Rumours (2024)
December 16, 2024 9:15 PM - Subscribe

The leaders of seven wealthy democracies get lost in the woods while drafting a statement on a global crisis, facing danger as they attempt to find their way out.
posted by TheophileEscargot (9 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Mildly amusing but it seemed like pretty weak satire. The G7 leaders are depicted as well-intentioned but disconnected and in love with their own vapid words. In a world of Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni they seem to be implausibly nice rather than satisfyingly exaggerated.

I have a vague theory that the best satire uses a magnifying glass not a telescope. That is, you can best satirize things that you're close to, things that you want to love. George Orwell's "Animal Farm" is a great satire because of his own sense of betrayal, and through living through a failed revolution. Ralph Ellison's satire of The Brotherhood in Invisible Man is similar: he intimately knows the reality of what he's satirizing. It's hard to effectively satirize something distant from your own experience. This feels like telescope satire: it's intellectual chuckling not slow burning rage.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:16 PM on December 16, 2024 [4 favorites]


I feel like the word "absurdist" should come up somewhere when talking about this movie. This was genuinely absurdist, in a way that I was kind of shocked to find in a major motion picture. Like, how did this get produced and released with this script?

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but you do need to be prepared for a decidedly non-standard movie. There is no explanation for anything. Plot line are proposed and abandoned. The idea that these characters are a metaphor for national character is brought up and then discarded. There's many long minutes of patter about the drafting of a nebulous speech. Long speeches are made with nebulous meaning. There's a sort of constant, slow froth of inane action, discussion, and digression.

I'm not saying this is a bad movie, and there's several little bits of pleasing humor in there. But I thought it was much more an experimental tone piece than the linear comedy that the trailer makes it out to be.
posted by Balna Watya at 11:20 PM on December 16, 2024 [1 favorite]


Good point, I've tagged it as "absurdist" now. I think maybe I would have liked it more knowing that going in. I kept waiting for some kind of plot to develop: for them to all turn into bog people, or the bog people to be a menace, or the bog people to be a solution to the crisis, or them to start getting picked off one by one. But there isn't really a plot at all.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:39 PM on December 16, 2024


Guy Maddin film in 'Absurdist' shocker!

From the comments here I assume people haven't seen much of his past work over the last decades (maybe someone should add a guymaddin tag to the post? There are Fanfare threads for The Forbidden Room and My Winnipeg, at least... haven't seen this one yet but the trailer made it seem quite a bit more mainstream than his usual!
posted by remembrancer at 5:34 AM on December 17, 2024 [2 favorites]


Charles Dance playing a US president and refusing to even attempt an American accent is a weird choice.

I watched half of this on vacation and forgot about it. I should finish it, I guess.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:21 AM on December 17, 2024


Needs Guy Maddin tag (and maybe a Pride of Winnipeg tag). Co-directed with the Evans brothers (He also did Green Fog and Forbidden Room with them). And yeah looks totally mainstream so I have concerns.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:54 AM on December 17, 2024 [2 favorites]


Thanks for posting this found somebody new to enjoy. Liking what I have witnessed so far, The Green Fog looks interesting not sure where to start though !
posted by OneCrateGuy at 10:46 AM on December 17, 2024


Thanks for posting this found somebody new to enjoy.

My Winnipeg is probably easiest to digest. Then maybe Forbidden Room or Cowards Bend the Knee. I have a soft spot for Saddest Music in the World, but it can be a bit...disorienting.

I havent seen Green Fog yet, but will rectify that soon.
posted by Literaryhero at 1:24 PM on December 17, 2024


Start from the beginning - Tales of the Gimli Hospital.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:16 PM on December 17, 2024


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