Results tagged “rachelweisz”

Film: The Brothers Bloom

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend.

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What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend.

Now that I've seen it, I'm not surprised at the bad reception Darren Aronofsky's new film The Fountain received at some of the film festivals it played at and, indeed, at the screening I attended. A lot of people are not going to like it. A lot of people are going to be puzzled and confused and irritated by it - as many of my fellow audience members were. And if you go expecting a straightforward film, that you can sit back and enjoy without paying much attention to, you will be disappointed, as well. But if you go willing to do serious work putting the pieces together and interpreting the repeating themes and metaphors, you'll be rewarded with a beautiful, moving, sumptuous, intelligent, well thought out, and really amazing film that will open and unfold before your eyes like a blooming flower.

Fernando Meirelles' new film, The Constant Gardener, is about watching and being watched. The previews may fool you into thinking it's a movie about scandals involving the pharmaceutical industry in Kenya, or about a multinational murder mystery, or a love affair starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, or the exploitation of African poverty by a collusion of powerful government and corporate forces. And Meirelles, working from a screenplay by Jeffrey Caine, adapted from a John le Carré novel, turns his attention to each of these plot threads. But in the end, Gardener remains always a study on who gets to watch, whom is watched, and what happens when someone tries to escape, or even reverse, the terms of their surveillance. It is always about watching.