Elizabeth Sings

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2006)

I knew from the very beginning that this would be a little different from the title sequence. It uses a font that is put together in an odd way. It is a rather jarring effect, just in that one word denoting that we'll have ordinary things presented in extraordinary ways.
This told me before the movie started that they had some professional help in the production and art design... and they gave those folks power. They are the people who gave us that dancing bag in "American Beauty" around which that whole movie is constructed.
This movie is getting panned, and I wonder if folks are seeing the same thing I saw. Yes, the characters are unengaging and superficially drawn, sort of  well  like in a comic book or a music video. Yes, the story is a bit incoherent. Some script doctoring is apparent, but the important thing in stories like this is the part they get right: the cosmology makes sense. At least it makes sense if you have exposure to biblical cosmology: I think it true that in all the key regards this is much more biblically accurate than Mel's adventure in pain and blame.
What we want from things like this is the ability to tap into another world. The details of the story are superfluous. There are three ways to do this, all exploited here.
1) Use folding. In this case, the fold is us seeing something which has a story about people seeing things that others do not. It seems a simple trick, but it has profound power. It is not done very well here, but it is done ambitiously. We assume subliminally that what _we_ see is something no one else can.
2) Be novel in the design of the alternative worlds. In other words, make it look like we are seeing something no one else has. That's rough in movies where everything must refer to a prior vision. That's the way our minds work. So they have to show us something we have already seen in other films but make it seem different.
3) Use at least a few actors that have the ability to link for us the folds among the four worlds: ours, the "real" world of the movie: the real world of the movie but with demons (Men-in-Black-like); and hell. I suppose they thought at first that Keanu could carry the weight merely by association with the similar layers of "The Matrix."
But it is the amazing Tilda Swinton that does the heavy lifting in the folds here. She's another redheaded Australian-influenced actress that can do folding. You may not know her; she gets few parts I think because her appearance is so striking. But if you have a chance you may want to see her in "Orlando," where she plays much the same character (also ambisexual) and "Conceiving Ada" where she literally conjures up an alternative world. She's been a talisman of folding in other films: "Vanilla Sky" (together with Alicia Witt) and "Adaptation," where she is the ultimate customer of all the folded worlds.
For this character, I believe she channels Jenny Runacre's "Queen Elizabeth" in the punk folded "Jubilee," which is one spooky movie. She's the real thing and I hope we see more of her. In true folding tradition, both her and her character trigger the folds here.
Who cares if the thing doesn't flow well or is poorly constructed in how any of the worlds forms a story. I think it is a point of honor that it doesn't in this case. For a point of reference on this: I thought "The Hulk" was cinematic.
Hell is never really shown. What we see is a vision as it would be translated to someone without the tools: a ruined road in a desiccating landscape. Seems apt. Same thing was done to similar jarring effect in "Songs from the Second Floor," from which this borrows artistically.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.