Master and Commander: it's a good thing I like cello music

[rm]

It probably would have helped had I read these books before seeing this, because then I would have cared about the characters and perhaps been less utterly lost with all the mumbly nautical talk.

And perhaps Kat and I were just extra extra punchy, but oh my god, I have never engaged in so much inappropriate laughter during what is truly a very well made film. I wish I had someting cogent to say, but I don't -- there's cello music and men bonding and a brave little cripple boy and lizards and some pretty boats! Oh.... being a bad person has never been so fun.

All that aside though, another stellar performance from Paul Bettany.

So has anyone else seen this. What the hell did you make of it?

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'm going to see it soon, in large part because it is directed by Peter Weir. I loved his Australian-made films - The Last Wave is a work of total genius (that oddly only works if seen on the big screen, on video it was nothing special to me), Picnic at Hanging Rock was hauntingly wonderful, and The Year of Living Dangerously is very special for me for a multitude of reasons.

I keep hoping his US films will measure up - Witness was half wonderful and half standard crime flick, I found The Mosquito Coast tiresome, but he recaptured much of his magic in The Truman Show. When his is on, he does disconnection and dealing with otherness better than any director I know, regardless of whether "the other" is a haunted visionary landscape or the back streets of Jakarta.

Did Weir manage to produce a similar sense of disconnection with people out on the high seas?