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mc776When I was just outside the mall on my way to see the film I was accosted by a Mormon missionary. I let him down with the nonconfrontational, noncommittal "I'll think about it" and forgot to point out the film I was going to see and the irony of his being here representing the one church most notorious for pumping money and energy into the Proposition 8 campaign. Now I'm glad I didn't - it would have cheapened the sheer brilliance of this film.
The pacing and colours and juxtaposition positively made the story dance across the screen. The deliberately grainy, contrasty look designed to blend in with the real 70s-era news footage presented a seamless world to the viewer's eyes, giving an air of authenticity and tangibility that's lost in so many overproduced, videogame-like movies from this decade. I actually felt a little bad when someone on Flixster said they wanted to see it but it would probably not be on the big screen - it's still a great film, but you're missing out on a lot. Everyone onscreen was whoever they were playing - this is easily the first film in my adult life where the good-guy-gets-beat-down-then-makes-a-knockout-recovery sequence actually hit me emotionally.
Early on, the missionary had led with a question: what do you see about the churches now, what is it that they're missing, where you would have expected a presence in Christ's time? I gave some lame half-thought answer or other, not unlike ~Well, the churches are bigger now~, but Milk completed the answer for me: people, young and old, rich and poor, of all races and tribes and creeds and abilities, some living in secret, some defiantly open, fleeing and fighting a stilted, degenerate society that has ostracized them as the scum of the earth on vague and paranoid notions of social stability and repressed masculine insecurity, risking everything to be together, united in faith, hope, and love.
The pacing and colours and juxtaposition positively made the story dance across the screen. The deliberately grainy, contrasty look designed to blend in with the real 70s-era news footage presented a seamless world to the viewer's eyes, giving an air of authenticity and tangibility that's lost in so many overproduced, videogame-like movies from this decade. I actually felt a little bad when someone on Flixster said they wanted to see it but it would probably not be on the big screen - it's still a great film, but you're missing out on a lot. Everyone onscreen was whoever they were playing - this is easily the first film in my adult life where the good-guy-gets-beat-down-then-makes-a-knockout-recovery sequence actually hit me emotionally.
Early on, the missionary had led with a question: what do you see about the churches now, what is it that they're missing, where you would have expected a presence in Christ's time? I gave some lame half-thought answer or other, not unlike ~Well, the churches are bigger now~, but Milk completed the answer for me: people, young and old, rich and poor, of all races and tribes and creeds and abilities, some living in secret, some defiantly open, fleeing and fighting a stilted, degenerate society that has ostracized them as the scum of the earth on vague and paranoid notions of social stability and repressed masculine insecurity, risking everything to be together, united in faith, hope, and love.