Before

What got my attention to the movie is unexpected change on one channel. The channel had comments turned off and occasionally different art was posted there. Then there appeared somewhat simplistic yet dissonant review of the movie and comments went turned on. I knew that M. Scorsese looks into ethnical differences and criminal characters and groups. I think I guessed right at the time what moved the channel’s author.

So now a couple months later I got to see the movie.

Even before that

There was a wave of organized crime after Soviet Union collapsed under own weight. This was used to associate lack of authoritarism and lack of law in peoples memory. And criminal stuff is still kept alive on TV for example to keep this demand for law+authoritarism fresh in Russia as it looks. And in more backwards locations which are many in Russia there is no need to artificially support existence of that “culture”. And you learn random criminal notions in school informally.

After

So initially I thought that watching comedy about some psychos is that type of trashy genre one gets to appreciate after post-Soviet experience. But with this movie Scorsese moves the genre to the highest point I think.

Not only because it shows so directly people’s perception and dangerous misperception of others. And also gives this very close and clear experience of criminal “mind” bias or distortion. But also because it touches crimes between different groups of people which is an old genre that is not looking to be going away. And also how it puts accent on the more dangerous not explicitly violent crimes, those with words, good sounding lies and gesticulation.

Content

It is a rich picture so I’m not enumerating here all great shots or wild references.

Abstracting away from described events overall I perceive it as a spicy picture. The secret sauce here is uncommon truths.

Overall American indigenous impression is new to me. That scene about storm is said to be a bit of actual culture there and I find the idea interesting. At moments I had far-eastern at points middle-eastern impression.

Of course movie features strong shots and imagery. And it is the sneaky shots that out of context public would not consider to be strong that do it.

Striking imagery of that owl as evil that enters houses so freely. Got snakes too.

Most astonishing scene is when Hale as some dark priest does speech and waving of hands over Minnie while talking using her language.

The movie has analytical stream too because it pronounces components of the dynamics that is at the root of the problem.

The ending scene goes for lighter social format and finishes on the note of telling the truth and seeing the truth.

UPD:

Normally I do not update cinema posts because that is a lot of updating. But here in the post I didn’t cover the final scene fully.

Obviously the scene is dissonant in multiple ways. So there is more to it. I like how Lucky Strike is not arbitrary there. Random unnamed youtubers assume that FBI connection to the brand is the reason it is there. But they are waste of time and it is the biggest error to be satisfied by second-hand opinions when it comes to arts.