Art

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 2008)

I'm not a critic, and don't know any more about the process of film-making than what I've garnered from years of watching movies, but I know what I like, and I know what art is, and this movie is truly art. One of the many things it's about is the masks we all wear, and how well they protect the secrets that they were designed to hide. It touched me, excited me, made me so restless to explore the concepts within it that I didn't sleep much the night I saw it because my mind was so super-charged with ideas. It forced me to look at myself and everyone around me in a way I had neglected, or shied away from in the past. It gave me a new perspective - made me wonder if those masks we all so carefully-craft to protect us are really that: protection, or a prison we can't escape from. It changed me, and that's a priceless gift. I think Alan Ball's screenplay was genius, and Sam Mendes deftly drew something amazing out of the fine actors who populate this film, and then served it up unflinchingly. I am grateful for this movie. It will always be in my top ten. It's why I look at art-read-watch movies-listen to music...because there is always the chance - the perfect hope - that I will feel something like what American Beauty made me feel.