scotthettenbach

I want to keep this as spoiler free as I possibly can, but this is a difficult show.

And I believe the polarizing reviews are a reflection of that.

At its most broad, this show is an examination of spirituality, and mortality, based in a small town struggling to get by in so many now extremely common American ways. Less jobs, less money circulating in the community, population decline, and the death cycle just perpetuates.

For those of us who grew up in small towns. For those of us who grew up in communities where the church was the center of social and spiritual life in our towns. This is going to be an extremely lucid and difficult reflection of a life we've already lived.

And for that reason so many people are going to find this show tough to get through.

But for those of us who are willing to be challenged, and for those of us who want to watch cinema that AFFECTS us, this is a worthwhile endeavor. Honesty it's a marathon, I cried like I haven't before in a long time once I was done.

This show wrecked me, but in the most beautiful and glorious way possible, and I think the experience is more than worthwhile for everyone to undertake when they are ready. "And to dust we shall return."

Simply a must see.

"When we all do better, we all do better." -Paul Wellstone

Unfettered capitalism is the titanic of our time, above the waterline it looks like an unsinkable permanent behemoth, but its rapidly taking on water and before long it will only be a cautionary tale.

I'm here for it.

Only on a few occasions have I felt motivated to write a review immediately after finishing a film for the first time, but after taking a quick scroll and seeing just how polarizing this film has become, I felt I needed contribute to the conversation.

Ari Aster deserves some recognition and credit for taking such a bold and unadulterated approach to the horrors of the grieving process. He's made 2 feature length films in the past few years and neither shy away firstly from the extreme violence, horror and neglect that humans are capable of. But secondly, and more importantly, he is disturbingly willing to show the horrifying ramifications of these atrocities on those who survive them.

No one escapes this life unscathed, we all have a personal relationship with death intermittently through our travels until ultimately we no longer can be distant from it. Aster's films act as a Rorschach test for the grieving process.

I dare to say those who are less willing to face the horrors of grief and the human condition are going to be the ones most likely to be repulsed by his films.

His motif is violent and abstract, and his subject matter is difficult, but ultimately Aster is Force feeding us the grieving process unadulterated.

This movie is a marvel of cinematography, it's disorienting it's so gorgeous.

The acting is fantastic, and the score is unnerving but tonally perfect.

This is not a horror film, this is a traumatic experience. But I believe those who are willing to view the film with an openness and an allowance for their own experience to shape their process, the film will offer them a sense of comfort and relatability that is really unmatched in cinema today.

No one in cinema today is making films that are an experience like Aster is, and he should be celebrated for it.