Here's a look at the BELOVED through the eyes of a reporter from Canada.
I just saw Beloved last night in an invitational screening in Toronto. Thought you'd like to hear about it.
Beloved is a pretty good film, but it will most likely be a pretty big flop due to its highly offensive content. First of all, i would like to say that i am not offended very easily. Where digusting things appear for humour (eg. Evil Dead series), i like it. When even more disgusting things are shown for displaying frightening scenes (eg. drama movies like Amistad), it is still tolerable. But this movie goes a bit too far. WARNING, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD !!!! Ok, here are most of the movie's disgusting scenes : a woman taking a shit in the bed, a graphic shot of a woman peeing (no nudity though, THANK GOD!!!), a graphic shot of a woman's water breaking during childbirth, a dog's eyeball comes out of its socket and then it is put back in, scenes of puking (which is not that gross), a woman covered with insects, two graphic shots of breastfeeding, full frontal nudity of a pregnant woman, and a shot of Danny Glover's ass (eeeeeeeeewwwwwwww !!!!). Also, i didn't mention the now standard scenes with extreme violence and sex.
Now, don't get me wrong. I like to see nudity and sex in the movies just like any other guy, but come on. I took my whole friggin family to see this movie. I knew this wasn't gonna be pretty but i almost died when it showed the full frontal nudity scene, and I was sitting beside my mother !!!!!!!!! As you can tell, the movie is pretty disgusting and ALMOST ALL of the audience was disgusted. Audience reaction to this movie was extremely poor. Most of the viewers were pretty disgusted with the film and did not want to talk about it. Trust me, this film aint no Schindler's List or Silence of the Lambs. Also, correct me if i'm wrong but didn't Oprah walk out of Interview with the Vampire saying that it was too disgusting. Then why the hell would she make this movie ? That would make her a hypocrite. I could have lived without the scene in which she is taking a piss. (UGH!!!!!!!!)
All these matters aside, the film is pretty good. It is not boring at all. I found the length of the film (Almost 3 hours) tolerable. I have to admit that i didn't yawn at all. Also, some of the commercials would have you believe that this is a horror film, which it is not. The movie is more concerned with showing the horror of slavery than the paranormal. The acting is also good. Oprah is pretty good, basically repeating her role in The Colour Purple. Danny Glover, in a pretty small role, is also good. But the real scene stealer is Kimberely Elise, who plays Beloved. She gives a very fine performance of a girl who came back from the dead just for her mother. The other daughter also gave a pretty good performance, but not as good as Elise. Watch for Elise to win an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Also since there were not that many good female performances this year in the actress category (except for Meryll Streep in One True Thing), watch for Oprah to get a nomination aswell. There is no way in hell that this movie is going to win an Oscar for Best Film. It didn't even leave an impact on me once it was over unlike Saving Private Ryan and Titanic. All I though about was how disgusted i was with the film.
Darius25
