Stars: Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas
Rated: R
Released: 1996
What I “know”: It was a critical darling. Everyone loved this movie. I also know it’s apparently 2:42 long. *sigh*
What I know after reading the Netflix sleeve: “Set against the backdrop of World War II, this Oscar-winning drama stars Ralph Fiennes as a badly burned pilot who recounts a tale of doomed romance to the nurse tending him. As his story spills out via flashbacks, so do secrets about his identity.”
OK, color me intrigued. Let’s do this.
TRAILER!
4:28: Do we eventually find out why he was flying through the desert with a dead woman in the plane with him?
6:03: I can not imagine many methods of travel after burning to a crisp in a plane crash that would suck more than “strapped to a board atop a camel with a wet cloth and a corn husk over your face.” It hurts me just to watch it.
10:21: I love that Ralph is over here, horridly burned, struggling to breathe, and he’s still giving this guy a hard time about being German.
11:25: Juliette Binoche is just French for “Julia Roberts,” isn’t it?
12:20: Dang, she lost her man and her best friend in the first 12 minutes of this movie.
17:31: When they were coming up with the makeup for Lord Voldemort, did they just base it on this movie and say, “take off his nose?” That’s all I can see when I see him, and I’ve never even seen the HP movies.
18:04: You know how you can just tell you’re going to dig a movie? I dig this one.
20:33: I’m sure there’s a rational explanation that I’m too dumb to get, but why is there outdoor running water at this abandoned castle where she’s caring for him?
22:42: COLIN FIRTH. Also, is Kristin Scott Thomas the dead girl in the plane? How does she end up in his plane? Why is she dead?
32:26: Hey, Willem Dafoe used to look normal!
35:39: I don’t like their little flirting thing here. She is married. To Colin Firth. You don’t mess with that. Does she kill herself over their burgeoning love triangle?
38:00: Ugh, now he’s dancing with her and they’re both instantly giving bedroom eyes. NO. And Colin Firth has to watch it all! Ugh.
38:50: “Escort me, by all means, but following is predatory, isn’t it?” she says lightly. There is then like 15 seconds of AWKWARD silence as they dance and she realizes she is, very much, his prey.
42:43: Oh, Colin Firth, you can’t leave now. This is the worst possible time for you to leave.
44:47: Why is Willem Dafoe shooting heroin??
46:57: “I’ll probably marry him,” Hana says of the Sikh she just met. “Really? That’s sudden,” Ralph Fiennes retorts. FINALLY someone gets all this crazy timeline stuff is crazy.
52:40: Sure, the figures on the wall could be swimming. Or they could be flying. Or lying dead. You can’t tell from stick figures on walls, weirdos.
53:21: What was with the weird scene with the one dude hitting his head, the other dude making sure he’s OK, and Ralph Fiennes making shifty, judgy eyes at them? Is he a homophobe? Did he think there was some sort of dude-on-dude action going on in this ancient cave? Just seems like such a weird scene.
53:49: Oh, wait. Maybe there is dude-on-dude action! “How do you explain, to someone who has not been here, feelings that seem quite normal?” Hey, you do you buddy.
55:18: OK, so the dude on top of the car fell off. The dude driving the car (his flirting partner) swerves and rolls down the dune with Fiennes in the passenger seat. I get all that. Why did the second car drive straight down? Glad everyone survived, regardless.
55:54: So she volunteers to stay behind with Fiennes, while invoking her husband. Classy lady.
1:03:31: So their truck just has sand up against the side upon which the wind was blowing, but the other truck, on its side, is completely submerged under sand? I was wondering what that honking sound was. Those must be some airtight Jeeps!
1:11:05: Dang, Ralph Fiennes has some nice-looking eyes.
1:12:35: WHAT THE WHAT WAS THAT? She comes to him, like in a dream, he strides to her, she beats the crap out of him, he grabs on to her and sinks to his knees, and her hitting slowly becomes stroking his hair and she says “You still have sand in your hair.” WHAT IS HAPPENING?
1:12:49: This had better be a dream. Because he just ripped her dress open and they are in front of open doors and windows.
1:12:59: This did not appear to be a dream. He is now sewing her dress back together.
1:21:45: Thank you for a realistic sex scene in a movie. She’s making weird faces, they’re choppy … thank you. I mean, realistic aside from having sex like 10 feet away from a group of soldiers singing carols.
(insert 3-month break where I didn’t finish this movie)
1:22:23: I get that Ralph Fiennes has nice eyes. But you can’t be dismissive of dedicated Colin Firth in a Santa suit!
1:23:06: *Colin snuggling her* “What do you smell like?” She smells like Ralph Fiennes, not marzipan.
1:25:06: I don’t think I can express how bad of an idea Colin showing up to surprise her is. But he didn’t follow her cab? He just let her go? I guess it might not be a nearly three-hour movie if he had.
1:40:12: Well that whole thumb scene was next level gross.
1:42:52: They are not good with keeping their affair a secret. A.) His coworker guy is all “Pull yourself together” and now B.) He’s got his arm around her at some public movie showing.
1:44:31: HAHAHAHAH she walked into a support post after ending things with him. That was hilarious.
1:47:05: Maybe they should have taken Ralph’s drink away while he was up rambling about. Yeesh. Not a good look.
1:47:40: Also not a good look: Shoving a woman against a wall as you verbally assault her. No wonder she chose Colin Firth over you … for now.
1:48:32: And then following it up with a DEMAND she dance with you because you want to feel “what is yours?” Gross. So gross.
1:50:43: Oh good, Hana finally got it on with her Sikh husband-to-be. Oh, no wait, it’s even better! He’s showing her beautiful things! And then they got it on after that!
1:53:54: Oh, wait, apparently this is not the first time. She visits him every night. Good on you!
1:55:44: I have a really bad feeling about him inspecting this bomb, mostly because she had a bad feeling about it. Trust a woman’s intuition.
1:58:45: That was very suspenseful. I exhaled at the end without realizing I had been holding my breath.
2:03:12: MAYBE, just maybe, Hana, the reason he’s not letting you in is he saw the freaking bloody remains of his partner last night in an ambulance. Maybe he just needs you to give him a TINY amount of space. For a nurse, she’s not very observant. On the plus side, Kip’s posture is OUTSTANDING.
2:10:29: So Colin decides to go out in a blaze of glory and decide to kill his cheating wife and former friend at the same time, but he’s the only one who bites it? Well, I know she does eventually, but she lived through that crash despite being in the front seat? Yikes.
2:12:48: “I wouldn’t want to die here. I don’t want to die in the desert.” Well then maybe make better life choices. Because, spoiler alert, you very much do die there.
2:14:20: I know he doesn’t have a choice … he can’t just carry her for three days to the next town. But lighting a small fire on rocks and being like “I’ll be back in six days, here’s some water, food and a book for you to enjoy with your broken wrist” … I mean, that fire’s not going to last for six days.
2:21:17: Man, Ralph is really getting into the violence of everything. Not that poor guard’s fault you assaulted a dude. No need to choke this guy out. Now he has a broken leg, too, because he jumped off a moving train.
2:22:22: “So yes, she died. Because I loved her. Because I had the wrong name.” No, because when you were asked to spell it you grabbed a guy by the throat and starting cussing him up and down. Your name didn’t kill her. Though, I also think his plan of “I’ll ask for a doctor and a car and they’ll just give me both” was a longshot at best.
2:29:39: Did he lose the ability to speak? He can’t just say, “Dear God, Hana, kill me. Please.”? I mean, I get it. Dude’s been through a lot (most of it his own doing, but still, who among us hasn’t done stupid stuff for love?
OK, so I spoke a little early in saying I was going to dig this movie. I didn’t NOT dig it, but it was long and it dragged a lot. There really wasn’t a lot of THERE there; it was gorgeous and the underlying story was fine, but it could have been a 2-hour movie. I still don’t fully understand why Dafoe’s character came in so early. If he was there to kill him, why spend days and weeks around him?
This is the first movie I’ve done here where I think the choppiness inherent in this blog affected my enjoyment. Pausing it every couple of minutes to get a time marker and type so as not to miss anything did make this longer and choppier than it would have been had I just sat down to watch it.
Next up: “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World!”