tabuno
06-14-2013, 04:05 AM
Shirley MacLaine received a Golden Globes nomination for best actress in a musical or comedy for her seven roles she played in this vignette formatted movie. Depending on how one perceives this movie likely greatly influences the subjective opinion about it. Described by some as movie about a female dreaming of being seven different women or by others as various women experiencing different states of infidelity, I saw this movie from a different description. I experienced a movie about women in France finding themselves in different relational situations and underlying each vignette there seemed to be a superficial emptiness that didn’t detract from the movie but actually highlighted a fascinating existential angst.
For people looking for extended character development, intense mystery, thrills, or action, complex twists and plots, or even hilarious laughter, they will sorely be disappointed. Instead in some ways, this movie preceded a more emotively intriguing movie presenting a similar tone and presentation of relational interaction that would go on to win the Golden Globes for best musical or comedy, best actor in a musical or comedy, and director - Lost in Translation (2003). Woman times Seven captured the existential angst in vignette form in a much more captivating way than the overly long, ponderous effort of The Loneliest Planet (2011) that focused exclusively on a couple’s trip to the more foreign Caucasus Mountains. Unlike the contemporary popular mainstream romantic vignette movies like New Year=s Eve (2011) or Valentine’s Day (2010), Woman Times Seven captured a more serious undertone likely missed by people and likely transforming this movie into a series of simple, vapid scenes. Woman Time Seven is more restrained in its presentation without the mind-blowing, expansive sci fi movie of the ages Cloud Atlas (2012) that spanned 500 years, six different stories with actors playing multiple roles capturing both the eternal bonds of love and individuality, without the loud brassiness of action in Pulp Fiction (1994), assassin themed Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004), or racial stereotyping themed Crash (2005) that intertwined their vignettes in nicely composed plotlines much like the polished presentation of The Air I Breathe (2007) that incorporated four loosely connected but powerful vignettes involving a banker, a mobster, a muscleman, a popstar, and a doctor whose lives partially intersected in both tragedy and hope. This movie also omitted a cultural theme as found in the epic vignette Chinese stories of The Joy Luck Club (1993) or the Western vignette stories of the classic How The West Was Won (1962) spanning four generations.
This movie with its “emptiness” relational theme is more aligned with the Japanese vignette movie After Life (1998) using a more surrealistic after death theme or A Man and A Woman (French, 1966) with its a singular in depth examination of love with a more geniune, heartfelt reality of falling in love and addressing past love or with Separate Tables (1983 TV) a made for television stage play starring Julie Christie, Alan Bates, and Claire Bloom that captured a deep chord on the human condition, intimate human relationships, societal humiliation and tolerance in a quaint British setting of a small resort inn. Additionally, Bobby (2006) with its series of fictional vignettes surrounding the day of Bobby Kennedy's assassination in 1968 evokes a similar tone and depiction of the surrounding 60 era's troubles and a hopeful message of unity.
Instead each of the seven independent vignettes and seven roles played by MacLaine had their own unique sense of charm and in some instances bittersweet, haunting afterglows. In many vignettes there seems to be an undertone of lonely, empty melancholy making this movie stand out for its lingering sad message which only served to encourage our own reflection back on our own lives heightening a sense of urgency of looking for meaning in our own lives. SPOILERS. With typical Peter Seller’s humor, somehow delightfully subdued yet captivating, the “Funeral Procession” raised doubts as to the ultimate sincerity of MacLaine’s widow’s relationship to her recently deceased husband; “Amateur Night” appealed with its comedic brushstrokes the bittersweet notion of the ultimate longing of a woman to stay in a relationship, one without sincere intimacy; and what appears to be a stony intellectual academic density of literature and art characterization by MacLaine in “Two Against One” ultimately served notice on the fragility of the mind over body, the inability of developing a substantive and qualitative relationship even with the appearance of lofty sounding poetry and art; MacLaine character’s descent into seeming madness in “Super Simone” presented one of the most delicious performances in her eccentricity but ultimately disconnection of husband to wife and the wife’s inability to really know her husband, and the lengths of her love to embrace her husband’s mental but disassociated flights of fancy ending almost in a surrealistic tragedy; “At the Opera” highlighted the vain, materialistic focus on using relationships and in this case ultimately the craziness of its emptiness as MacLaine’s character literally ends up with a manic breakdown of the senselessness of it all; in “Suicides” both MacLaine and Alan Arkin presented older but seemingly immature lovers whose passions and superficial demonstrations of love are exposed in the end; and finally in “Snow” there’s an almost one-sided Roman Holiday (1953) romp as MacLaine’s character indulges mentally in a fantasy of male attraction as she innocently flirts with a young Michael Caine character. Yet, in is in the culmination of having this movie sustain an interest in this less than extravagant, less than physically explosive, less than mysteriously and intensely bombarding movie that it can present its much more existentialist material in a way that offers up a huge reflection on the human condition.
On many levels this movie doesn’t portray greatness or excellence perhaps even engendering a notion of inanity. Nevertheless, the audience, if they are able to, may perceive a haunting snow scene at the end where MacLaine’s character is embraced from behind as she looks out at the window towards a stranger who has followed her around town, but who in fact wasn’t interested in her at all. What can be made of such a disengaged relationship that seems so incongruous with the beauty of the visual setting? Thus at this level of contemplation, this movie becomes a quiet, sometimes, ludicrous but very amazing and meaningful look at the emptiness of our own lives.
For people looking for extended character development, intense mystery, thrills, or action, complex twists and plots, or even hilarious laughter, they will sorely be disappointed. Instead in some ways, this movie preceded a more emotively intriguing movie presenting a similar tone and presentation of relational interaction that would go on to win the Golden Globes for best musical or comedy, best actor in a musical or comedy, and director - Lost in Translation (2003). Woman times Seven captured the existential angst in vignette form in a much more captivating way than the overly long, ponderous effort of The Loneliest Planet (2011) that focused exclusively on a couple’s trip to the more foreign Caucasus Mountains. Unlike the contemporary popular mainstream romantic vignette movies like New Year=s Eve (2011) or Valentine’s Day (2010), Woman Times Seven captured a more serious undertone likely missed by people and likely transforming this movie into a series of simple, vapid scenes. Woman Time Seven is more restrained in its presentation without the mind-blowing, expansive sci fi movie of the ages Cloud Atlas (2012) that spanned 500 years, six different stories with actors playing multiple roles capturing both the eternal bonds of love and individuality, without the loud brassiness of action in Pulp Fiction (1994), assassin themed Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004), or racial stereotyping themed Crash (2005) that intertwined their vignettes in nicely composed plotlines much like the polished presentation of The Air I Breathe (2007) that incorporated four loosely connected but powerful vignettes involving a banker, a mobster, a muscleman, a popstar, and a doctor whose lives partially intersected in both tragedy and hope. This movie also omitted a cultural theme as found in the epic vignette Chinese stories of The Joy Luck Club (1993) or the Western vignette stories of the classic How The West Was Won (1962) spanning four generations.
This movie with its “emptiness” relational theme is more aligned with the Japanese vignette movie After Life (1998) using a more surrealistic after death theme or A Man and A Woman (French, 1966) with its a singular in depth examination of love with a more geniune, heartfelt reality of falling in love and addressing past love or with Separate Tables (1983 TV) a made for television stage play starring Julie Christie, Alan Bates, and Claire Bloom that captured a deep chord on the human condition, intimate human relationships, societal humiliation and tolerance in a quaint British setting of a small resort inn. Additionally, Bobby (2006) with its series of fictional vignettes surrounding the day of Bobby Kennedy's assassination in 1968 evokes a similar tone and depiction of the surrounding 60 era's troubles and a hopeful message of unity.
Instead each of the seven independent vignettes and seven roles played by MacLaine had their own unique sense of charm and in some instances bittersweet, haunting afterglows. In many vignettes there seems to be an undertone of lonely, empty melancholy making this movie stand out for its lingering sad message which only served to encourage our own reflection back on our own lives heightening a sense of urgency of looking for meaning in our own lives. SPOILERS. With typical Peter Seller’s humor, somehow delightfully subdued yet captivating, the “Funeral Procession” raised doubts as to the ultimate sincerity of MacLaine’s widow’s relationship to her recently deceased husband; “Amateur Night” appealed with its comedic brushstrokes the bittersweet notion of the ultimate longing of a woman to stay in a relationship, one without sincere intimacy; and what appears to be a stony intellectual academic density of literature and art characterization by MacLaine in “Two Against One” ultimately served notice on the fragility of the mind over body, the inability of developing a substantive and qualitative relationship even with the appearance of lofty sounding poetry and art; MacLaine character’s descent into seeming madness in “Super Simone” presented one of the most delicious performances in her eccentricity but ultimately disconnection of husband to wife and the wife’s inability to really know her husband, and the lengths of her love to embrace her husband’s mental but disassociated flights of fancy ending almost in a surrealistic tragedy; “At the Opera” highlighted the vain, materialistic focus on using relationships and in this case ultimately the craziness of its emptiness as MacLaine’s character literally ends up with a manic breakdown of the senselessness of it all; in “Suicides” both MacLaine and Alan Arkin presented older but seemingly immature lovers whose passions and superficial demonstrations of love are exposed in the end; and finally in “Snow” there’s an almost one-sided Roman Holiday (1953) romp as MacLaine’s character indulges mentally in a fantasy of male attraction as she innocently flirts with a young Michael Caine character. Yet, in is in the culmination of having this movie sustain an interest in this less than extravagant, less than physically explosive, less than mysteriously and intensely bombarding movie that it can present its much more existentialist material in a way that offers up a huge reflection on the human condition.
On many levels this movie doesn’t portray greatness or excellence perhaps even engendering a notion of inanity. Nevertheless, the audience, if they are able to, may perceive a haunting snow scene at the end where MacLaine’s character is embraced from behind as she looks out at the window towards a stranger who has followed her around town, but who in fact wasn’t interested in her at all. What can be made of such a disengaged relationship that seems so incongruous with the beauty of the visual setting? Thus at this level of contemplation, this movie becomes a quiet, sometimes, ludicrous but very amazing and meaningful look at the emptiness of our own lives.