Surreal, but not enlightening.

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 1999)

It is often difficult when leaving a movie this weird to tell exactly what you thought of it. I was pretty sure with this one that I liked it, but I had to think a while what made the movie so clever. After some consideration, I do not agree that this movie really raises any philosophical questions or provides a new perspective on identity or such things. Any points where a difficult conceptual situation arises is dealt with more by humor than with wisdom. But like Brazil and even the Fifth Element, its genius lies directly in its weirdness, and how it simply attacks the stability of one's preconceptions and beliefs in general. After a movie like this, life just doesn't seem so simple any more, so closely bound by rules. And this movie, I think, does it better than any other. Outrageous plot aside, every character, down to their reactions to each event, is so wholly absurd that it is just too much insanity to process all at once. But in the end, after a slight change in one's mindset (and perhaps a slight loss of sanity), the nonsense does seem to make quite a bit of sense. It is impressive that a movie so bizarre could still be so coherently put together. Many surreal movies, such as some Kubrick and the aforementioned Brazil kind of leave you completely lost at the end, but this one doesn't leave many holes. I think that just about anyone will leave the movie feeling odd but with no regrets. As a side note, the acting in all cases is also superb. For each main actor, it is probably their best performances. As I said, the characters are so odd, it must have been quite a task to make them seem at all real. As another side note, the puppeteering is amazing. If you can do such things with puppets, then I would certainly care to be exposed to more of it.