Rumours Movies Review
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Director Guy Maddin's name is almost synonymous with the term "acquired taste." Borrowing techniques from silent movies and classic melodramas, full of otherworldly imagery and weird sex, and sometimes deliberately stiff acting and wounding imagery, he has crafted an absolutely unique filmography. It's no surprise to anyone with a normal mind that not all moviegoers are on board. But for his fans, and I am one of them, his films are incredibly funny, mind-blowing and unexpectedly moving at the same time. "The Saddest Music in the World," "The Tale of Gimli Hospital," and Coward's "Bend the Knee" pierce the heart in a crazy way that illuminates the dark corners of the mind and heart. In a conversation with Isabella Rossellini, he said that a good melodrama is not an exaggerated truth, but "truth without restraint." Some would argue that this is what his best films, despite their wildness and strangeness, achieve: to create a place where forbidden thoughts and desires roam free.
His new film, Rumours, is a bit of an odd one. Maddin has been working recently with co-directors Evan and Galen Johnson, and the new film feels like a conscious attempt to break from a pattern he felt was too stuck in. The film was shot digitally in colour, and there's nothing particularly odd about it in terms of the editing or clarity of the images. It's not particularly out of place, but it's also a lot more subdued than his predecessor. It's in this deceptively polite sheen that the new film's irresistible charm lies.
The leaders of the G7 (the world's richest liberal democracies) have met in a forest in Germany to draft a "provisional statement" on the current unspecified global crisis. They exude comical dignity and professionalism, and speak nostalgically of past summits. It's clear that the group is full of petty feuds and not-so-secret affairs, but they behave like old colleagues and are polite. The players on the team are Cate Blanchett (Germany), Charles Dance (USA), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Great Britain), Roy Dupuy (Canada), Tatsuro Iwasaki (Japan), Denis Ménochet (France), and Rolando Ravello (Italy).
Because this is a Maddin film, the characters speak in big words, and there are lots of small, strange details before the weirdness starts to take over. For example, the US President speaks with an English accent; the forest glows with an eerie light from time to time; and the German Chancellor shows off a recently discovered, abnormally deformed swamp body to his guests. Their conversations don't always make sense. Watch the movie on Afdah free movies website.
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