Man's desire for meaning and art

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2020)

I have always knew Alejandro González Iñárritu had it in him ever since Babel, and it goes to prove himself with seminar masterful works such as The Revenant and this masterpiece. The camerawork and cinematography is worked in a way that is to show the entire film was recorded in one take. This technical achievement is inspired straight out of the Hitchcockian technique in Rope (1948). Iñárritu has a good reason for using the one-take technique; the entire picture surrounds the protagonist and documents his every move and events transitioning one after another. In each those uninterrupted sequences we get to follow our protagonist layer after layer as a gradual continuous unraveling of his quest and yearning for art.
The film is about man's desire for meaning and art. Our protagonist has before starred in a popular superhero character and his fame and career has only been popular because of that role. Now he wants to mature into a serious actor and take on a play on Broadway. But this proves a challenge because the superficiality of his past superhero role is the only thing that seems to excite his audience and make him relevant.
One of the scenes that expresses the baggage he carries for his superhero role is when Tabitha the critic insulted him and says he does not cut out to be attempt at serious and mature and real art because of "people like him" who only a spectacle in pop culture, and that the fact that someone with a superficial background like that to take on Broadway is ludicrous to her.
But finally the film gave a revelation to our protagonist when he did nail his Broadway role which gave astute recognition from his peers. Hence, the critic referred to him as "the unexpected virtue of ignorance", that someone who played a superhero role could unexpectedly pull off a grand performance in theater with nothing but realism. The third act of the film leaves a lot to be interpreted, but this is one of the few amazing philosophical and profound films that was fresh and original and did not need to be adapted from another material.