I think I'm a bit biased for this film. Okay, let's begin with basics before I dive in too deep to swim back out. 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' is Joel Coen's first movie directed without his brother by his side. A fitting movie. The entire time, there is a sense of melancholy lingering in the frames, reminding you of the nature of this play. It does not end happily. It in fact ends with Macbeth dying in the way the three weird sisters prophecized. He tried desperately to get rid of this prophecy, but it simply caught up to him like the previous ones had. Admitedly, if you haven't read Macbeth or didn't love it as much as I did when I was reading it in high school, then this film will bore you. It's simply a film adaptation of a play and it's been done to death but not in this way. The cinematography is absolutely amazing, shot entirely in black and white and yet every frame has values of black and white. Don't even get me started on the camera work either, beautifully done. For any lover of the original story, Coen's 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' will hit hard. It's beautiful, the acting from the entire cast is wonderfully done, and the dialogue is spoken with such fierce fire that you are enamored with it. I have to add that Denzel Washington was a perfect choice for Macbeth and I honestly can see him winning this year's Oscar for best actor. He is certainly a top runner for it, I'll say that much. Anyway, if you are at all interested in the story of Macbeth, I highly encourage you to watch this film.
This movie is the best superhero movie of all time. I know that might seem a bit much, especially when you compare this movie to any one of the Christopher Nolan trilogy, but this iteration gave us the most comic accurate Gotham and Batman. It hit all the right marks and left us with a sense of, "Oh. Yeah. This could actually happen in this universe." and that is excellent world-building from Matt Reeves. The entire film has one goal in mind. Convince you that this world truly does exist, that the characters could do these things in their world because that's exactly what happens in their world. A Batman who listens and broods to Nirvana is exactly the kind of Batman I wanted from this movie and I'm extremely glad to say that Matt Reeves delivered. The cinematography was off the charts in this movie, every scene was so beautifully constructed with dark shades of red and orange, the entire world shrouded in mystery. Best of all, this movie has a clear message that it wants Robert Pattinson's Batman to learn. Vengeance and fear will not help the city grow. He needs to become more. A symbol of hope that will reach its hand out and pull the people from the flood. I'm not gonna stop thinking about this movie for quite some time.
What an amazing film. The film starts off with the audience only seeing a vague shadow of Oto, the main character Yusuke's wife, narrating a story. They both are directors, Yusuke for plays, and Oto for screenplays. We do not see her features for quite some time. We are left with the same mystery that Yusuke imagines his wife to be. Eventually, she settles down next to him, willingly opening herself up and allowing the light to beam right through her. Yusuke fails to notice this, in every possible way. He is content to keep her mysterious, even when she's secretly begging him to pay close attention to her, to let her in once more. When she dies, Yusuke's cycle does not end. He is content to simply move on like a machine, never allowing him to indulge in the pain of his wife's death. He cannot bear to consider her as a full human, someone who made mistakes and liked to sleep around and yet loved him deeply at the same time. It isn't until he meets Misaki, a young woman appointed to be his driver during a residency in Hiroshima where he will return to the play he was acting in at the time of his wife's death, that he finally lets himself live rather than just pass through life aimlessly. They both open up to one another, exchanging deep personal secrets whilst driving in Yusuke's red Saab 900. At the ending of the movie, Yusuke and Misaki share a tender moment, one where their father-daughter dynamic shines through, allowing each other to come to terms with the fact that both of them lost someone who they had mixed feelings about. Rather than let that moment pass you by, embrace it. Embrace change, keep on living, drive that car.
"And at the hour of our deaths, we will rest."