The Architect (2006)

too much. too strange. a lot of questions, each important, each profound, cruel and delicate in a huge ball. a cast in a kind of movie-play in which only form of survive is science to use a mask. marriage crisis, coming up of a young man among shadows, a wife like a Bergman character if she is not a zombie, a daughter in search of something , an activist like Don Quijote without money for psychoanalyst, a father face to face with his past errors. the sin of movie - use of very good actors in a chaotic experiment.or ambition to say all without basic rules. it may be modern art. if it is a picture. but it is only a poor movie. beautiful as intention. not very seductive as final work.

Apart from seeing his Blue Velvet starlet in a perfect role for her age group, the movie makes you ask questions. This movie really makes people look at cause and effect. It doesn't place blame, rather shows implications of well intentioned, ignorant motivations. As a viewer, you may have to do some soul searching in order to fully enjoy the movie. The meaning of each scene as it is broken up, is a definite plus. At first I was put off by the back and forth breakup of the shots but soon began to conform to the format. I liked the performances of all the actors. It was nice to see Rosselini in her usual subdued role and equally effective. To see the lead actor in a spectacular role I might suggest Lantana!

Imagine yourself on a riverbank prodding mud with a stick; the dirt is unsettled, stirs in the water, settles down again. In this film we're introduced to a number of characters who cross paths, and whose conflicts overlap on occasion before settling to a passive resolution.The confrontation between the architect of a dilapidated housing project and a dissatisfied resident forms the central vein in a network of sadly uninteresting stories.There is no surprise, and no insight brought to the representation of a young girl who in alienation craves affection; nor to the truck driver who doesn't want to ruin her first time; nor to the teenage boy accepting he's gay, nor to the grieving mother in the projects and finally, there is no insight into the proud man who doesn't want to admit his ego blinds him. Here we find a few people we've all seen before. They barely talk to each other and - unlike real people - when they do talk they say exactly what you'd expect them to say. Don't be tricked into thinking this film is asking any kind of question about family or race. If that's true, what's the question? The pretentious and two-dimensional nature of this writing is most transparent in the final scene wherein the architect and his son meet on a rooftop in the projects. Finally they have something to talk about: through my actions I have been the architect of someone's suffering, but there was no indication that I should have done anything differently - like father like son? Well, here the film ends abruptly, safe, risk-free. Not taking risks in your writing is not especially clever, let's not make a point of it.And unlike any number of films where stronger character sketches guide the narrative, time is linear in this picture; you won't see events intertwining or taking place simultaneously, nothing is revealed as cause or effect. "Crash", to which this film has been compared, and "American Beauty" had engaging narrative formats that compelled you to unravel a mystery. A director is an architect of sorts, and the director of this film is just like the architect he depicts - he's merely housing people in a flat, familiar, boring rectangle. There's no drama or vision, so we have to ask: what's the function?

I just saw this film last night at the Denver Film Festival and didn't think it was very good. From what I have read about the original play, that sounds like it would have been the better version to see. The dialog in this film did not sound real to me. The characters were not developed. I didn't understand why the mother was so unhappy. I couldn't believe, or have sympathy for, the daughter's choices. I didn't buy the relationship between the black boy and the white boy at all. The part of the story about black woman's family was more believable but still not explored enough. Also, I think most Chicagoans will have trouble with the veracity of some of the scenes. I lived all my life in Chicago until two years ago and, I'm sorry, white teenagers do not hang out in the projects. Nor do their white fathers go there at night and hang around on roof tops smoking cigarettes.