Venice. Achilles and the Tortoise.

"It doesn't seem so long ago that Takeshi Kitano was one of the most revered figures in world cinema," writes Geoffrey Macnab for the Guardian.

"Sadly, Kitano has lost his way of late. His recent movies have become increasingly self-indulgent and fractured... Kitano's latest feature Achilles and the Tortoise..., is a partial return to form, but is still an immensely frustrating experience."

For Dan Fainaru, writing in Screen Daily, the film "at first appears to be less self-obsessed than his two previous efforts but soon follows the same repetitious pattern that restricted both Takeshis' and Glory to the Filmmaker to a small coterie of ardent admirers.... After deliberating on the conflicts within his artistic persona in the first instalment of the trilogy and wondering what kind of films he should make in the second, he now explores himself as an artist and his relationship to his art. Despite the glorious symphony of colours he unleashes on the screen and the wicked sense of humour in each character, his theories on what it means to be an artist are far from exhaustive and the form he gives them far too self-indulgent."

"[T]he film, the longest of the trio, doesn't justify its two hours with enough insights or simple entertainment, and becomes massively repetitive in its final laps," writes Derek Elley in Variety. "Wannabe comedy is further undercut by the pic's deep strain of self-loathing. Kitano, it seems, seriously doubts the value of art itself, and sees value simply in carrying on working, no matter what."

Earlier: Ronald Bergan.

Posted by dwhudson at August 30, 2008 1:06 PM