I didn't know much about "Gate of Hell" before I watched it other than that it won an honorary foreign film Oscar in 1954 before there was a competitive international category and that it also won the award for color costume design at a time when it was rare for foreign films to be recognized in technical categories. It might have just been a matter of bad timing, therefore, that I wasn't in to it. I had just watched the Ridley Scott film "The Last Duel" earlier in the same weekend, and the two films share a lot of the same plot points and themes. I think I just wasn't in the mood for another story about aggressive and toxic men going after each other over a woman who's given very little say in what happens to her.
The film is rather famous for its stunning color, deservedly so. If the Academy was going to recognize it for its costume design, it should have done the same for the art direction. It's a slowly paced film. It felt sluggish to me, but again, in a different mood, maybe I would have found the pacing suspenseful rather than slow.
Grade: B.
The film is rather famous for its stunning color, deservedly so. If the Academy was going to recognize it for its costume design, it should have done the same for the art direction. It's a slowly paced film. It felt sluggish to me, but again, in a different mood, maybe I would have found the pacing suspenseful rather than slow.
Grade: B.