The Master

Joaquin Phoenix is an amazing actor. I really witnessed that so clearly through the movie The Master. That's one of the main things to talk about this movie. The acting and the difference in the nature of the movie. You know with Joaquin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams in the main cast, it's gonna be a great one. You wouldn't expect an intellectually numbing movie through this. At first before I started watching, I somehow had the idea that this is a biography movie. It almost is, but not quite. 

The movie is based on the 1950 post WWII USA. A veteran soldier having mental 'issues' was driven into a movement called The Cause. The Master, portrayed by Philip, is a kind of a highly charismatic religious leader. He is a favorite, and his followers love him to death. The progress of the veteran, who is driven to the point of insanity by lost love, or unclaimed love as I see it, is shown step by step and the relationships that he makes with the movement and its leaders family, and its consequences, is what the movie is basically about. It narrows on to the weird side with the different processes that the master uses on the veteran to attempt to make him alright. They are interesting, leads to insights that is not encountered anywhere before. That interview session, processing, that's one of the most powerful sequences of cinema I've seen. Joaquin does it so well. Also when Joaquins character with his fucked up state of mind imagines every girl around him naked, there's also Amy Adams there. That scene was just,.. I don't know, arousing and weird. 

But like all religious movements, this also seems like a bullshit attempt to drain the gullible of their money. The charismatic truly can make sense of any crap to sell it to the idiotic masses. If I haven't said it before, I say that now, that I frikking hate hippies. And this seems like a precursor to hippies. So I naturally hated the fact that this happened. And the facts that they seems to introduce seems natural to most of us who have been led by faith to believe all of that as fundamentals, about resurrection, rebirth and causality of everything. The Master reminds me of such personalities as the person who claimed that he is Maithree Buddha in down south Sri Lanka. Many gullible idiots followed him, and donated money for his cause. When you realize the falseness of it all, it is too late. 

The acting is mesmerizing. Fills me with awe. Joaquin and Phillip are just masters of the trade, hands down. There isn't any suspense or curiosity as to drive the viewer to keep watching it. For me the only drive was the powerful nature of the scenes themselves. What grand feat of acting will they pull of next? That was the curiosity that kept me going. The dedication Joaquin puts into it is amazing. This made me wonder that Leonardo DiCaprio will never amount to be a great actor as Joaquin Phoenix because he is too pretty, and because he talks too perfectly. Just a side thought.

Not a favorite for many I believe. But very critically acclaimed. That must go for it. Otherwise, frankly it is just a boring movie.

 

"leave your worries for a while. They'll be still there when u get back. And your memories aren't invited."