An impossibly complex cinematic colossus

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2008)

As a text, this thing is extremely hard to get a grip on. Surely we're not expected to empathize with this lovable cabbie's bad analysis about human scum and end times, and surely the catharsis that he gets from his rampage at the end is not supposed to extend to the audience (or to Iris for that matter - can you imagine how bored she is once she gets shipped back home?) But just as surely, everyone on set agrees that things are f*cked and there's not much else by way of a solution. These points are made all the time, by filmmakers as well as other thinking human beings, without baring the least insight or interest. The point here, drum roll please, is that this is an incredibly layered and vital piece of film-making, one that takes off in directions that the script can't even begin to imagine. Part of this is that the dialogue is treated as complete, abject banalities that don't come close to expressing what's going on inside the heads of the characters. These characters don't have the verbal tools to let their humanity out - especially on the big screen, there is just so much meaning conveyed by the eyes, between lines. The stilted words are surprisingly comic, while the subtext is tragic. And meanwhile all this is embedded in the most gorgeous, abstract, kinetic and textured array of images that, I am prepared to suggest, has EVER existed in a Hollywood film - and I'm also prepared to suggest that the jet-black surges of Bernard Herrmann's score carry all the meaning anyone needs.