A rebuttal for the nay side

Rating: 7/10 (24 January 1999)

OK. First I must make a couple of points clear. I am in America, I am male. I am, however, also a big fan of Ralph Fiennes. I even know that it's pronounced Rafe. And despite being an American male, my tastes do not run to the I am a caricature of the ultimate male so overwhelming with testosterone that I must blow up things every five minutes and then have passionate sex with multiple women type of movie. I like dramas, I like foreign films. I also read reams of literature. My favorite movies are probably Solyaris and Lawrence of Arabia, a film which many people have compared TEP to.
But I had problems with TEP. First off, comparing this to David Lean I believe to be absurd. Why? Because it has shots of the desert? There are no other possible comparisons in my view. Lawrence of Arabia was about a truly complex and interesting man, however glamorized he might be at times.
But TEP had no characters worth caring for. It reminds me of a book by Don Delillo called Underworld. It's been hailed as a great American novel, but when I read it, the writing and obvious ability to use language were impressive at times, but I was not drawn into the book at all. The characters were self-centered and one-dimensional. I wouldn't care if the New York art house types in the book died and were boiled in their oil paints.
I felt the same way about TEP. The characters were despicable. The tired immoralist in love with his ennui. Oh wow, I think I'll cry. I felt the film was pretentious and overbearing, another diseased child in the inbred line of film royalty, which was hailed as a masterpiece because the producers set out to make one and the critics told us that it was. As in Underworld, the ability to use the form well was evident, but form does not make a great film or novel.
So, needless to say, I was rooting for deaths all round when TEP approached its end, as I felt that I might then have gotten some value for my money. Though this will make some people scream at me, I must lump TEP in with the group of Titanic, Braveheart, Elizabeth, and all such pseudo-epics which attempt to overwhelm you with their passion, but really turn out to be banal and pompous, too aware of their own striving for grandeur.