Olivia Colman and Michael Ward is so great in this movie. It took about 20 minutes to actually get into the meat of the movie but once it did, I was really invested. The cinematography by Roger Deakins probably elevated this movie's quality so much. This movie looks so fantastic. I've never seen a film that takes place mostly in an old dull rusty movie theater look so gorgeous. I think the movie is solid but it's kind of unremarkable. The finale was really emotional and beautiful but this is a solid but basic romance movie.
Empire of Light ultimately becomes a confusing mixture of ideas that never congeal into one solid narrative. Yet Mendes’ film does have the tiniest slivers of magic poking through the seams, proving his thesis about the beauty of film, even when he’s too distracted to focus on that idea himself.
A film that had seemed interested in the lives and feelings of its characters, and in an unlikely but touching relationship between two people at odds with the world around them, turns into a movie with Something to Say.
Mendes’s script, his first as a solo writer, deals with a sort of formless empathy – what it’s like to witness injustice and feel very, very bad about it. But it lacks necessary self-interrogation. There’s no real sense of purpose beyond the soothing of a privileged viewer’s guilt. The emotions are too thin, a set of codes to interpret rather than anything raw or real.
This film takes place almost entirely in a gorgeous Art Deco cinema in a small seaside town in England. Olivia Coleman plays the theater's quiet assistant manager, whose life changes when a young Black man (Michael Ward) comes to work. This is really an opportunity for Coleman to demonstrate her prowess, which she does to great effect. Writer/director Sam Mendes has crafted an intimate examination of her character's mental and emotional issues, while adding a touch of romance, an homage to cinema and a bit of racial stress. Mendes' skills combined with Coleman's performance create a sweet little character study.
Não sei o que houve com a sutileza do Sam Mendes, o salto dado entre "Beleza americana" e este "império da luz" é impressionante, infelizmente um salto para trás. Olivia Colman de fato é genial, ela tenta dar uma profundidade ao personagem que não existe.
O filme tem como cenário principal um cinema, daqueles antigos, de rua. É importante dizer que se passa na década de 1980. Ao centrar-se na gerente com sérios problemas mentais, uma mulher apática, sem vida, mas ao mesmo tempo que busca uma luz, como por exemplo no trabalho (seria daí o tal império da luz associada à projeção da tela?).
Lá nesse pequeno mundo, ela tem seus romances, inclusiva, dois dos quais terão grande peso à obra.
A introdução meio intimista até que é boa, mas daí o filme se perde. Não se sabe mais se a história é sobre o romance interracial, sobre um estudo de personagem, sobre a diferença de idades, e pra completar uma analogia com o cinema que ficou meio deslocada, tal qual no filme Babilônia, mas pelo menos neste emociona.
Do nada skinheads e o tema do racismo entra numa rajada, assim como e esvai. Tudo bem, poderia ser a intenção do filme mesmo tratar diversos temas já que somos seres permeados por múltiplas identidades. Mas precisa mesmo ser narrado dessa forma tão aborrecida?
Achei um exagero a indicação para fotografia. Não que esteja ruim, está competente, mas há trabalhos bem melhores. Se bem que, se for analisar o conjunto, diria que a fotografia e a trilha são bem interessantes mesmo, quando visitam o andar desativado do cinema é um estopim visual, assim como as cenas nas praias e a tomada em que, antes dos skinheads adentrarem o saguão, a câmera põe como centro o personagem negro, uma porta de cinema os separando. Enfim, tem seus momentos, mas acho exagero uma indicação ao Oscar.
Aí a história vai acontecendo, não sabemos exatamente quais tipos de problemas mentais a personagem tem, não sabemos exatamente por onde o seu coração pulsa, é tudo meio jogado, embora tenha um certo capricho na produção e principalmente na atuação, faltou um toque de emoção.
O roteiro vai tentar salvar o filme em alguns momento, quando ela lê poemas, ou quando o cinema em si se torna personagem central. Mas é muito pouco para alguém que já criou verdadeiras obras-primas, como o já citado "Beleza Americana" ou o mais recente "1917". Ainda assim é um filme agradável de assistir, mas completamente menor na carreira do diretor.
Sometimes a movie has all the elements of greatness in place but somehow just can’t seem to pull all the pieces together. Such is the case with writer-director Sam Mendes’s latest offering, an unfocused mélange of story threads that seem haphazardly strung together in a 1980s period piece love story about the staff of a British resort town cinema infused with elements involving mental illness and growing racial violence and intolerance at the time. Sound like a mishmash of unrelated storylines? You bet, and the picture probably comes off better than it should, given the strengths of Roger Deakins’s superb cinematography, Trent Reznor’s ethereal score, and the outstanding performances of its ensemble cast, most notably Olivia Colman, a virtual sure-bet for an Oscar nomination. As in other works, such as “Revolutionary Road” (2008), Mendes has a knack for getting the most out of his resources even when the material comes up short, a trick he successfully pulls off again here. It’s unfortunate, however, that this obvious lover of film couldn’t manage to combine these elements in a way here that matches the brilliance of his truly great works, such as “American Beauty” (1999), “Skyfall” (2012) and “1917” (2019). Had the script gone through another round of revisions, that might have been the case, given that the writing really proves to be the downfall of this offering. For all its strengths, however, “Empire of Light” nevertheless comes up a disappointing effort, one that, regrettably, doesn’t live up to the pre-release hype showered upon it.
(Mauro Lanari)
Olivia Colman is the female counterpart of Casey Affleck: if there are them, there must be a drama, more often a false drama. A big melodrama, from which Mendes never separated. He achieved his greater success with works in which political subtext and social overview were openly current, while in this case he starts from Thatcher, "Quadrophenia" (Roddam '79), the decadence of the British "Empire", unsolved but contextualized problems in a historical period that today is perceived as distant. A reflux of directors towards the autobiography and nostalgic cinephilia is taking place, that is towards the projection room which sheds light in the darkness, art as the last beacon of a civilization at sunset. Conceited? Probably yes, and the protagonists are also badly outlined, abstract, cerebral: Hilary is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, maybe instead it is simple SSDD ("same **** different day") and the remedy suggested by the film is still that of "Being There" (Ashby '79). Anyway her characterization is cloying, Mendes settles for the atmospheric and asks her for sex scenes that she herself believed "unnecessary to advance the plot".
Was this film some sort of sick joke?! Would be the question I’d ask given that I wasted my time with this insanely underwhelming watch and terrible script. The writing is muddy at times and disconnected. You can see the actors we're working hard here with little arc and incomplete character journeys (Colin Firth) and the entire supporting cast doing every piece of performance in them giving it 100% to make up for the muddy and disjointed character is one- note all the way until the end). Then, there are the very bad lines - which are forgivable only just.
But even worse than all of this, is it’s right-wing gaze that is embedded in exoticism and a very tired and out of touch approach to exploring love - of the opposite sex, race and age. The sex scenes from the jump are ill-timed, over-sensationalised and weaken the picture. Talk about relying on ‘sex’ to sell a film!! Sam is pushing this in every which way he can in this film using a pathetic cheap attempts at keeping the audience glued whilst literally fooling the viewer with cheap thrills that simply don’t work. Why Sam should sit down: he is out of touch and chasing his old days of American beauty - he makes film from an terribly inauthentic place and needs to get ‘real’ with reality. As does his producer, Pippa Harris.