I can't say I agree with the praise heaped on this movie. I really enjoyed Open City, but here the amateurish acting, I feel, really hurts the movie. In the first sequence, in particular, I had to resist just turning the movie off, it was so bad.
Moreover, the structure of the film, while an interesting thing to attempt, didn't really work for me. The characters are only briefly limned and (spoiler coming) there's a tragic/weird twist to the end of each story, so that you just start anticipating the twist. I ended up feeling as if I were watching a series of poorly filmed O. Henry stories after a while.
I will also add my voice to the complaints about the quality of the tape I watched. Regardless of what I think, this film is considered an important one by an important director. The awful visual and sound quality -- and the poor translations/lack of full translations certainly are a sin. Who has the DVD rights and why haven't they acted on them?
Moreover, the structure of the film, while an interesting thing to attempt, didn't really work for me. The characters are only briefly limned and (spoiler coming) there's a tragic/weird twist to the end of each story, so that you just start anticipating the twist. I ended up feeling as if I were watching a series of poorly filmed O. Henry stories after a while.
I will also add my voice to the complaints about the quality of the tape I watched. Regardless of what I think, this film is considered an important one by an important director. The awful visual and sound quality -- and the poor translations/lack of full translations certainly are a sin. Who has the DVD rights and why haven't they acted on them?