This movie delivers everything I seek in cinema: Entrancing cinematography, engaging direction, stirring of emotions and challenging themes. It's beautiful, intense and had me engrossed throughout. The cold, stark and stunning set locations are as much a part of the story telling as the dialogue is, serving to enrich the feelings and situations conveyed by the characters. It is a quiet film filled with visual beauty and soul. This is one of those rare movies that pulls you into another world, one which lingers and haunts you long after the movie has ended. I watched this film yesterday and am already wanting to revisit it.
Certain scenes made me feel uneasy, but rightfully so, given the subject matter. The sensitive story-line is conveyed well by all involved, enabling the viewer to empathise with both of the main characters rather than feeling alienated from them, which was a possibility with such a story-line. I think it was a clever move to not linger upon or delve much into the complexities of the actual cloning process and instead focus on the lives and emotions of the characters before and after that event. The film would have benefited from further developing the love formed between the two main characters as children so as we can better appreciate the intensity of their feelings when they meet again as adults. The director has said that they spent the whole summer together as children, yet this is not evident in the film. Still, I don't believe the movie suffered from this lapse as the acting by Eva Green is strong enough to convey her character's intensity and give reason to the choices she made.
The topic of human cloning is a controversial and complex one and in this day and age is not as much science-fiction as it is a genuine possibility in our future. A fictional, two hour film cannot hope to provide any real answer to any of the concerns posed by such a topic, but what this film manages to do is take on some emotional aspects of the topic and turn them into a haunting and thoughtful work of art. 9/10.
