The life of an Irish scoundrel

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2017)

"Barry Lyndon" is a coming-of-age story with the Kubrick touch, so nothing you've ever seen before. It is the story of an Irish boy whose life takes him to roads he'd never think he'd get in, nor does the viewer. Instead of the classic story of growth and overcoming of one's own limits, with "Barry Lyndon" Kubrick gives us his customary pessimistic view over the need for control of the human beings over fate or, in other words, the unfathomable number of variables that can change one's life in an instant. Almost comically, the viewer gets used to Barry's continuous shifts from luck to bad fortune in the first half hour, so that the rest of the (long) movie can be played with both the author and the addressee conscious of the rules. The setting in the XVIII century cannot be random: Kubrick alludes to that historic age in almost everyone of his films because it's the purest moment of coexistence of reason and passion, reality and staged society, some of the director's most beloved themes.
Kubrick's attention to detail and maniacal perfection in cinematography could even make the movie unbearable for some. Every single shot in three hours of film are blatantly studied and show conceitedly how amazingly the light is used throughout the scenes: most shots are filmed solely with the use of natural light and/or candles, something any other film-maker would've thought utterly impossible (and it would have been, if Kubrick hadn't had the permission to use new lenses produced by NASA!). There is a continuous use of reverse zoom to "paint" in front of the audience's eyes pictures which reveal more of the scene as the lens widens. The use of music is also noticeable, with classic tunes employed for superb emotionally resonant editing cuts (I'm thinking about a specific one near the end about Barry's child).
"Barry Lyndon" is where the audience can see how one of Kubrick's greatest talents was to mold his actors into the kind of actors needed for a specific film. In this one, every single character has a certain immobility to him, as if an actual painting was brought to life just as long as it is necessary for the narration. Many scenes are simply frozen, with just one character talking or doing something, and even then the movements are perfectly calibrated and artificial, as if instead of actors Kubrick bought machines for his film. This rule is suddenly broken in moments of rage or pain where the camera becomes shaky and the scene confused too.
"Barry Lyndon" is a fantastic example of Kubrick's maniacal perfection in shooting and between his best works, although not as emotionally or intellectually groundbreaking as his VERY best.