if you're a regular here, you'll know i tend to deviate from fashion sometimes and touch ground with my other great love - cinema. fashion people, bare with me.
so i've said this before, but i hate hype. i will go out of my way not to watch, buy or try something just because of the (usually hysterical) hype surrounding it. it tends to mist up your vision so much so, that what might actually, in reality, be rather mediocre, might appear to be "absolutely brilliant" or "sooooo forward-thinking" and on most occasions, for me at least, the hype tends to lead to major disappointment.
surprisingly, Tom Ford's A Single Man didn't receive much hype locally at all. despite appearing in a number of international magazines that i've been flipping through the past few weeks, i really haven't heard much about it around town and not even from my trusted name-dropping acquaintances.
prior to the release, i think there were two schools of thought: 1. "Tom Ford is brilliant and everything he touches will naturally be brilliant too." and 2. "What gives him, a fashion designer the right to think he can direct a film?" i was pretty open-minded about it. on the one hand, he is a designer and not a filmmaker and it does irk me when models want to be DJs and actors want to be designers. on the other hand, Ford has taste. period. Ford would not have allowed this film to be released unless, it was pure perfection. i walked into the cinema knowing this yet still, i was completely blown away and... speechless, which i never am after a film.
it was an aesthetically poignant film! the reality Ford created was saturated with an unobtainable beauty and visual perfection. there was not a hair out of place or a crease in sight. Ford is known for being immaculate - in his design, appearance and now in his filmmaking too.
the script was skeleton-like, which really forced you to focus on the cinematography, the grainy footage and visual brilliance. the close-ups and extreme long shots were painfully intimate and always eloquent and a number of scenes resembled campaigns from a modern Vogue. it has Ford's signature scribbled all over it. if you do anything this week, make sure this is it! if you have a weakness for beautiful things, you will appreciate it for what it is... and please note, this is not hype, this is an honest, heart-felt recommendation.
2 comments:
You know I agree...
"trusted name-dropping acquaintances" would they perhaps come from the same womb?
Beautiful! You should be a film critic Landy, defintely one of the most poignant films I've seen this year, like a well tailored piece it is timeless.
Piet, we are not namedroppers
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