i went to a free preview of the matador last night courtesy of the philadelphia film society. it was good. not the best movie i ever saw, but one that i have been turning over in my head for the past 12 hours or so.
once again that part i want to talk about in the movie kind of spoils it. so go read atrios' review if you don't want to see any spoilers instead of reading further here. i don't know how to hide the rest of this post like some blogs do, so we're gonna have to do this the low tech way and just put in a lot of spaces. scroll down to see the rest.
...still there?
okay, so the main character of the film is julian, a professional assassin, and the other main character in the film is danny, an ordinary non-hitman guy. julian is befriends danny while both are on business trips in mexico.
the first half of the film is about how their friendship develops. the second half takes place six months later. julian is burned out and, for the first time, seems unable to pull the trigger for his hits. whenever he sees his prey before he strikes, his vision goes blurry and then, instead of his target he sees himself. as a result he's simply unable to go through with the kill. in other words, julian is developing an acute case of humanity. julian's inability to complete the jobs puts his life in danger with his clients and so he goes running to danny's ordinary suburban home to talk him into helping him one more time.
the center of the film thematically is really at the end. actually, there are two centers and both are revealed at the conclusion of the film. the problem is that the two "centers" contradict one another. in one, danny asks julian to kill someone for him. julian refuses, saying that for danny to become a murderer would destroy who he is. in the second, julian chokes during a particularly important hit job and danny helps him carry it out. what's interesting is that these two scenes are showed consecutively even though chronologically the one where danny asks julian to kill someone takes place earlier in time.
so why show to contradictory scenes right next to one another? the order just seemed to highlight the fact that danny was not, in fact, destroyed by participating in a murder. in my mind that just undermines what his character was supposed to be about.
after the film richard shepard, the writer and director, stayed for a question and answer session. someone in the audience asked about the contradiction i just mentioned. shepard answered that it only seemed like a contradiction. really what the movie was about was friendship. i guess i'm not sure i buy it. it seemed like too pat of an answer and it ignores the fact that danny's eventual participation in murder takes away from the power of julian's refusal to let him be a murderer in the scene that immediately follows it.
anyway, it was a good film. any movie gets me thinking this much is never bad. so it's worth seeing even if i probably just wrecked it for you.
