Storytelling : didn't you just wanna CLAP!!!! (spoilers)

didn't you just wanna CLAP!!!! (spoilers)

i was very happy when consuelo got her revenge on the family near the end, it made me feel so relieved and happy that she killed that bastard fatherfu**er Mikey (i felt sorry for the mom and dad, cuz he has hypnotized). oh! but didn't it just make your heart loosen up? i had this feeling, a great sensation, because he got what he deserved. hell, i would send him to a hostel in slovakia and pay a very good deal for his torturing sesions, and i'll make sure he got the eye burning part. Just when you feel things are going wrong in this movie, it makes up for it in the end.

you might think i'm some sort of psychopath, but i'm not. you all would've done the same thing....

how did you feel about Consuelo's revenge???

WARNING: I'M SEXY!

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That's what's so great about it

There are so many intricate layers to the actions many of these characters take in this film...compared to most films, where characters do something and there's only one clear-cut way to interpret his/her motivations.

I thought it was absolutely despicable what Mikey did to his father and to Consuelo. And while I was glad to see them get their comeuppance from Consuelo, I also realized that Consuelo was merely taking the low road by seeking revenge. She was clearly no better than her convict grandson OR the yuppie family for whom she worked. But at the same time, the family's father was a prick, whose views of life were definitely at least somewhat responsible for Mikey being the spoiled, self-absorbed, sheltered kid he was that led to the hypnotizing treachery. Of course, the mother was, unfortunately, just a victim of circumstance here, since she always meant well, but was all too oblivious to the environment around her (Julie Haggerty pretty much played the same part, albeit to a lesser extreme, in "What About Bob?") which she inhabited; she saw everything merely on the surface.

There aren't many other films out there that have this many cogs-in-cogs going on inside of it. And for that, regardless of how you feel about the final product, I think Todd Solondz and his ilk should be commended.

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Re: That's what's so great about it


there has never been a director who is so, i guess, "empathic" and in touch with humanity as todd solondz. he is genuine and authentic-- no one can hold a light to him.


Actually, I think there's at least one other who could: the recently-deceased Ingmar Bergman. Like Solondz, Bergman was never afraid to explore the lowest depths of the human psyche. Unlike Solondz, however, he seldom did it in a comic fashion...let alone a darkly comic fashion. That and the fact that Bergman had a more European sensibility to his films (for obvious reasons) are what make the two different.

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Re: That's what's so great about it

If you're going to tackle Bergman, I'd recommend sticking mainly to his work from the 60's on (starting with "Through a Glass Darkly"), since those works are much closer to the Solondz style you obviously enjoy. The only real difference are that they're more claustrophobic (almost all these films take place in just one or two settings) and the afore-mentioned lack of humor. To best get a feel of this, I'd say start with "Cries and Whispers" (1972) and decide from there which one to see next.

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