Incredibly strange, not as in abstract or as in bizarre subject matter, but as in the way it’s formatted and constructed. I can’t figure out the governing life behind this movie, the physics that rule its motions, the stuff that comprises its joints. It’s fascinating, and I can point to a bunch of different limbs and entree-sized themes in it, but I can’t point to the meal. I don’t want to suggest that the film doesn’t have it, but I couldn’t find the synthesis in this movie. I guess that’s alright, though – it makes a hell of a dim sum assortment spanning just about every element of movie-matter I can think of. (I thought the score was overall a bit weak & confused, though.)
I’ve been on an Opeth kick recently, and one thing Opeth does that makes them truly classic is the sense for folk music and specifically American southern rock that gits in yer soul. I think my favorite thing about this movie is that same kind of permeating understanding of a certain folk-y, country-y trust among its characters. But like Opeth, Nope commands power through recognizing that and juxtaposing it with the horrific, the funky, and the intellectual. Even if here I think those elements don’t quite dovetail like I feel like they could, I appreciate them being on the same plate.
(okay nobody say Nopeth)
