Negatives: 1. Could have been five stars, but three hours of basically the same difficult to understand scenes and story was exhausting. A bit of editing (like half) and you would never have known since everything was redundant from dialogue to action to mud. 2. The science is really bad, but in this case it makes no difference because it doesn't play into the story. The science is someone is sent from Earth to bring order to another planet that basically is identical to middle ages Europe from pigeons to horses to buildings to inhabitants. If the state/condition of this other planet is suppose to have some metaphorical meaning - I missed it. 3. As far as the God angle - having control over others lives - I had a hard time finding that message in this film. Maybe it was attention span, or translations, or scene overload? Positives: 1. The camera work was unique in that practically every scene is claustrophobically close in. 2. The sets and props (buildings, clothing, swords, etc.) were amongst the best I've ever seen in a period film. Very nastily real. The conditions were beyond the worst imaginable even for the extreme poverty and slum enclaves of Bangladesh, India, Mexico, Brazil. 3. Not a black & white film, but gray and gray. Everything is gray from mud to people to buildings and it all works to convey information and mood. 4. The conveyance of delusion, psychosis, schizophrenia from bizarre behaviors to nonsensical language permeate every scene along with
5. Disgusting beyond belief fecal, snot, saliva spitting/sharing, mud sharing, body gouging scenes even imaginable ("Centipede" and "Game of Thrones" are tame, comparatively). 6. Many of the cast were selected and made up to convey a freak show setting; not sure if one could legally film such characterization in the U.S. today, but intended, I think, to show the decay of civilization. 7. Worth seeing because it is definitely unique.
Review of Hard to Be a God
