Fanny and Alexander

I finished watching this 3+ hour experience called "Fanny and Alexander". It's this Oscar-winning foreign film about these two kids who go through the crappiest part of every fairy tale hero's story. Remember how Cinderella lost her loving father and was forced to live with her pineapple-up-the-bum Stepmother and her three punk Stepsisters? It's 3 hours of that part. Only Disney would have a tough time cheering this one up with a song...

Anyways, my new "hobby" of Netflix-ing more classic live-action films has become more fun than I could've ever hoped. The last handful were all reeeeally honestly good, especially "Witness" and "Klute" (Jane Fonda was FIII-HINE back in the day!). Within the first hour of this one, I thought this might be the first dud, but Christ, did it ever pick up in the later hours! Awesome!

From exposition to resolution, every key point of the story seemed to have it's own tonal scheme and shape patterns, not to mention it's own individual use of flat and limited space. Alexander's family lived in a whole world of bright flowery days and warm, earthy nights. There was no tight leash on the use of space, just a comfortable moderation. There were organic shapes everywhere.

The Bishop's(evil stepfather) lair, however, wasn't necessarily darker but devoid of any plant life or organic stuff like that. There was smiling, all right, but only the kind you see on a torture artist before he rips out your bicuspids; empty, condescending, and creeeee-py! The "pure flat-space" layouts made those scenes so uncomfortable I turned the lights back on for the rest of the movie. The DP definitely got his point across...sheesh...

The book that recommended this flick didn't have much to say about it, so I thought I'd offer my thoughts. Just make sure to set some hours aside if you wanna check it out!

Oh, you want a drawing...here, have a Leo master copy. I wanna reserve the fun stuff for their own blogs!