Review of The Congress (2013) by Noah C — 13 Jul 2014

Art-house pictures are some of the trickiest films to pull off correctly due to their abstract nature. They can either succeed at the allegorical message they are trying to convey or fail miserably at bringing forth any kind of meaning.

Fourth dimensionally, I interpret the art-house genre as a giant puzzle of imagery and sounds that when correctly assembled together can lead to a truly transformative viewing experience that can change the way an individual interprets the world around him as well as himself.

This year alone Johnathan Glazer's, Under the Skin and Denis Villeneuve's Enemy have been two pictures within that genre that gave me enough pieces to successfully interpret their films and absolutely adore them; I enjoyed Under the Skin to such an extent that it ranks as my favorite movie of the entire year of 2014.

However those successful examples are an extremely rare occasion for a large majority of art-house films often come off as pretentious because the film makers give you only one piece to a hundred piece puzzle expecting you to solve their films hidden allegorical messages; fuck all these metaphors what I'm trying to say is that sometimes directors make films that are confusing, just for the sake of being confusing, which they believe translates to art.

Foolishly I ignored my own advice about art-house flicks and set my expectations for greatness for Ari Folman's The Congress which looked extremely interesting to me. A world where actresses an actors are digitally captured on computers for studios to place within any film they wanted was perhaps the most original concept for a movie I've ever heard of, mostly because of how meta that idea really is.

One immediate issue I found with the film is that Robin Wright plays Robin Wright; simple enough, except Paul Giamati, Jon Hamm, Harvey Keitel and Danny Huston all play characters, not themselves, let the confusion commence.

After a rocky first 40 minutes I was expecting the film to explore how specific studios exploited individuals that lacked control and was quite excited to see how the film would explore that idea yet the director took a giant shit on that idea when Robin quite confusingly enters an animated acid trip world and from there on out any attempt at piecing together a cohesive story can go out the window, for this movie is simply about nothing.

It is a goddamn mess that never contains one simple thing, focus. Robin is always shifting from location to location with seemingly no explanation and every character she meets is extremely forgettable and dull.

One moment her hands turn into giant wings and literally 30 seconds later a plane crashes and Robin has graphic plant sex with another forgettable piece of shit animator. You might be thinking, oh Noah, you see the plants represent life and, shut up with that shit subtlety is what this film lacks, it is the textbook definition of artsy vomit.

My only two positives for this film are the admittedly amazing premise (that never goes anywhere) and the pretty animation on display; other than that this film is pure trash. Not only is this film bad, but much worse than bad it is just extremely disappointing.

A fantastically great movie is hidden among the mediocrity of this film. With more focus and less narcissism from the director this could be a great film, unfortunately as is, this stands as the absolute worst film I have seen in 2014.