I happened to catch this film on the closing night of the Venice Film festival last weekend, and was excited to see a screening of the winner of the Golden Lion. This is my first review on IMDb and I felt compelled to write something for viewers who, like me, would be tempted to watch this film because of the award, but who will be greatly disappointed if they don't have an idea of what's in store. The film is intriguing, I'll give it that; it's something unlike anything I've ever seen. That saying, you couldn't pay me to sit through it again. What started out as a somewhat funny, likable, interesting (albeit it incredibly and purposefully slow) series of stories and glimpses into multiple unrelated characters and scenarios (3 people meeting their death, two morose salesmen peddling party gags, a dance studio with star-crossed lovers coming to the end of a relationship, a retired officer who keeps missing appointments, a modern bar which is visited by military marching to a war from centuries earlier, plus many more) degrades over time into a monotonous, painfully crawling and repetitious snore fest. There are moments of slight humorous relief, which are few and far between and which help alleviate the boredom, but which are ultimately spoiled for me but the tossing in of two random scenes of a tortured animal in a lab and a group of African slaves being burned alive in a segment entitled homo sapiens. I gather the writer/director intend to show what monsters humans are, and I got the message immediately, but the scenes, like all previous scenes, drag on indefinitely, and are definitely a buzz kill. Thankfully the movie ends shortly after. I was disappointed in the film, especially since it initially seemed so promising, but sadly the film spends most of its time following the happenings of the pathetic traveling salesmen, which for me was the least interesting storyline of them all. Added to that, the washed out colours and the elderly characters in their white face makeup and slow movements, made the whole experience drab.
