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4/10
Super slow build up to an obvious twist that takes the whole movie to happen and then the movie ends without doing anything interesting. It's up to the audience.
21 May 2024
Warning: Spoilers
I was immediately entranced by Hamaguchi's seemingly deliberate direction and pace, accompanied by that ominous score. The slow scenes that suddenly cut so quickly-just like the music does-had me getting closer and closer to the screen... I thought something deeper was going on under the surface and it would jump out and make everything fall into place. Very early on I thought it was clear the daughter character was going to get harmed or killed due to the neglect of the father, and I thought this would be the impetus of the plot... but the movie kept going.

We get this side plot of Glamping invading this town's way of life, and then the characters from that storyline take part of the center piece as well. Then I thought Hamaguchi was trying to make a separate point, an environmental message. Many things managed to continue keeping me enticed, like a shot where a character poses exactly the same as the painting behind them, or little hints at characters back stories. It was like watching seeds being planted, and I was excited to watch them sprout.

The talent agent is the most compelling character and the only character in the movie with some form of evolution. He was funny and unique. More interesting than the rest of the movie to be honest. Probably the best performance too. Everyone else barely changes, if at all. There wasn't much to the performances either, not that there needed to be. So many things seemed to be building up and getting introduced, all whilst we kept cutting back to the daughter who is just walking around doing nothing of actual substance. We see her cover her nose while walking past cow poop. This is just one of various scenes with her that if you cut the movie stays the same. Is there some symbolism with cow dung I'm missing? Maybe it's related to when she calls her dad a buttface. That was the second most compelling form of characterization in this film.

Then the movie continues to make it even more obvious that something's going to happen. The gun shots from the hunter. The dad forgetting. A repeat of the first scene and the warnings. I started to think, "is this a fake out? But this doesn't seem like the kind of movie to do that either." I realized the movie is rapidly approaching it's end, and of course the daughter ends up going missing. In the previous scene they mention that the only way a deer would attack a human is if it survives a gun shot and is trying to protect its cub. So guess where the daughter winds up? Next to an injured deer with her cub. The daughter (of course) gets closer to the deer. How much more obvious can they make this scene?

The subsides neglect the environmental damage for profits. The father neglects the daughter to not think of his dead wife, I suppose. That's the evil of the movie, or maybe it is the corporation invading their town, and the hunters invading the deer's land. Maybe there is no evil because everyone is just acting for themselves? What is it with these shallow films trying to seem deeper than they are with provocative titles recently?

Trying to read up on this movie I found out that Hamaguchi himself does not know what to make of it, and essentially built the movie around the score. Apparently this movie could have even not been released as it was meant for visuals to accompany the music, but he thought it was worthwhile to release. Despite being mostly engaged throughout, the cinematography, solid performances, and that awesome score, I can't say I got anything out of this movie. I would've rather stayed at home and done anything something else. The more I think about it the more I realize that the seeming seeds of intrigue planted are almost worthless if they don't sprout in some way. At least make the movie more interesting through the plot and characters, but there's almost nothing there either. When you try to latch onto something in the movie, there wasn't enough to get a hold of to keep my interest. That ending is the only interesting part of the movie. The whole movie rides on that ending because if it ended any other way there was no time to satisfyingly tie up all the plot threads. It doesn't even necessarily have to do that, but the movie didn't build up to any form of conclusion. This could've been the first half of a movie. Even with the obvious twist ending we got, the movie ends right after so they still do nothing with it. Yeah I get the point is for the audience to have their interpretation, but I think that's a cop out. The conclusions I derived earlier weren't that interesting to me cause the movie barely fleshed them out. Maybe I'm being too harsh, and there's more to take away from this movie. Or maybe I expect more from films. To be honest I just feel like I wasted my time, and that's why I'm being more negative. Sometimes there is nothing majorly wrong with a film and it can still not work. Some seeds are just defective and will never sprout. It's too late for the sun and water they need to sprout. They should stay buried.

(4.5/10)
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