Somewhere

The Golden Lion winner at 2010 Venice fest has everything I really like: slow pace, long still camera takes, great cinematography, story telling a slice of character life, many silences, little dialogue, and great tech specs. So why didn’t I enjoy it at all? This is one of the most boring films I have forced (is the Biennale winner) myself to watch lately! Very boring, so boring that had to find unthinkable ways to keep my eyes open and to not fall asleep.

No doubt that story essence helped to be so boring as is all about boredom; a bored actor with a boring luxurious life, a young daughter to look after when ex-wife decides to go with no return date and a boring process to get rid of his boredom. Very boring story that I imagine many successful actors and/or filmmakers will identify with – Sofia Coppola had some inspiration in her own childhood with her father- but general audiences will have a very hard time to relate to life in an hotel apartment at infamous Chateau Marmont, driving a Ferrari, flying helicopters to go to children camp and/or flying to Italy for a couple of days to get an award.

Yes story is hard to watch because is not easy to relate to anything that happens, but I have seen many films with stories I can’t relate and still I have been captivated. Think that main problem with this film is that writer/director Sofia Coppola wasn’t able to manage visuals and narrative to make film interesting. But then I also think that everything was done on purpose to bore audiences to death and if this was the purpose of such a boring film, then she also did wrong as was not as interesting as other very boring films I have seen that are simply fantastic, remember Fassbinder magnificently boring Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?

Who knows what director intentions were but one thing is clear for me, this film is not worthy of any festival top award much less from the Biennale.

I cannot recommend the film as is too tedious but know that many that read the blog have to watch the top winner at 2010 Biennale and just hope that your voyage into this film is not as boring as was mine.

Sigh.

Watch trailer @MOC (be aware that trailer is less boring than film)