by Takis Garis (@takisgaris)
Episode 4 - The Master of TIFF2012 is here
> THE MASTER (9/10)
How does he do it? “He is making it all up as he goes along”. Paul Tomas Anderson, 5 years after the triumphant, iconic masterpiece There Will Be Blood has something in his store of wonders, something of tremendous, unbearable value for the mind and soul of the non- indoctrinated; What is it, a love triangle, one between The Citizen Dodd aka The Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman), his dominant better half Mary Sue (Amy Adams) and their servant, pet maybe (?) Freddie Sutton (Joaquin Phoenix)? Even better so, a primitively forceful bromance amongst the think elite and the executive branch of a Cult, insinuatingly of Scientology proportions? A hard drug hypnotic trip, where we all flash memories of guilt, wrapped into atavistic desires? The extravagant myth of self-improvement, a money making mechanism which holds everyone prisoners at the cost of their free will?
The line- up at the press screening today, from 8 am already was sufficient to fill up two theaters of 500 seats each one. While the (still unfinished) end credits started rolling by, only a few managed to applaud. I bet it wasn’t owed to a bad reception of the film’s aesthetics or message. I bet it was as if we all had been shot, pierced through, overwhelmed by an avalanche of emotions that really needed some time to cool off, let alone wear off, if ever this can be feasible. Watching PTA at the press conference later on, I confirmed that not even he himself has anticipated such a profound, devastating effect on his viewers. This film is packed with Joakin’s demonic delirium, to the extent that his borderline moronic grimace brings tears of tension to your eyes as he manically searches for salvation where there isn’t any; in his Master’s voice. When Phoenix and Hoffman are together on the magnificently splendid 70MM screen, the room is on fire, the world collapses into disintegration.
How does he do it? “He is making it all up as he goes along”. Paul Tomas Anderson, 5 years after the triumphant, iconic masterpiece There Will Be Blood has something in his store of wonders, something of tremendous, unbearable value for the mind and soul of the non- indoctrinated; What is it, a love triangle, one between The Citizen Dodd aka The Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman), his dominant better half Mary Sue (Amy Adams) and their servant, pet maybe (?) Freddie Sutton (Joaquin Phoenix)? Even better so, a primitively forceful bromance amongst the think elite and the executive branch of a Cult, insinuatingly of Scientology proportions? A hard drug hypnotic trip, where we all flash memories of guilt, wrapped into atavistic desires? The extravagant myth of self-improvement, a money making mechanism which holds everyone prisoners at the cost of their free will?
The line- up at the press screening today, from 8 am already was sufficient to fill up two theaters of 500 seats each one. While the (still unfinished) end credits started rolling by, only a few managed to applaud. I bet it wasn’t owed to a bad reception of the film’s aesthetics or message. I bet it was as if we all had been shot, pierced through, overwhelmed by an avalanche of emotions that really needed some time to cool off, let alone wear off, if ever this can be feasible. Watching PTA at the press conference later on, I confirmed that not even he himself has anticipated such a profound, devastating effect on his viewers. This film is packed with Joakin’s demonic delirium, to the extent that his borderline moronic grimace brings tears of tension to your eyes as he manically searches for salvation where there isn’t any; in his Master’s voice. When Phoenix and Hoffman are together on the magnificently splendid 70MM screen, the room is on fire, the world collapses into disintegration.
This is the most luxurious $40M budget movie you can get. Shot in PTA’s favourite TCM channel palate, an homage (another one after The Treasure of Sierra Madre in TWBB) to John Huston’s Let There be Light, by F.F.Copolla’s as of late cinematographer Mihai Malaimare, (replacing the legendary Robert Elswit who had to make The Bourne Legacy), The Master is a 50s movie with an ancient heart and a rocking tempo orchestrated by Anderson’s majestic cadres and Jonny Greenwood’s dissonant score, which once again functions as an extra character within the protagonists’ motives and inhibitions. Amy Adams is a tough acting cookie with misguiding looks. She holds herself in quite smoothly and stoically, a sheer contradiction with Freddie’s frequent freak-outs. You’ll never predict when and how this story ends. It so happens in real life. There are scenes that don’t seem to resonate, not that cohesively as it happens when watching TWBB. There’s no catharsis, no way out, despite the obvious choice on the servant’s side to part ways with the Master. And this last sentence is not even a real spoiler. Will Freddie ever be free of condemnation? Will he ever be delivered from his evil, self-eating delusions?
I don’t know, as much as he doesn’t either. This is not what’s really at stake here. Unrequited love, letters which never reach their destination, for they can’t promise anything anyone at all. To call it nihilism just to get away with it is the easy way out of Anderson’s master stroke in his original screenplay here. This film is poisonous, creepy, it penetrates your brain cells and doesn’t let go like a python straggling its victim to an asphyxiating eternal sleep. It’s indeed an altered state of consciousness, between madness and narcolepsy. This is so similar with The Master Dodd’s dangerous method of proselytization. Likewise, PTA is playing Master & Servant, Platonic Love, Birth of A Cult all -in -once with the audience, proving himself again as the world’s greatest auteur working today.
I haven’t become an internet fan boy at the age of forty. Still, I can hear the legitimate question: How can somebody achieve such status by six movies only? I guess the same way that a little girl becomes a grandmaster in chess at the age of 13. It takes unprecedented knowledge of the art medium, meticulous attention to cinematic perfection, bold, inflicting vision and lots of humility. This is Paul Thomas Anderson in a nutshell. The Master shouldn’t win best picture at the Oscars, if not only TWC wasn’t distributing this treasure. So it will finally. It will win both male performances, although they should be both leading. This film is for the ages and The Academy knows best how to overcome any objections about it being too *bizarre*. And then again, all the above notwithstanding, who really cares? This has been the first 8 hours after the first viewing and I still can’t get this out of my system, if I’ll ever manage to. So tell me, who’s Freddie now? No, really, who’s Freddie now?
I haven’t become an internet fan boy at the age of forty. Still, I can hear the legitimate question: How can somebody achieve such status by six movies only? I guess the same way that a little girl becomes a grandmaster in chess at the age of 13. It takes unprecedented knowledge of the art medium, meticulous attention to cinematic perfection, bold, inflicting vision and lots of humility. This is Paul Thomas Anderson in a nutshell. The Master shouldn’t win best picture at the Oscars, if not only TWC wasn’t distributing this treasure. So it will finally. It will win both male performances, although they should be both leading. This film is for the ages and The Academy knows best how to overcome any objections about it being too *bizarre*. And then again, all the above notwithstanding, who really cares? This has been the first 8 hours after the first viewing and I still can’t get this out of my system, if I’ll ever manage to. So tell me, who’s Freddie now? No, really, who’s Freddie now?
gaRis
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