The recently deceased Raoul Ruiz was certainly an extremely idiosyncratic director, whose films did not look like anyone else's. Sometimes his experiments could go disastrously wrong ("That Day"), but other times they were fascinating to follow ("Shattered Image"). I think "Comedy Of Innocence" comes closer to the second category. I like this film....but don't ask me to tell you why! Ruiz comes close to doing for cinema what the "abstract painters" did for their art; he fills the screen with "unexplainable" (as even he himself admits) details (e.g., the rolling dice that always comes out the same) that somehow work even if you don't understand their meaning. In the meantime, the main story of "Comedy Of Innocence" is actually quite straightforward, if you pay attention to it; that doesn't mean it's not extremely weird, though! Both female leads give exceptional performances, but extra praise must go to the little boy - undeniably one of the best child performances of the last decade at least. Watch this film when you're in the mood for something you can't quite describe with words. *** out of 4.
Review of Comedy of Innocence
