jobloffski
Posts: 1836
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: elsewhere
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Liked it first time, like it now. Still think it's a more sophisticated film than many others do, with such little details as bond using an object then throwing it away once its served its purpose repeated throughout the film, building up to him leaving Vesper's necklace lying in the snow.
Love the camerawork, which for all its Bourneisms at times also reflects the fractured state of Bond's mind (in that opening chase you see glimpses of parts of his face amongst the chaos, his eyes reflected in the rear view mirror, etc before you see his face, not unemotional, but falling apart on the inside, masking this with coldness the way men do all the time). Love the locations, particularly the desert, reflecting the wasteland inside Bond's soul at that point, going (almost literally) through the fires of hell and finding a way out when he was in danger of being lost forever.
That, for me is what this film is really, and deliberately about. Anyone expecting the usual malarkey will still be disappointed by the film, because they perhaps want to see a Bond they can fantasise about being whereas CR and QOS have been squarely focused upon what Bond is, under the charm. And what he is, is someone who will not stop, ever, until he has got to where/who he is trying to get to, no matter who or what gets in his way. Take the quips away and such a character aint pretty. And quips would have been totally inappropriate for Bond in this film which is obviously why they are absent.
He has now (sort of) declared his emotions and his heart useless to him, and in throwing away Vesper's necklace (at a cold location, again reflecting Bond's state of mind at the time) has signalled an intention never to let love get in the way of his duty ever again.
It's what Fleming may well have wanted, because the fear of ever falling in love again and the consequences for those he loves when he does fall for them are as much a part of his Bond as all the glamorious locations and bad guy confrontations are. It was brave of Ms Broccoli to allow the films to take the direction they have, and now that this has happened the sky truly is the limit for future Bond films.
The series can be brave enough to commit itself fully to an enjoyable romp or a serious story, instead of trying to shoehorn both comedy and seriousness into every film, every time. Every film can now be its own beast, instead of being an almost committee decided rewrite of 'the things people expect from a Bond Film'.
For the record, the 'From Russia with Love' novel doesn't even have Bond in it for about the first hundred pages, imagine how mental Bond Movie Fans would go if a film tried to be that faithful to Fleming!
And even those who don't rate, or even those who vociferously hate the latest Bond film will eventually have it to thank for setting the series free from it's past (via a story that depicts an almost destroyed 007 doing exactly the same thing, setting himself free from his past, ie Vesper).
Damn, I wish I got paid for saying stuff like this
< Message edited by jobloffski -- 23/3/2009 1:15:45 PM >
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Yes, dreamers dream and doers do. But if dreamers DON'T dream, doers don't have anything TO do. Everything that is only here because people exist, only exists because someone thought of it., or in other words, dreamed it.
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RE: Quantum of Solace - 
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