Knight of Cups (2015)
Genre: Drama / Experimental
Duration: 118 minuten
Country:
United States
Directed by: Terrence Malick
Stars: Christian Bale, Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett
IMDb score:
5,6 (31.656)
Releasedate: 10 September 2015
Knight of Cups plot
"A quest."
Once upon a time there was a young prince who was sent to Egypt by his father, the king of the East, to find a pearl. When the prince arrives, the people pour him a drink. After drinking it, he forgets that he is the son of a king, forgets the search for the pearl and falls into a deep sleep. Rick's father (Christian Bale) read this story to him when he was a little boy. Rick is now a screenwriter, based in Los Angeles, looking for love and the meaning of life. The road to the East stretches out in front of him. Will he find his way?
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Actors and actresses
Rick
Nancy
Elizabeth
Joseph
Tonio
Helen
Barry
Isabel
Karen
Della
Reviews & comments
eRCee
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- 13449 messages
- 1981 votes
There's been a lot of criticism of Knight of Cups in the reviews here, but what everyone seems to agree on is the assessment of the camera work; this would be genius. Since it's only my third Malick movie with Portman in it, I was very sympathetic to the film at the start, but within 10 minutes I was getting tired of the continuous tracking shots. In combination with the fast editing, I would like to call the film style 'hysterical' rather than 'dreamy/poetic'. Visual bombast, that's it. Malick goes for the grand gesture and the ultimate expression in every shot. Exhausting. I also don't like poetry, maybe that's it.
Good things have already been said about the content, for example by Ferdydurke. Indeed, the feeling of unfulfillment is the main theme, cast in a holy grail story, but in a very modern guise. Bale actually walks around the entire movie as Neo looking for the blue pill. There must be something more, but he doesn't know what. The big problem in the elaboration for me is that Malick omits all humanity. His characters are abstractions. There are hardly any close-ups, certainly not and face. Dialogues are also missing and are replaced by an internal monologue in whispered speech. Even if all this serves a certain concept (I personally don't really see it), it still remains that it does not work at all to make the problem transparent. Then give me the 'old-fashioned' approach of, for example, Magnolia.
Yet I am not as devastatingly negative as some are, one because of the originality of the form and two because the beautiful music adds something of emotion to this empty film full of visual powerhouse and substantive giddiness.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
Pretty typical Malick I think, where the visual aspect of the film greatly exceeds the content. A film that actually has little to offer in terms of plot and also scant in dialogues. A film that certainly not everyone will appreciate. I honestly don't know what to think. The images and editing work are fabulous. Almost every scene is a small painting of hip and artistic Los Angeles.
Those images are combined with a kind of poetic philosophical touch that you don't really know where the director wants to go. A bit pompous at times. Conceptually successful film, substantively I was still hungry.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11629 messages
- 10041 votes
Another self-righteous, pretentious work by Malick full of moody voice-overs about the meaninglessness of the pseudo-glamorous life of a screenwriter and the suffering that the people he meets have to deal with. It looks like a messy assembled collection of improvisations and loose ideas, which quickly sets the stage for boredom. Bale still comes out quite well, as does Brian Dennehy (as his father) and the use of different perspectives at least still gives the appearance of variation.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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