BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

lasttimeisaw At the age of 90, Alain Resnais' new film YOU AIN'T SEEN Nothing' YET (Vous n'avez encore rein vu 2012) has continued to stun the Cannes this year, although ended up empty-handed, which reminds me a cruel matter-of-fact that Alain has eluded my watch list completely, so as a starter, PROVIDENCE, his 1977 experimentally maturer work may suit the case, plus it's in English.So conspicuously, Resnais' opus is quite difficult to chew, the film charts an aging writer's one sleepless tormenting night with his imagination world of a plot mingles with his closest relatives, profoundly literary and surrealistic. The interrelation among its characters are not being unveiled until the last episode of a real world luncheon for the writer's 78 birthday, when his two sons and one daughter-in-law arrive, there is a pure revelation in this paragraph, no matter how irreverent or symbolistic its previous segments are, Resnais did manifest that the deepest humanity underneath a well-protected hypocrisy, an individualist rumination.The film might be uneasy to watch since the performances are flaky (David Warner is rather awful and hollow in it), the structures with their implausible consequences are never quite straightforward enough to be participated enthusiastically. Dirk Bogarde and Ellen Burstyn are less-exploited reckoning on their knack, so only Sir John Gielgud's soliloquy of a pain- molested night is a substantial career-defining work, but the sway is too marginal to lift the whole film. For me, watching the very first work of a maestro is always a tentative challenge, as it hardly gives any trace of characterization or personal antics there to dig, but I smell somewhat of a bourgeoisie blasting and sarcasm which I don't quite comprehend yet whether could be pigeonholed among one of Resnais' trademarks or not, but the film's heady otherworldliness surely invites me into a distinguished world of Alain Resnais, hope PROVIDENCE is not the best he is able to bestow.

bfcg Obviously, Providence has not been created to be understood at a first glance. Dream, nightmare, reality, you're never sure that you are in one of these fields. But, one thing is real : it's a great movie. It has been said that the life and personality of Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890-1937), the famous fantastic novelist which created the Cthulhu myth, was a big part of inspiration for the dying hero of Providence. I'm not sure of that. But, it is a matter of fact that HP Lovecraft spend most of his life in the city of Providence. Nevertheless, Providence is a captivating movie played by such great actors (Gielgud, Bogarde...) and Resnais' camera is writing an atmosphere all along the story. As it was a novel on paper, not a movie on celluloid. Maybe is that why this movie is so magic.

dimbda I saw this film at release and have seen it several times since and this motion picture still holds up, a seemingly complex story that unravels steadilythroughout the film. Resnais uses every dramatic device available to tell what becomes a moving and tender portrait, not least visual puns, particularly asequence where Dirk Bogarde drives across "town", in which a very simplemontage predates digital morphing as seen in current commercials, smoothly linked through the activity of the character. All good Resnais films include an examination of the minds of his characters and this is a superb twist-and-turn reality that involves us completely. The acting of course is flawless and includes a wonderful pairing of the great Elaine Stritch and Ellen Burstyn. David Warner, a personal favorite, is actually given the opportunity to act and steps up to the plate and compliments Dirk Bogarde's cool and wooden portrait. I regularly look for this release on DVD and am consistently disappointed. Could someonepublish it soon?

davidf33 A double header of complex imagination (first part) and painful recrimination (second part) in this film of deep feeling and hurt seen through the eyes of the dying author (John Gielgud). David Mercer's script includes all his life long angst of the relationship of father and son, although now in his final years fought out with more complex and participating female characters in the ghost of his dead wife, who doubles as his son's mistress (Elaine Stritch) and daughter-in-law (Ellen Burstyn).The acting is pure poetry with John Geilgud at his refined best as the drunken and dying author in part celebrating his life of drunken womanising and in part regretting the pain that he has caused, in particular to his family. Dirk Borgarde performing the impossible task of being two imaginary characters and one real one with seemless effort. As the son of the dying author he carries all the pain and hatreds of the dying father both in the old man's fantasy and in his real life of inherited disillusionment. His relationship with his wife and mistress (in practice his mother! complex eh!) changes from the deeply loving to the perceive accusatory of the old man's increasingly drunken imagination.Ellen Burstyn gives one of her finest film performances as the long suffering wife ,but in the end all the plaudits go to the writer. The style may be only that of the one-liner but each of them hits as an aphorism from the greatest of philosophical minds. The revolving characters of the final part of the authors dreaming make a bewildering tapestry of the imagination.A fabulous movie, but one that will take many viewings to actually comprehend the complexities of it. Set that video!!