Okay, I'll bite.
quote: | Originally posted by WittyHandle
Sucker Punch was visually interesting, but otherwise without value.
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This is just too reductionist. You can't say a film is "visually interesting" and then ignore how these stylistic elements relate to the whole formal system of the film and its subtext.
Even if we completely forgot about what Sucker Punch says and that it actually self-reflexively comments on the problem of male gaze and objectification of women in cinema, the movie is still very inventive in the way it's narrated. I've heard people compare it to Inception, even claiming Snyder somehow stole Nolan's idea (how meta would that be?), but notice how differently each film treats its spectator. While Inception spends lots of time doing exposition that explains how its film world works, so that the viewers could later profit from that knowledge (which is common practice in Hollywood filmmaking), Sucker Punch moves through its layers ("reality", brothel, dream sequences) only by manipulating its style and without much literal explaining. The viewer is forced to make their own hypotheses and conclusions not only about the plot, but also about the nature of the presented world. More specifically, the explanation is abstract and lies outside of the diegetic world of the film - the layers are motivated transtextually: by genre and gender conventions. The "visuals" are a part of this and help the viewer navigate through the film (notice how each layer has its own distinct style).
Sucker Punch actually has a structure of an art film, even if its thematic content hints otherwise. I wrote a pretty long neoformalist analysis on this film (not in English) that goes deeper into explaining why it is a clever self-reflexive movie, so if you're interested, I can continue.
I'm not saying that anyone has to like the film because of this but dismissing it as dumb or of little value really seems quite harsh.
Last edited by GoSpeedGo! on Nov-09-2011 at 15:49
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