Imagine how The Blue Angel Marlene Dietrich meets Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany's. Two goddesses in love affair. An essence and definition of love in its core distilled through different bodies and remaining a mutual enjoying of the heart. There is some cold classical feeling from the 30's in this movie, though it was set in the early 1950s in the McCarthy's era of witch-hunts. No answers are provided here and no stretched details. All is centred around Kate Blanchet and Rooney Mara.What you have to do is just to sit down,relax and enjoy the smoky narrative with a scarce dialogue.The 16 mm grainy picture, Sandy Powell's period costumes , cinematography and film editing from Edward Lachman and Affonso Gonçalves ,all well fitted in Patricia Highsmith's "The Price Of Salt" novel deliver a new conversation between the movie and the viewer. It's not about others but it's all about us. This message is truly important these days. No satisfaction in the sense and laws of tradition but how tradition have shaped us to rethink the history. As John Grant sings in Glacier "Don't listen to anyone, get answers on your own/Even if it means that sometimes you feel quite alone,No one on this planet can tell you what to believe,People like to talk a lot, and they like to deceive". There are echoes of other movies here such as the cold sentimentality of Savage Grace , Far From Heaven (from same director Todd Haynes) - another forbidden love story, Brokeback Mountain and A Single Man - both tragic waste of lives. Carol in some ways captures few finest moments from all these movies but as mentioned before it transcends one step further. It neutralises the bitter ends replacing it with hope. It's not the usual Hollywood hope but your own personal hope.It inspires you to decide,design and photograph your life. Don't wait,do it now!
Review of Carol
