Black and White

Rating: 10/10 (9 July 2001)

I think the argument that SPR is for idiots while TTRL is for intellectual elitists is a weak and misguided one. I enjoyed SPR the first time I saw it, though I didn't initially think it to be a masterpiece, and still don't. The first time I saw TTRL I must confess I spent the entire ride home thinking whether or not I'd liked it.
I have since purchased the DVD and must say that it is now high on my list of all time favorite movies-not war films, because as many have noted, this really isn't a war film so much as it's a meditation on the nature of nature, set amid WWII. For all you "professional warriors" out there, relive, as I'm sure you do, what you know to be the truth of war in your heads and leave storytelling to filmmakers.
I have seen few films in recent years whose beauty and deliberate obscurity are so staggering and, as Martin Scorsese has already deemed it, this is one of the very best movies produced in the nineties. It requires focus whereas SPR demands only that your eyes and ears be working-your brain can actually be elsewhere and thematically, you are not likely to miss anything.