A painting come to life...

Rating: 10/10 (24 June 2002)

There has never been a film as beautiful to behold as Barry Lyndon. It is the greatest purely visual achievement you'll ever see. I'm not taking about special effects (this is anything but an "action" flick). I'm talking about capturing true beauty beautifully on film. But Kubrick accomplishes much more with his period piece than brilliant cinematography. He places the viewer *into* the eighteenth century. You are living it. The pace of the film is (almost painfully) slow at times but, you see, so was the life of the times. Many scenes offer the viewer no dialogue at all because this was a time when the gesture, the look, the subtle formality communicated far more than the spoken word. A sharp contrast to today's "fast and furious" approach to film-making (and pace of life for that matter). A film to savor rather than devour. A spectacle in a class by itself.