Time Out is one of my favorite films. There are several extended scenes of not much happening which achieve an odd double-purpose of building the tense atmosphere and build on the inscrutability of the protagonist. I say odd in that most of this is done when he is alone, and there isn't much to emote to one's self, but once it matches his behavior in situations of human interaction then the reflection makes him all the more opaque - if he gives nothing away in conversation, and nothing away alone, then the only answers available are found in suppositions and in guesses, and in reconciling the jagged edges borne of each. It doesn't help that it is surely not a given if or when he has answers to any questions along the way. That he is believably inscrutable and not merely a blank slate keeps things interesting within the very-real seeming world, as opposed to an artificially blank surface. Then, to pair with this bit of atmospheric character/mood styling, there is a wealth of character and family and outside-world detail which both lays the table for all of the film's plot developments as well as creates additional nooks and crannies for my suppositions and guesses to explore. Perhaps most of all, I appreciate how slippery all of the characters are, slipping from kind to judgmental to affectionate to indifferent to open-hearted, in various degrees at various times, always avoiding the proportions of melodrama. Finally, as the film finds its way to what seems an inevitable heap of just that - a slippery sequence of events I hadn't expected and still can't quite grasp fully.
I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the ending, 1SO, as I didn't find an ounce of psychological motivation (par for the course) or satisfaction in the ending. I thought it was quite slippery.
Heading South is quite similar to Time Out in tone and style, and in that way it gives me immense respect for the man's talent in making each small detail so fascinating, but the subject is just so inherently bizarre that I couldn't ever quite wrap my head around anything.
The Class is basically nothing like the other two that I have seen, and it is interesting in none of the same ways. I don't prefer it to either of the others, perhaps inevitably because the idiosyncrasies of the other two that so fit my tastes are absent here, but I was glad to see that his success would afford him new opportunities... I still don't believe that he can make a bad film. Perhaps I should not watch Foxfire.