Immortals

Imagine a moving Caravaggio painting pumped full of the LSD-like drawings of a hyperactive gore-obsessed Greek mythology major, who may or may not be a homosexual male. That gets us somewhere within the ballpark of Immortals, Tarsem's latest fairy-tale inspired fever dream of a film in which Greek myths get dramatically restructured and re-envisioned. (I spent a good deal of time trying to remember how many of the story beats and the myth of Theseus went together, turns out they don't. What is here is like three-in-one, with a small dash of this-and-that.)

The plot is truly secondary to the gorgeous visual palette of the film, the highly stylized sets, and the faintly ridiculous costumes. The Greek gods and goddesses in this film are forced to wear some of the most bizarre headgear that I'm not unconvinced wasn't a joke on the costume designer's part. But since the costume designer is Eiko Ishioka, and is amongst my favorite all-time costume designers, I let it slide knowing that she was probably given free reign to go nuts. And go nuts she did. I would love to see Tarsem tackle an actual monster, creature, or some kind of fantasy makeup, but here we're given a Minotaur that's actually a man in a barbed wire helmet. It's an exquisite piece of craftsmanship and design. As are the Indian inspired wraps, robes, gowns, and headdresses that the oracle and her ladies wear throughout the film.

This highly crafted, impeccably designed production aspect of the film carries over in the cinematography. Everything in this film is bathed in a golden hue which adds to the mythic (and highly improbable) element by distancing us from reality to a greater degree. Sure it's an exercise in style, but so few films dare to play with colors in a unique way that this feels like a leap-forward for stylized action-adventure films. Enough of that shaky cam bullshit, give me grand vistas swathed in color and played up on a deliciously operatic scale. The very frequent and very bloody and graphic fight scenes play out like some kind of ballet of blood, intestines, and viscera thanks to the excessive style of the film.

And that final shot looks like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel being blown into the heavens as various figures battle in a way that almost looks like an intricate dance. No, it's not perfect. Nor is it even a very good movie, but it dares to be something strange, wonderful, and different. For that, I give it a tremendous amount of respect. Truly, Tarsem has taken classical art, avant-garde fashions, and a fairy tale-like eye for both whimsy and violence and made a series of three films that dare to be unique and individual. He may be more obsessed with expressing the hypnotic and imaginative visions in his head than in crafting a narrative, but in a medium that relies so heavily on images, I forgive him for the latter.