a Serious Man

just got back from seeing it, still don't know what to think of it. I probably need to see it again but it reminded me of the Coen's doing something like synecdoche. What did you all think of it?

I thought it was going to be far superior to Burn and in some ways it was but overall i think i enjoyed Burn more even though it was kind of a throw away comedy in comparison.

Burn is so underrated even though its pretty highly rated.

  On 10/12/2009 at 6:02 PM, Wall Bird said:

 

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I enjoy the fact that aside from the possibility of not being aggressive enough when it came to things like being asked to move to the Jolly Roger that Lawrence, I felt, never made a misstep. He was always aloof and to the point about whatever problem was facing him and kept a cool head through most of his ordeals. A person like that is a relief. It definitely made him a more sympathetic character to know that he wasn't making poor choices and may have even directly been responsible for most, if any, of his woes.

 

There were a lot of points where I felt like the dialogue could have easily degenerated into characterizations that were obvious and heavy handed in their presentation of the people as comically dumb or ignorant. Instead, characters, like the junior rabbi, maintained a straight-face throughout their scenes which I enjoyed because it's much more in line with the reality of how relationships with a lot of people are. You can often suspect that someone may not be as sharp as they are acting and sometimes you can never know for sure, they never give you clear-cut examples that, perhaps, they're really naive and dumb.

 

I'm still having trouble making out the ending of the film. It seemed very foreboding, as if Lawrence's problems were really about to begin and that we'd only just seen the tip of something larger. However, we're left with only suggestions which may not actually mean anything but due to their inclusion in the ending allow our imaginations to run wild with speculation.

 

I also cant quite figure out the significance or allegory of the prologue and the dybbuk. My first thought was that maybe Lawrence is being compared to the walking dead. He continues to function while having no soul, or something to that effect. Maybe it could be related to the midwestern middle-class cliche of being too concerned about material possessions and having no real life in you. Perhaps it relates to the zombies returning to the mall in the original 'Dawn of the Dead'. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough to support this hypothesis and Lawrence is far too complex of a person to be broken down into such black and white classifications. So I'm still stumped as to the implications of that prologue.

 

thanks for the review

anybody else see it yet? Today is the official wide release date for everywhere in the US

Looking forward to this one indeed!