The film tells a story about a self-pilgrimage. The "Knight of the Holy Grail" is one of the tarot cards. The ultra-romantic follower, the illogical emotional animal, also represents the protagonist, who thought it was written by a Hollywood screenwriter named Rick. character. The randomly selected tarot cards are used as subtitles to separate different segments of his life, which is a metaphor for the emotional flow of his life's ups and downs. Malik has never given up the use of voice-over, and Rick's feeble narration in "Knight of the Holy Grail" also floats intermittently above the broken image, constantly asking about the meaning of life and happiness. As a sullen and successful person, his method of sending grief is nothing more than spending a lot of money and falling in love in different ways. The camera follows Rick as he walks through the city of Los Angeles, creating a dizzying visual effect with unrestrained jump cuts. Beaches, skyscrapers, dance venues, swimming pools, hotel rooms, rooftops... all kinds of unrelated scenes appear repeatedly and combine with each other, like a world without a fulcrum in the eyes of sleepwalkers. The pure nature of the natural scenery and the urban intoxication are intertwined with each other. After a moment of tranquility, there is a new round of confusion. Iconic scenes in Malick's films, such as the protagonist turning away in the backlight, and the discreet dance steps of men and women also appear in "Knight of the Holy Grail". If it is said that Malick, who is hiding behind the wide-angle lens, has already achieved poetic perfection in visual expression, then the complete laissez-faire of the plot makes his persistent philosophical speculations eventually degenerate into a metaphysical self-indulgence.
Without a script, Rick's Christian Bale and cast, including Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, and Teresa Palmer, are in an inexplicable perform his own improvisations in the mood. The stylized editing further deconstructs the inner logic of the characters themselves, and the stacking of a large number of artificial symbols and the seemingly poetic dialogue that actually makes a fuss makes the film into the hole of boredom. Rick, who was wearing an Armani suit under the camera of Malick, but was always stunned, has also become a veritable upper-class patient. Knights of the Holy Grail reminds people of many movies with similar emotions, such as the equally loose narrative of "La Dolce Vita" or the more recent "City of Beauty", and Rick, who has been walking and taciturn, even made me think a little inappropriately. Zhao Tao in "Legend of the Sea". A lot of visual oddities against the thin and powerless dialogue, Malick really used this film to say goodbye to language in a Godard-like manner. However, the pretence of being so obsessed with abstraction permeates the film from beginning to end, so that even a key monologue or dialogue can hardly hide its repulsive temperament.
If sleepwalking is also a style, then "Knight of the Holy Grail" really carried it forward. It's just that some viewers are willing to indulge in the gray area between half-dreaming and half-awake, and some viewers, such as me, prefer to wake up from vertigo earlier.
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