Warning - SPOILERS.
The director's style and sense of pacing isn't always what you're used to. Sometimes an entire scene will begin, at a calm, measured pace, and you have to figure out what's going on.In the scene following Michala's visit to a matchmaker, she is sitting w/her fiancé' getting ready to sample dishes for their wedding reception. I'm not usually slow on the uptake, but I didn't know what they were doing, or what their relationship was to each other until the scene was mostly over. And you'd think since the previous scene was with a matchmaker, I would, but the film lacks almost any exposition, and doesn't clue us in with shifts in pacing or energy either. No hint. Which, on balance, I think is a good thing, despite having to piece things together at times. (It also took me half the film to realize she earned her living managing a mobile petting zoo.)
Once the fiancé' tells her he doesn't love her, I'm not sure Michala is "dumped", for no question that for her, the wedding can't proceed, so she may have been the one to pull the plug.
To the suspense: I had no idea which of the men Michala "auditioned" to be her husband she'd end up marrying - if any (not all were smitten). I had no idea that the man she did marry was even in the running, yet the explanation for his emergence from the crowd at the absolute last minute makes perfect sense. I realized I didn't actually register when we'd first me this man, but not because he'd been hidden.
At the eleventh hour, with Michala under the chuppah, groomless, I was figuring either no groom would materialize, or maybe a particular character we'd met earlier would again magically show up - I'm referring to the only eligible male with whom she'd formed a connection, but who seemed impossible in every other respect.
So going into this movie blind, I never had the faintest clue how it would end. I considered every guy along w/Michala. And as soon as the movie ended, which was pretty much the minute we had our answer, I wanted to watch it again to re-watch Michala's interaction with her eventual husband, knowing what we now now.
The director's style and sense of pacing isn't always what you're used to. Sometimes an entire scene will begin, at a calm, measured pace, and you have to figure out what's going on.In the scene following Michala's visit to a matchmaker, she is sitting w/her fiancé' getting ready to sample dishes for their wedding reception. I'm not usually slow on the uptake, but I didn't know what they were doing, or what their relationship was to each other until the scene was mostly over. And you'd think since the previous scene was with a matchmaker, I would, but the film lacks almost any exposition, and doesn't clue us in with shifts in pacing or energy either. No hint. Which, on balance, I think is a good thing, despite having to piece things together at times. (It also took me half the film to realize she earned her living managing a mobile petting zoo.)
Once the fiancé' tells her he doesn't love her, I'm not sure Michala is "dumped", for no question that for her, the wedding can't proceed, so she may have been the one to pull the plug.
To the suspense: I had no idea which of the men Michala "auditioned" to be her husband she'd end up marrying - if any (not all were smitten). I had no idea that the man she did marry was even in the running, yet the explanation for his emergence from the crowd at the absolute last minute makes perfect sense. I realized I didn't actually register when we'd first me this man, but not because he'd been hidden.
At the eleventh hour, with Michala under the chuppah, groomless, I was figuring either no groom would materialize, or maybe a particular character we'd met earlier would again magically show up - I'm referring to the only eligible male with whom she'd formed a connection, but who seemed impossible in every other respect.
So going into this movie blind, I never had the faintest clue how it would end. I considered every guy along w/Michala. And as soon as the movie ended, which was pretty much the minute we had our answer, I wanted to watch it again to re-watch Michala's interaction with her eventual husband, knowing what we now now.