The Master (2012)
Finally got to see this tonight. I don't want to get too much into
the film without seeing it a second time, but I will say that it's a confounding and fascinating experience, if not occasionally frustrating. A logical step in Anderson's ouvre,
The Master is an almost-abstract character study/studies, a nearly microscopic examination of two characters (but mainly
the one, Joaquin Phoenix's) and
the strange gravitational relationship they share. It eschews nearly all back-story and explicit motivations in favor of stewing in moments. It is also one of cinema's great study of faces. Framed in tight, telephoto shots, we can see
the subtlest internal movements transmitted on
the surface. And that's to say nothing about
the 65mm spectacle of
the whole thing.
Definitely recommended, but it will warrant and deserve an extra viewing or two.