Hello this is jake winters for eye on the triangle this is snowverated and this week I will be taking a look at the film The past.

The past is a film that sneaks up on you. It starts out with a seemingly harmless plot and works its way up to some of the most dramatic final moments that I have witnessed on film. It is a slow build up though which made me appreciate the ending even more. The style of the film is what did it all for me. The past never hesitated to pause on a frame and captivate the audience within the moment. This has some of the best silent scenes and interactions between characters that I have seen in a while.

This goes without saying for how I have already described the film but the acting was superb for the most part. You can never be too hard on children acting in films because it is obvious that they will have little experience in acting but I have to say it detracted from the film at points. It may have just been the positioning of the actors and actresses that caused some of these moments of awkward acting but they stood out to me from the rest of the performances. In most dramas actors and actresses are playing along the edge of being melodramatic and unconvincing and underwhelming. Compare it to a tight rope walker. If they lean in either direction, they will fall short and the scene they are acting in will not live up to its full potential. I was actually stunned by one scene where the director decided to linger on the frame of awkward tenseness and how well the amount of time the silence was endured for continued to send different messages about the interactions of the two silent characters. This shot likely took many takes and a hard deliberation as to which of the takes to use in the final cut of the movie.

The movie takes place in Paris, France and shows a beautiful side of the city that many may not know of. The Iranian sub culture portrayed in the film almost certainly exists in the real world as the places they filmed exist and Paris is a large modern city. Of course this means it has many immigrants from all around the world so it certainly would not be surprising that there would be a number of Iranian immigrants. This mix of culture is part of what makes the movie so unique. It provides a unique perspective of an immigrant who was unhappy with his immigration and therefore chose to abandon the life that he had come to know for the one that he had left behind. This is something I have never really seen discussed or considered in many American movies concerning immigration. In the godfather a character returns to Italy for a time but it is never as a permanent thing and there are many other similar movies where this is the case as well. So needless to say this is a unique perspective and it ends up playing out in a very unique way. Especially since it is only one part of what could almost be considered a two part movie. One part can be considered the struggle between the returning husband and the wife and the other between the wife and her new husband. Both have a lot of overlap but there are some areas that do not in both as well.

The way in which the film ends was probably a difficult choice to make for the director but the one that they eventually came upon is the perfect amount of bittersweetness needed to end a film containing the amount of drama That the past does. I never like to say too much abou the ending of movies but I will assure you that if you are somewhat bored at any point in the movie, which is likely to happen in a 2h and 10m movie, that the end is well worth the wait.

This movie stands out from the crowd of dramas that flood the markets these days in many ways. The story has unique perspective. The characters all feel real and somewhat unpredicatable, There are interwoven plots. And, There are plenty more things I could point out about the film that stand out. But just standing out from the crowd does not make a movie good. A movie that is sxceptionally bad stands out almost as well as a movie that is exceptionally good. This movie as you may have guessed by now is exceptionally good.

I am going to give this film a 4/5. There are parts of the film that could have been removed. Would they have detracted some amount of drama, yes, this film is good so all of its scenes contribute to the final product but I do not think that all of the scenes where necessary. The acting in the film was superb with only minor flaws here and there. Overall a captivating and enjoyable movie.

Thank you for listening to this weeks edition of eye on the triangle and snowverated. I am jake winters and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.