Stages.

"The phrase 'divorced couple' sounds like an oxymoron, but there's really no other way to describe Roos (Elsie de Brauw) and Martin (Marcel Musters), the Dutch ex-spouses whose table talk dominates Stages, an oblique, intermittently intriguing film by Mijke de Jong," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "For these two the line between love and hate is not so much thin as crooked and blurry. Their habitual affection for each other is obvious, but also frequently indistinguishable from mutual contempt."

"For the chamber drama Stages, which has been giddily referred to by some as Scenes from a Divorce, director Mijke de Jong employs a fractured style to match the personalities of its characters, but this synchronicity isn't so much heartfelt as it is solipsistic," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant.

Updated through 11/8.

"De Jong's technique of filming conversations with the camera latched onto one character for minutes at a time is both disorienting and almost suffocatingly intimate," finds Michelle Orange in the Voice. "The mutual contempt of Martin and Roos, in particular, is presented as intimacy writ toxic; they are at once total strangers and completely disgusted by how well they know each other."

"Like another recent Northern-European release, Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In, Stages' aesthetics amplify the unspoken implications of its narrative," writes Benjamin H Sutton in the L Magazine. "In contrast to loud Americans like Paul Thomas Anderson - whose There Will Be Blood shouts its mythic themes from the rooftops - De Jong whispers the epic implications of middle-class narcissism across a cozy restaurant table. The result isn't just more heartwarming and tasteful, it's infinitely more effective."

Update, 11/6: "Like [John] Cassavetes and [Woody] Allen, de Jong leans hard on her actors to provide the nuance absent from the triple-underlined dialogue, and de Brauw and Musters are definitely up to the task," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club. "De Brauw in particular conveys the whole story of her failed marriage in the way she winces at Musters' dinner order. But typical of Stages' approach, what seems fresh at first quickly becomes overly familiar. One expressively acted, intimately photographed scene may feel like a tour de force. Eight is overkill."

Update, 11/8: "No doubt Stages is too much in the mode of Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage or Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance to reach beyond a big-city art-house audience, but it's an extraordinary achievement by a director to watch," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir.

Posted by dwhudson at November 5, 2008 6:09 AM