One of the very best cinematographic achievements made in the last years, if not centuries...

Rating: 10/10 (2 March 2008)

Oil, oil, oil. That black, sticky liquid. That liquid that we love and hate. Oil is our girlfriend, our boyfriend, our mother, our father. Oil is us. Is as important as the water we drink, as the air we breath. As our blood. Oil is, in this case, our blood. Set in the middle of the XXI century, the film centers on the commercial war of "oilmen" trying to find their own peace of the underground pie of the US. One of this men is Daniel Plainview, who comes to a small town on the middle of nowhere to do his drilling and selling, along with his 9 year old son, H.W. Plainview. Soon, he faces to his enemy: Eli Sunday, the local preacher, whose only intention is to extract as much money out of Plainview as possible to build up his church. That's about the story. Actually, the film's tang line says it all: "When Ambition meets Faith" And that's apparently it, the fight of two very different yet equal at the end men to win the heart of million people. And just for this we give an 8.7 and 8 Oscars? Not quite yet... It has been known that Paul Thomas Anderson has been influenced by other great directors, like Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese. I have seen almost all PTA films, and I don't feel a flash black to these two. Except in this one. There are just some scenes in this film, that, somehow, connect with The Last Temptation of Christ!! And then we go to the really big thing: like it happens in all his films, the important is not so much the story, but the CHARACTERS in the story. I can't explain yet the Dirk Digler/Amber Waves relationship in Boogie Nights, Magnolia has really big up and downs, and Punch Drunk Love doesn't exist if it's not for Barry Egan. And this one... How can we define Daniel Plainview? Is he "good" or "bad" How can we define Eli Sunday? What is evil? Under the Oscar awarded performance of Daniel Day Lewis, Daniel Plainview is a man with a lot of hate in his bones, who hates everyone including him. However, he manages to cover that hate under a blanket of ambition, that could initially represent a monster, but... is he? To explain this factors, there is not a better solution that to see the film. See it. Just do. And when you do, you will get this.