Review of El Dorado (1966) by Reginald R — 31 May 2005

In Heavenly Creatures Peter Jackson sends us on a colorful journey into the mindset of a stereotypical teenage girl. Two of them actually. As to be expected, the realm of young minds in a developing stage is often enthusiastic and full of dreams, but also superficial, predictable, emotionally unstable and not yet in full moral and intellectual capacity. Jackson does a fairly good job in exploring these different aspects. It takes some time to get used to the exuberant style that Jackson uses to visualize the world of these two girls, in fact initially it strikes anyone with so much as half a brain as excruciatingly annoying, but ultimately as the film proceeds deeper into the story, you almost forget about the noisy colors and loud editing, and it all does serve a good purpose. It is questionable whether the director completely succeeds to explain what he sets out to do, but definitely he comes close enough to make the film a worthwile experience.

Shawshank Redemption is a friendly little prison flick. One could accuse the means the film uses to draw out emotion as cheap and conventional hollywood style, but if something is well done and works, it's certainly good enough for me.

El Dorado is a Howard Hawks western with John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and James Caan. At some point it turns out rather peculiarly as what is essentially a remake of a lot of Rio Bravo. But where Rio Bravo occationally edged boringness in it's drawn out monotone, El Dorado has some more variety in the story and it expands on the comedy factor which was there in Rio Bravo as well. I'd claim that the general atmosphere is a little more laid back and fun. One thing I want to mention is the fact that they don't stay in the same town the whole time. It's a little thing but it helps to expand our view of that world. I don't want to make this a case against Rio Bravo, that film did intentionally aim at certain claustrophoby and suspension, but El Dorado succeeds in a healthier balance of comedy and character story without sacrificing any of the action either. Then again they're very similar and they're both good.

And a spanish drama-comedy called El Cielo Abierto (Ten Days Without Love, 7/10), which was ok.

That's all for today.