intelligent and lyrical

Rating: 10/10 (15 October 2006)

According to the surrealistic background characters act absurd and logical in one; above all is a layer of cynical decadence with its own corresponding moral: By coincidence a nameless puppeteer finds a secret door into the brain of John Malkovich. So he leaves his wooden puppets behind and plays the human puppet "Malkovich". But he cannot keep the secret. More and more narrow-minded characters jump into the broadminded, deprived character "Malkovich", starting as stalkers and ending up somewhat different. This happens in rhythmic alteration, the whole process being slightly but not to much commercialized. A highlight is the man "Malkovich" multiplying himself by jumping into himself, after having found out what is going on within himself. "Malkovich" becomes "well used" and "abused": well used by the two women - one of them being in "Malkovich" for this purpose - to create a daughter; and abused by the puppeteer riding him and mutating the famous actor into the famous puppeteer "Malkovich". According to its own morality the movie comes to a corresponding happy end: The abuse of the brain "Malkovich" will be terminated finally, the nameless puppeteer will be forced to leave it. Instead "Malkovich" serves further on deliberately as a "vessel brain" for a circle of elder people, thus preventing them from death. This is combined with the perspective to "settle down" in the created daughters brain when the time has come.