Knight of Cups

Knight of Cups-720P

Knight of Cups-480P

Impressive piece of art. Explores many feelings and life topics, taking one through some of the deepest human emotions. Christian Bale's performance is amazing -like usual. Cate Blanchett is fantastic as well. And in all fairness, most of the cast deserves an applause. I personally believe this to be Malick's best work, delivering the best he has to offer. Not all publics might understand and enjoy this movie, as it requires a high emotional quotient; and willingness to let yourself flow through the experience. The scenes, the lighting, the angles, the cleanness of the movie... everything is greatly curated. No description or use of words can make justice to the experience of watching this movie.

Maybe my German down-to-earth thinking makes me unable to like films like these. I saw the cast and the trailer so I gave it a try. After the first five minutes I told myself "If this movie isn't changing in the next ten minutes, stop watching!". Unfortunately I kept on watching it and wasted two hours of my life. The movie contains nothing but psychedelic background music, "artistic" camera movement and senseless sentences. Maybe some hardcore cineast or art student can like it, I simply can't. If it was still 2014, I could say that this is by far the worst movie I saw this year.

When we go into a Terrence Malick film, we generally know what we're in for: a spiritual journey into Man's soul through unconventional, yet beautiful cinematic means. Malick's films are mostly unscripted and plot less, instead using nature to assist them iin creating a narrative by use of both visceral and symbolic imagery. And like Werner Herzog, there seems to be an almost divine force on their side. Then there's Knight of Cups: A cinematic farce masquerading as profundity; an excruciating exercise in self indulgent banality. I couldn't believe what was unfolding before me. It was just empty--Lubezki's cinematography, the voice over, the character's-- just empty. A borderline Malick parody. It was almost as if the film was made by a machine, or perhaps some sort of alien being attempting to recreate human emotion. I literally felt nothing while watching it. The only justifiable reasoning I can fathom on how Malick directed this film, is if he was trying to give the audience a hands on experience of the superficiality and mundanity of the protagonist's life. If this is the case, then I suppose the film is technically a success. If you can call that a success. I'd say the filming of paint drying would be an equally effective treatment of the subject.

"Knight of Cups" is the newest film by American filmmaker Terrence Malick, who is way into his 70s by now. First of all, the cast of this 120-minute movie looks excellent: Bale, Portman, Blanchett, Poots, Mueller-Stahl, Kingsley, Banderas, Pinto... you cannot ask for much more than that. However, everybody who knows Malick's other (more recent) works will know that his films are so defined in his unique style that there is rarely room for great acting. And the same is the case here. I thought this was a pretty boring watch, possibly worse than "Tree of Life" and certainly worse than "To the Wonder". Bale is in this one pretty much in every scene from start to finish. We follow his path as he struggles with his brother, but mostly from one relationship with women to the next and it does get repetitive pretty quickly. Müller-Stahl and Portman are very forgettable. Blanchett's scenes are the film's highlight and these 10-15 minutes may have been a good short film, but for these alone it is not worth watching the entire thing. Antonio Banderas is downright embarrassing in his 5 minutes. Lubicki's cinematography is okay, but cannot make up for the weaknesses in script. Some religious moments in here as well and it all feels like a second slightly weaker "Tree of Life". I think Malick is the strongest when he has more than one lead character. Nothing wrong with Bale's performance here. I don't think another actor could have made this work. Oh and a final note about Malick's style in general. It is basically impossible to create a film, in which every scene is an emotional highlight, but that is pretty much what he attempts with the constant classical background music and of course his unique approach where you rarely see the main characters speak, but always hear them in voice-overs. The worst scene was possibly the armed robbery. It absolutely did not fit together with what we heard during this scene. Not a good film unfortunately. All in all, not recommended.

I am usually quite tolerant of movies that seem to miss the mark, but this disaster was nothing but a disjointed series of unrelated scenes. It gave me the impression the director just got a new camera and was trying out all of the features on arbitrary meaningless subjects. It would be very interesting to see how he managed to get some notable actors to participate in this. Maybe they owed someone a favor, I don't know. But what I do know is there is no story of any kind here. Nothing. At least I did not feel too alone when I asked, "What is this about?", as I am sure the actors, writer and director all asked the same questions when the saw the screening. Perhaps a more pertinent questions might be: "How did something like this even get made?"

I gave this film five stars at first viewing, and give it ten at second. The first time I watched it all I saw was the twirling and self parody. But the first time I watched it I was so transfixed by the images that I didn't pay attention to the voice-over. To echo the plot of the movie, I forgot about the Prince and became transfixed with the land he was in. This is an incredible movie, it is more than a movie, it is a profound meditation on the loss and consequent pursuit of spiritual identity in a materialistic world. The vapid empty satisfaction of self that leads nowhere and the rediscovery of purpose within this illusory, bright world brought about by suffering or death. If you're only going to watch this once, don't bother. There's simply too much to process in one viewing. If there's a fault with this movie it is that the images are so hypnotic they distract from the voice-overs overlay that gives them coherence. Perhaps this is intentional and an allegory for the message of the film itself. This is the most subtle film Malick has made, and as such will leave most people shaking their heads in bewilderment and will further polarize his fans and detractors. If you're already a fan, give it a second viewing. It won't disappoint.

As we grow more and more tired of dull as dishwater, predictable, structure obsessed nonsense, we come to love films that want to use the medium to take us on a trip. I see nothing wrong with enjoying beautiful imagery, stunning music and a bit of emotional self analysis for a couple of hours. Or would you rather the story by numbers of say, Joy? I may not have loved this as much as Thin Red Line, or Tree of Life, But am I happy to spend two hours with Mr. M? Indeed I am. Anyone who has led anything verging on an interesting life will have plenty to ponder as this washes over them. This was like meditating. It's freeing to let a sense of the story wash over you without having some contrived plot shoved down your throat. I let the cinema invigorated and cleansed.