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Yar, you be here: No Such Thing > Customer Reviews No Such Thing Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 16 Reviews)best character I have seen...in a long...long...time!
You know, the new Star Wars movies did not have a character that could hold my interest, but the monster in this movie does. Mr. Burke, had to wear skin to play this part, but he played it with more than the skin, with his eyes, expressions, his voice. I have not seen a more unique character than this one. My favorite character in books is from 'Le Miserables', and from movies, this monster. Watch it you'll be surprised. One of the oddest films I've ever seen
The main character, Beatrice, is a saint in the making. Early in the film we learn that a monster has killed her 'fiance' Jim, and two other journalists, in Iceland. The fact that he was her fiance is our clue that she's still innocent, pure. She volunteers to go and investigate, meets resistance because she's so young, but prevails. We find out that her mother has recently died, and she has no other family. This establishes her as free of normal human connections, as a saint should be. Setting out, she can't get a cab because of a bomb scare at the airport; she can't take the subway because of a nerve gas attack. She gets a ride in the back of a truck belonging to men who destroy things for a living - demolitions experts. Her plane crashes into the ocean and she's the only survivor. She's rescued by a fishing boat and ends up in a hospital in Iceland, which was her destination. You see, NOTHING can stop her. It's pointed out to her that she has nothing - but she refuses money for the story of the plane crash, how the other passengers behaved, 'who was brave, who was a coward'. 'They were people', she tells her boss. And she's a saint, so she doesn't need money. She's given a choice: have an agonizing operation or remain crippled. Of course she chooses the operation, so that she can carry out her mission. During the surgery we see her doctor wincing and covering her ears in response to Beatrice's screams (covered by the soundtrack). When she's up and about she dumps her walker for a cane, and as her doctor drives her north the next day, in search of the monster, she ditches the cane at a cafe along the road. By the time the road runs out she's able to mount a horse and ride into the mountains. She's fully healed. The residents of a village who've been paying tribute to the monster drug her and leave her unconscious, wrapped in a shroud, as an offering to the monster. He won't hurt her. He proves to her that he killed her fiance; she cries but won't get angry at him. In an act of saintly forgiveness, she brings him back to New York to search for Dr Artaud, the one man who can kill him (his wish is to die). I won't go on. The movie is a fairy tale, religious allegory, and satire, rolled together. The first time I saw it I turned the CD off in disgust. Then I couldn't stop thinking about it... I went back to it and saw what I'd missed... this film should become a cult classic. Hartley's stunning epic
No Such Thing is my favorite of several favorite Hal Hartley films. I find Dante's Divine Comedy under the surface of this epic wherein Beatrice and the monster journey through the Inferno of contemporary America and climb up to Paradise and the divinity of pure love at the ending. It's a brilliant film: hilarious and tragic, dark, mythic, and deep.
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