Post by joekiddlouischama on Dec 14, 2017 12:33:07 GMT
I viewed the movie again on Tuesday night; my assessment is essentially the same as I wrote earlier, but I did like it slightly better, so I have upgraded my basic take from "pretty good/good" to "good." I still feel that the operatic or deadpan humor fits somewhat uneasily, or unevenly, with the film's subject matter and mood, but I gained a greater appreciation for the open-ended conclusion, which effectively reflects the movie's moral ambivalence. I also gained a greater appreciation for some of the shots, not just the daylight landscapes (again, with North Carolina standing in for Missouri), but the nighttime scenes, especially those involving flames and the contrast between the scarlet billboards and the black sky. Additionally, the movie's scenes of violence are strikingly handled and dynamic.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri offers irreverent characters and an anti-authoritarian sensibility reminiscent of such films from the late 1960s and the early-to-mid 1970s as Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), Charley Verrick (Don Siegel, 1973), and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974), all of which are also set in rural Midwestern or Western America. Unfortunately, Three Billboards' mix of irreverence and tragedy is not as organic as that of its Vietnam-era predecessors. Bonnie and Clyde, for instance, is full of humor yet deeply bleak and fatalistic, and those elements seamlessly mix without a hint of strain. Three Billboards, conversely, often feels a tad strained or forced.
Still, there are many compelling elements to this film, aspects that are raw and macabre, funky and uncompromising. I feel that the film best blends its sardonic humor and edgy darkness in the late scene at the bar that
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri offers irreverent characters and an anti-authoritarian sensibility reminiscent of such films from the late 1960s and the early-to-mid 1970s as Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), Charley Verrick (Don Siegel, 1973), and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974), all of which are also set in rural Midwestern or Western America. Unfortunately, Three Billboards' mix of irreverence and tragedy is not as organic as that of its Vietnam-era predecessors. Bonnie and Clyde, for instance, is full of humor yet deeply bleak and fatalistic, and those elements seamlessly mix without a hint of strain. Three Billboards, conversely, often feels a tad strained or forced.
Still, there are many compelling elements to this film, aspects that are raw and macabre, funky and uncompromising. I feel that the film best blends its sardonic humor and edgy darkness in the late scene at the bar that
ends in a brutal beating.