I am by no means against cinema as a visceral, visual art form, and in general I try to go with a filmmaker if they try to add an element of the abstract to a conventional film structure, but there's a fine line between cinema as an art form and, say, "Mirror, Father, Mirror" by the art teacher in Ghost World.
The Elephant Man is a brutally touching, sad exploration of humanity and inhumanity which would have been far more powerful had David Lynch not put abstract shit-dickery in the way of its incredible story. As purely a biopic I thought it was put together incredibly well, deftly examining the highs and lows of this poor man's life, but what was with that herd of stampeding elephants at the beginning? Baffling.
And the end, where a puff of smoke played in reverse symbolically signals the end of Merrick's life just as the same smoke had signalled his birth at the beginning of the film. It seemed too much like gimmickry intended to trick film students into thinking it was high art, and ultimately I found it distracting from what really is a brilliant biographical movie.
Carmen
Posted October 26, 2009.It was such a sad movie =[ but enjoyable at the same time