viewer develops more feeling for Hans Beckert --
the child killer from Fritz Lang's M -- than it does from all
the characters in Match Point.
If you all want to argue about whether it's noir or not,
knock yourselves out. To me it's empty implausible fluff
parading naked as something it can never be: interesting or
involving.
William
Essays and Ramblings
<http://www.williamahearn.com>
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