I absolutely love this movie. I've probably seen it 100 times by now. The visual aspect is stunning, and the soundtrack like some have said really is astonishing. I think the best advice I can give a person trying to understand this movie is to just forget what you think you know about the visual arts, be completely open minded, and perhaps have some sort of insight about life, death, and spirituality. Every time I watch it I feel different or maybe I realize something I've missed before. I didn't understand it the first few times watching it. I think it took at least 5 times for me to fully appreciate the mixed emotions and combining story lines. I think the message is that although we all would love to beat death or save someone we care about from dying, WE can't, and the universe has its own way of showing us that there is more to life than worrying about death, whether it's the people we meet or the obstacles we face.
In the past story the queen could not survive the Spanish Inquisition so she looked for immortality, the present story the man wants to keep his lover from dying, both far fetched obsessions because there is no combatant to death. The futuristic storyline I believe, shows that everybody dies, whether you are 'reborn', 'go to heaven' or have no afterlife. Those are just my simple explanations of the three stories which are somehow connected, even though the entire film depicts them with a much more complex design.
A lot of people didn't understand it because the significance isn't clearly laid out, it's left completely open for interpretation which is the main attribute I loved so much. One day the movie can mean one thing, the next time you see it, it's telling you something completely different. Not many movies are as cognitively stimulating as this one. Unfortunately the people that didn't like won't give it the time of day to watch it as many times as I did in order to grip something from it.
reply
share