Don't you understand?! He was reborn, and he died in happiness! Which is a song...

Rating: 10/10 (30 September 2005)

This film is poetry. Its dialogue; its incredible music; its internal mini-films; its showing of the TWO MOST INTIMATE nude scenes in the 100-years old history of world film-making (yes, No 1 and No 2 in one movie); all the characters' lines and the way they said them; the way the greatest line of all, said in one type of situation, was almost unnoticeable, and in the end, repeated literally by the same character, but in completely different circumstances, turned into that - into the most important and well placed line of this movie, if not also the best line ever said in a movie. Yes: every frame of it was poetry.
"American Beauty", the fourth greatest film created up-to-date, and currently occupying the 4th place in my personal classification of films, is a unique movie. It is unique, because it is the only one totally non-standard and totally dissecting the goods and the bads of society, and graphically (or for some limited minds - scandalously) depicting movie, which at the same time is absolutely great, innovative, unpredictable, non-boring, and YET IT WON 5 Oscars! If you look at all the other Oscar winners (Best picture), you will notice that they are either HORRIBLY BORING, SUGARY AND MELODRAMATIC, like "The English patient"; or "PSYCHOLOGICAL" (pseudo-psychological rather), like the "Silence of the lambs"; or IRRITATINGLY "MAINSTREAM", like "The lord of the rings"; or RELYING ON PATRIOTISM, like "Forrest Gump" (which is a good movie and is in TOP 100 of my 400 chosen films class, but yes: it relies on patriotism and historic melancholia); or being about something ANCIENT, HEROIC AND HISTORICAL, which all the people are interested in - like "Gladiator" and "Brave Heart"; or created DUE TO HISTORIC NECESSITY and boosted by guilty conscience, like "The Schindler's list". So, "American Beauty" is unique, as to my disbelief something messed in the heads of the Academy members and it has managed to win these shiny, unapproachable, pretentious, "politically correct" Oscars, 5 of 8, which are always given to the mentioned above. There is only one more exception about the right film sweeping the Oscars, but it doesn't count, as it was the second greatest movie of all times and it is so great, that even its "political" neutrality, which helped it a lot to win 11 of its 14 Oscar nominations, doesn't spoil it. Ah, yes - there is one more - from the 80s: the third greatest film - but it had a great plot and a great Italian director.
If you look closely, you will see how "American Beauty" is unique. There are simply NOT ANY OTHERS LIKE IT. Not even one. Its derivate, "Pay it forward", would be one of the greatest films, if "American Beauty" didn't exist, but in its presence it looks like a weakened and diluted copy.
Despite the Oscar awards and despite the overwhelming number of 10-star comments on the IMDb site, this film is still misunderstood by many. There are brainless, fanatical, religiously fervent, "moralistic" people (who actually don't have the slightest idea what moral is), who say it is sick and spoiling; and there are others - incredibly misguided - who think it is negative, black, sad and finishes tragically, without perspective, and without giving an answer, or a hope about the problems depicted. For the first ones there is no hope: as they have done it thousands of times through the history, they will burn at the stake everything beautiful and wonderful, which doesn't match their horrific, dark, morbid perception of reality. And in relation to the misled: these people could not be farther from the truth. Just turn on 180 degrees the second sentence of this paragraph, and you will get exactly what "American Beauty" is.
I tell you: this man was REBORN. And he died happy, he died with a full heart, full of life - not as a pitiful pensioner pissing in his pants, while contemplating the history of his dried, miserable existence. And more: he died, knowing how much beauty there is in the world - almost failing to bear it, only remembering to let it flow through him like rain, in order to be able to bear it, to feel it, without bursting.
SPOILERS COMING
When he was filming her face, not the other girl; when she showed her breast through the window to him after she slapped her; when they were watching the flying bag; when it turned out that she's still a virgin, and then - when he left her; and when she said: "I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING WORSE IN THIS WORLD THAN TO BE ORDINARY"; when she returned and cried for him, and hugged his clothes, dropping the gun she was intended to use against him; when he remembered the great moments of his life - good god, it was so beautiful, I almost couldn't bear it...
But I managed to bear it, and I'm happy now. And tranquil about anything bad that can happen to me - I will neutralize it with Beauty. With "American Beauty".