Post by sgev1977 on Sept 2, 2021 16:24:55 GMT
From mubi,
mubi.com/notebook/posts/venice-dispatch-almodovar-s-parallel-mothers-ancarani-s-atlantide-campion-s-the-power-of-the-dog
Cumberbatch’s performance ranks among his finest to date. Skulking between rage and vulnerability, between madness and timidity, his work as Phil is the film’s zenith. The foulmouthed, bilious rancher carries none of the priggish aura that characterized some of the actor’s previous period roles: Phil hurtles into the film as a wrecking ball, but all the fury he channels belies a deep-seated fragility that restitutes him as an ambiguous, shapeshifting figure. There is a whole film in the split second his lips take to curl and tremble upon hearing Peter recalling his own father’s suicide, and another in the time he takes, half naked in the woods, to smell an old handkerchief gifted to him by a late friend—his first lover?
More than anything though, to paraphrase one of Hemingway’s adages, you get the feeling that The Power of the Dog floats towards you as an iceberg, of which only a fraction is visible to the eye. Campion leaves a few questions purposely unanswered—on the nature of the bond between lad and rancher, the fate of the either, the kind of future that awaits the Burbanks—all while things that seemed peripheral to the plot eventually accrue a life-or-death magnitude. That explains why the film feels so joltingly alive. Every detail feels part of a larger canvas of which Campion only shows the contours, inviting you to venture deeper into its maze, blurring as much as it reveals: The Power of the Dog is a riveting, endless unfurling.
More than anything though, to paraphrase one of Hemingway’s adages, you get the feeling that The Power of the Dog floats towards you as an iceberg, of which only a fraction is visible to the eye. Campion leaves a few questions purposely unanswered—on the nature of the bond between lad and rancher, the fate of the either, the kind of future that awaits the Burbanks—all while things that seemed peripheral to the plot eventually accrue a life-or-death magnitude. That explains why the film feels so joltingly alive. Every detail feels part of a larger canvas of which Campion only shows the contours, inviting you to venture deeper into its maze, blurring as much as it reveals: The Power of the Dog is a riveting, endless unfurling.
mubi.com/notebook/posts/venice-dispatch-almodovar-s-parallel-mothers-ancarani-s-atlantide-campion-s-the-power-of-the-dog