No Other Choice

A very 2020s prestige feature: everything looks constantly heightened, over-the-top, hyperventilated and doubled down to create a 'sensorial' experience as a way to reinforce its already obvious (and stupidly literal?) metaphorical speeches. I've never seen a film so eager to be regarded as timely, to the point it has to rub its angst up against our faces, noses and ears to make sure we are getting it. My main problem with PCW is that he's always shooting faces, places and gestures in ravishing (or just blatantly showy) ways -- millions of raccords and playful transitions, restless camera movements and tricks, not to mention the abundancy of zooming and editing bits --, but I never care too much about the picture as a whole, which on a closer inspection actually tends to bring up his worst tendencies -- just look at the costume party, to name one really terrible section. Guess we totally get and kinda enjoy his batshit satirical approach, from the very first shots, to AI/full automation as the new (final, please) stage of late capitalism and extreme forms of precarious work in a society where is commonly and institutionally acceptable that few people will thrive (or survive), so I guess there's a solid 90-minute film here. This would have to be a hundred times wackier to win me over. So yeah, I might just be a soldier of the Bong army.