What was the point?

I have to agree that this movie was a big disappointment. With the two stars they had and the basic premiss this movie could have been so much more. It took me about 4 hours over two days just to get through it.

The "appeal" of the film lies in the way it interweaves its themes of depression, identity, and destiny into its slow-paced, disorienting and often ambiguous narrative about one man's futile attempt at freedom. He is a "passenger" in his own life, unable to exert any influence of his own to shape his future or guide his life, trapped in his "profession" and by society's expectations. An opportunity presents itself and he takes the identity of another man. But he's just as trapped, only now in someone else's life. And this time, the risk of non-conformance is fatal. The result of the identity switch? An acceleration towards inevitable, inescapable death for Locke.

The ambiguous narrative details fuel a multitude of theories and interpretations that also satisfy on a thematic level (the true identity of The Girl and her mysterious interest in Locke and the idea of a "Mrs Robertson's" passport, the real cause of Locke's death and the cryptic response from his missus). And at the same time, there's also the suggestion that these details are perhaps not as important as compared to what IS being shown... the inescapable truth: there is no avoiding death. That existential depression is captured so perfectly in the film's slow-paced structure... particularly in that elaborate seven-minute long-take at the end there, the sense of foreboding and the profound sadness in the inevitability of death is so effectively rendered.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

It was the 1970s. This was the decade when everyone had to "find themself" hence this long, slow, boring movie about a man wandering around and whining.


"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider."