year 2011
country USA, Canada
director Zack Snyder
scenario Zack Snyder, Steve Shibuya
Snopsis: “The action will take place in 1950. A young girl, at the insistence of her villainous stepfather, is sent to a hospital for the mentally ill, where five days later the main character is lobotomized. To protect herself from pain, she invents a fairy-tale world, where she begins to plan her escape – for this she needs to get five items.»
The total cinematic mass https://mrspincasino.uk/ available to the general public has long been divided into films that are understandable to this viewer, such consumer goods and something completely strange, trumped by incomprehensible terms, called art house. Why the “house of arts” exists at all, people don’t really think about it. Although, of course, there are versions – all this was invented by wretched intellectuals to glorify themselves, or simply someone does not have enough money to launch a full-scale film..
The casket, it seems, opens quite simply – the creators of unusual films sometimes simply think and feel a little differently than some average crowd (which, in reality, of course, does not exist), as a result of which they get something understandable only to those who know how to tune in in a similar way. Although we shouldn’t forget about poor intellectuals either.
All this prelude was just to point a finger at Zack Snyder and say: “He fell into the art house at birth.”. Well, or a little later, after a long study as a designer. The proof can be watching some 300 Spartans, and then studying the interview – a person is simply uncomfortable speaking. It’s not that he’s completely tongue-tied, but when you find out that he draws all the storyboards for his films himself, you even feel a little sorry for Zack. Well, give him a piece of paper, he will draw you an answer in two minutes! There will be one minus here – and no one will understand. Because among the interviewers of professional designers and people who simply studied at art schools, there are at least. Among ordinary viewers, naturally, even less.
And if Snyder’s first films were forced to strictly adhere to the source material and the entire visual worked rather in response to the script, then in his “Sucker Punch” Snyder took it and flew into the stratosphere. Without particularly warning anyone – although the twenty-minute prologue posted online shortly after the film’s launch, filmed without a single dialogue, should say something. Moreover, everything in it is, in principle, clear. But Zach, sadly, is not just a talented artist. This guy still has ideas, ideas, a creator’s instinct, in the end, which gives the go-ahead to go through all the canons at once, if necessary.
And then there was a hitch – for ideas to be understandable, they need to be spoken. With the budget of Sucker Punch, it was simply necessary to convey at least something to the viewer. And the weak, mostly instrumental dialogues (which now worked in support of the general visuals) are the main drawback of the film.
Apart from a few moments when conversations diligently hint at the interpretation of scenes, all the rest of the fluff is purely justification of motivation and an attempt to introduce the viewer to the characters at least a little. Naturally, the acquaintance is purely casual, which allowed critics to attack the undeveloped characters of the main characters. At the same time, film experts bombed over the girls’ clothes (too vulgar) and reproached Snyder for the fact that the film is a compilation of clips. In a way, this is really true – the symbolism and connection with the real world in each action episode is really presented exclusively through a picture, which, as we agreed, not everyone can understand. Moreover, the sensations are exclusively Snyder’s, and therefore the principle of operation of his fantasy may clearly not be clear to everyone. In short, it turns out to be a sort of David Lynch, who already has a little something to say, but who instead tries to diligently poke the viewer into the picture of his own feeling and say a clear “look”. The viewer is indignant.
The funniest thing is that there really is a blow, and also a prohibited one, in the film – and in a part that is probably usually attributed to the script. The very idea of the film at a certain moment leads to a funny incident, as a result of which Snyder rushes like a breeze through the canon of plot construction. In the case of an approximate understanding of what the film is actually about, this causes WTF to be extremely joyful. Otherwise, it forces you to pronounce the same letter combination with an embittered and distressed tone.
In the end, “Sucker Punch” is about a mental hospital from which you must definitely escape. And while most people are looking for written instructions for escaping, Snyder has already driven towards the painted sunset in his personal Paradise.
And as a small conclusion, it’s worth watching, because the picture of the film looks good even if you don’t understand what’s happening at all. If attempts to understand what is happening still arise, remember that there are three realities in the film and they are still running from the real one. If understood, there is a risk of understanding the simple, almost Augustinian message – God is inside, and therefore you can escape to him from anywhere.