Shades of gray, folks.

Rating: 6/10 (15 August 2018)

Why does everyone feel compelled to review something as the best or worst thing ever. Really? How is that even remotely useful to the reader? It's not a review -that's a rant.
For those of you who don't get it, there's a little something called experimental filmmaking. It's been around for about a century, and not designed with mainstream Hollywood consumers in mind. They're art house films, and if you walk blindly into an art house theater, please don't whine because you didn't get a watered down derivative literal narrative. Artists like Darren Aronofsky and David Lynch have been at this craft for quite some time, and they know literal narrative is not hard to pull off. Symbolism, surrealism, multiple layers of perspective, that's a considerable challenge. If it's not for you, it's not for you, but it's tiring to see a convenient dismissal when someone doesn't connect with a piece. Having said that, I don't think this was Aronofsky's best effort. I thought the main concepts and core storyline were fantastic, but felt would have been best realized as a short film and condensed to 40-50 minutes. The themes were repeated to the point of being redundant, and though the point was made, it could have been made more efficiently. I don't see Aronofsky ever eclipsing "Requiem," but this was a solid effort.