The authority and status in the cinematic world of Sean Penn is indisputable and untouchable. His work and talent, he certainly deserved it, although rumored to have a far from simple character. But we, the audience, do not care much, the main thing is that the movie with him was good. In principle, this was the conceived “The Last Face” – a drama scripted by Erin Dignam (" Yellow Handkerchief of Happiness (2008)), in which we are talking about the complex relationship between the two main characters – Vren (Charlize Theron) and Miguel (Javier Bardem). Their romantic relationship develops against the background of the difficult humanitarian situation in Africa. And cinema, which deals with such important political and social issues, is always and everywhere welcomed by the critical stratum, so it is not surprising that The Last Face became a contender for the award in Cannes. But after the pre-premier review, the picture caused more bewilderment than positive responses. And the audience was mostly negative about the new work of Sean Penn. He has not acted as a director for more than a decade after the triumph with the biopic “In the wild” (2007), and after that everyone wants to see something at least as good, since the bar was so high was taken.
So, Vren grew up in a well-to-do family and she herself occupies a good position, but at the call of her heart and at her own will goes to the wilds of hot Africa, where at this time not only civil wars are raging, but also all kinds of diseases, including deadly ones, the population lacks water and medicines, with the same big problems. Vren takes everything very seriously and tirelessly tries to help the disadvantaged. At the same time, she meets Miguel Leon, who also works in the humanitarian service. His attitude, skills and knowledge help Vren adapt to the laws of the third world, and then passion flares up between them. However, this passion, which they considered love, will have to go through the most difficult trials, they will look at each other again, tragic events will leave their mark on their relationship. And all this together will forever change them, their values, their attitude to life and to other people.
Admittedly, the nonlinear construction of the plot of “The Last Face” was confusing all the time, because all the time there were difficulties with juxtaposition of events. Some fragments did not mix with others, they made a real leapfrog and these constant transitions from one time layer to another and back prevented you from forming a certain opinion about the plot itself. Another obvious drawback was the tense and very banal dialogue between the main characters. The emotional background clearly did not correspond to the fact that Vren and Miguel spoke in everyday phrases as if from a frivolous summer romcom-one-day. In addition, there were constant pauses in the dialogues and the impression that they simply had nothing to say to each other. What kind of love can we talk about? And only one segment of "The Last Face" made you horrified and really feel the bitterness of Africa when their car is attacked by another "freedom fighters." In terms of the level of violence, this scene is off the scale, it is impossible to believe that this is possible, but there is a suspicion that even with its excessiveness it is true and it is even more terrifying.
The only thing that holds “The Last Face” is the play of actors. The experience and talent of Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem did not allow them to play poorly and they diligently pulled The Last Face out of the failure, but to the end they did not succeed. But even so, there are still some complaints about the actors. Before my eyes there is a scene when the heroine Theron tears in her eyes, and she in anger expels Miguel. In general, it is not clear what was associated with such emotionality and, admittedly, the logic of such behavior was difficult to clarify. And a telling response from the hero Javier Bardem, who silently demolishes everything. And such scenes, where you feel the selected emotions with the actions in “The Last Face” are actually a decent number. I didn’t expect that from Sean Penn. And the fact that the secondary characters will have almost no impact on the plot development is also not expected, but in fact, in addition to Theron and Bardem starred Jean Reno and Jared Harris.
After watching The Last Face, it became clear why the film did not receive wide distribution for so long, but still, thanks to the name of the director and the names of the actors, it still reached our country. Whether this is good or bad is a rhetorical question. And Bardem it’s time to think about his attitude to the selection of new films and perhaps it’s time to change the agent, and that something other than “The Last Face” films with his participation (" Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Don’t Tell Tales), “Mama!” and “Escobar” (all – 2017) raise many questions. And in my opinion, it is better to watch or revise the films “Outside” (2003) with Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen or “The Painted Veil” (2006) with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.
5 out of 10
After viewing the picture left me with a double feeling. It seems that the director is Sean Penn. I respect him both as an actor and as a director. In any case, most of the director's work I've seen, I really liked it. Also, in the film starring Charlize Theron. That’s the main reason I decided to watch this movie. She also has Javier Bardem and Jean Reno. The latter, however, is quite small in the picture.
It would seem that the “composition” is beautiful and this potion does not spoil. However. ..
The plot of the film tells how the director of an international organization engaged in humanitarian assistance and, in fact, a doctor working in the fields meet during the revolutions on the African continent. Blood, horror, death, disease, the lawlessness of the revolutionary time - all this they have to survive, and also have time to fall in love with each other.
To be honest, the first half of the film seemed to me to reflect only the problem of the revolution with its atrocities and its victims. It seems that the film is a tool to draw attention to the problem, but not a work of fiction. Of course, attracting attention is important, but if the movie is positioned, after all, as artistic, you want to see the development of characters or banal acquaintance with them. For the rest, there is a documentary.
Alas, in the first half of the film, the viewer knows almost nothing about the main characters, their relationships and so on. It is as if we are proved the presence of a problem, confronting the main characters with the same thing that happens around. By the way, playing with narrative at different intervals of time, succeeding each other does not always lead to a positive result. And, as I thought in this film, it only knocks me down.
The middle of the film seems to remember that this is an “artist” and finally pays attention to the characters, not to the situation around, however, not forgetting to periodically show the tin, intestines, death of children and so on. And then it finally gets more interesting. The main characters who have different ideas about the concept of “help” and the goals of humanitarian events, who strictly defend them, must somehow exist side by side, because love remains love.
In the end, in my opinion, we got a rather boring and bland film. After watching, you remember mostly scenes in which you saw corpses, severed hands, horrific cruelty and hordes of flies circling over it all. If that was the goal, Penn succeeded. However, despite the fact that the Theron and Bardem tandem was supposed to bring interesting, inspiring acting, I did not see it in the film. However, to watch Charlize Theron, it seems to me, you can forever, even if she is just in the frame, not playing at all.
This film could well be attributed to those films that should hook the viewer not with its artistic component, but rather with a demonstration of the cruel society of the Third World countries, which for obvious reasons include many African countries. All so, Sean Penn (he acted as a director) managed to recreate an incredibly realistic atmosphere of primitive brutality on the part of the rebels and animal fear on the part of civilians, presenting to the viewer a country of the African continent gripped by either insurgent or civil war.
But what Penn tried too hard was to pay attention to the personal relationship of the two main characters. In general, the cinema is full of examples when some global event faded into the background and a love story developed against its background. It is not necessary to go far for an example and we can recall our recent Stalingrad. The great battle, the immortal feat, was in fact pushed to the background for the sake of showing the fates of several people who found themselves in the epicenter of the battle. Yes, it is clear that people participated in that battle and everyone has their own destiny, but still this decision of the creators is not too good. The same can be said about “The Last Face”, where the viewer is forced to watch the love adventures of the heroes Javier Bardem and Charlize Theron, who take place in a war-torn country.
No, I’m not saying that there’s only one thing you need to show in these films, of course the characters that appear in the frame should get their development, but there’s too much love between the characters in The Last Face. Unforgivable. Even taking into account the fact that the film lasts more than two hours and thus the viewer gets the opportunity to observe in a more voluminous form the atrocities and violence around which doctors from an international organization found themselves, this cannot serve as an excuse for the abundance of love in the frame.
Of course, we are all human and everyone is not alien to human, but if you look at Bardem and Theron, you do not fully understand what they both need. Squabbles, infidelities, swearing, tears, shocking news, issued directly to the forehead (the case of an HIV-infected girl) is the usual routine of their relationship, only occasionally flavored with positive moments. In other words, it is completely unclear how they coexist not only in one tent, but on one continent. Perhaps the director intended to show the viewer that people united by one goal (in this case, humanitarian medical assistance) need each other and it does not matter that they are complete opposites, the main thing is that there is someone to give their shoulder. But the understanding of such an idea came only now, when I wrote a review, and I would like it to be during the viewing, well, or at least after watching, because the impression of the film is formed not in a day, but during and immediately after.
Maybe Sean Penn was trying to show the atrocities of war and make it clear that in such a hell there is no place for sincere and pure feelings and they will be distorted by terrible events, but in this case “The Last Face” simply became one big clot of negativity that spills out from everywhere: from personal relationships, from relationships with others, from the sadistic and brutal murder of civilians.
The film left mixed impressions, but rather the scales can be tipped in favor of negative ones. Even the damn charismatic Bardem could not save The Last Face with his game, even the proximity of Theron in the spirit of the theme of the African civil wars (because she is a citizen of South Africa) and the presence of a two-time Oscar-winning actor in the director’s chair are not able to turn the film into a real and strong drama about human fate. He was too protracted and too depressed. Whether it is worth spending two hours on such a film, it is up to you.
However, to watch you and only you. I do not impose my opinion on anyone.
I think there is not a single devoted moviegoer, past whose attention was a deafening “scandal” associated with this film Director. When being a really strong dramatic director, as well as having gathered a truly enviable cast for any project in the film, The Last Face directed by Shawn Penn was the main outsider of the Cannes Festival. Almost turned into the main goal of sarcastic and harsh criticism of both professional critics and the media, and ordinary viewers. But is the film really that bad?
Being a real political activist who even created a fund to help those in need, it was impossible to find a better candidate for the post of director of this film than Sean Penn. However, even geniuses make mistakes and this mistake became fatal for Shawn Penn.
The main drawback of the film is absolutely delusional and terrible in every sense of the script Erin Dignam, which largely ruined the entire film. If the film was initially perceived as a kind of documentary view of the atrocities that are being committed against the African people, then in reality it turns out to be completely different. Creating the impression of a very peculiar melodrama about the love of two white people against the background of such cruel events. At the same time, wanting to keep up with two birds at the same time, the creators of the tape failed to get to either the first or the second.
Hence, it is not surprising that despite the rather harsh and cruel, but at the same time true reflection of atrocities in Africa, Africa itself in the picture is not so much. When how, doubtfully developing relationship between the two main characters with nightmarish dialogue, from which the ears wilt and absolutely far-fetched problems of their relationship ruin the film even more. Creating the impression of literally cut into pieces of the canvas, to collect which in one single picture will not be possible perhaps any viewer.
Much more solid film looks at the level of directing Shawn Penn, but here only for visual characteristics. Being a visionary to some extent, Penn made the film in a pronounced author-clip manner of shooting. It's like trying to play on-screen in the second Terrence Malick, and he's kind of doing it. Especially against the background of the very authentic soundtrack of the composer Hans Zimmer, which adorns the vocals of singer Mary J. Blige and model Suki Waterhouse. But he failed to pull the content of his work.
It can be seen that the theme of love and the precepts of the melodrama genre are given to Sean Penn very difficult and he literally does not understand how to rationally combine this with the on-screen drama. Therefore, it is not surprising that the picture turned out to be very uneven, and most of the content of which is rejected by itself when viewing the tape. Essentially achieving an amazing paradox. When everything happens on the screen, but the picture is absolutely “about nothing”.
The main crime of the film is to collect such an enviable cast for any project, but make them hostage to absolutely boring characters with a stock of nightmare dialogue. It is clear that Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem try as hard as they can, but they fail to go beyond their characters from the pages of the script. Much more lucky Adele Exarchopoulos, Jared Harris and Jean Reno, which in the picture is very small, and therefore suffering with futile attempts to turn “garbage into candy” is also less.
2 out of 10
The last face is definitely the biggest disappointment of the past year. When possessing a great cast, who would gladly want to get any project, as well as a worthy dramatic director, the picture creates the impression of absolute cinematic ugliness, which is a pity to spend your precious time watching.
The author's film under the mask of dramatic action.
Another work of a famous director and actor who has repeatedly proved that he can and can make a good movie. So this time Sean Penn undertook a complex production of a dramatic story about the lives of ordinary doctors in a war zone. He enlisted the support of his iconic colleagues, such as Charlize Theron, Javier Bardem, Jean Reno and Jared Harris, which has already provided the film with special status and attention of millions of fans. But the picture came out and the silence! Low rating and not very flattering comments and ratings. I was curious, and after watching it all fell into place.
Firstly, the timing of the picture is more than two hours, and for drama, this significantly complicates the principle of perception for the simple viewer. Secondly, the immersion of the director in the free flight of fantasies behind-the-scenes thoughts is incredibly sleepy. Sean Penn seemed to want to combine a complex author's film with the format of a large-scale action for the mass audience. Of course, the idea is good, but trying to sit on two chairs cost the director and his producers dearly. Thirdly, the story itself is not very interesting.
A young female doctor is sent to Africa under the Doctors Without Borders program, where she falls in love with her colleague, and now they have to fight together against the sad injustice, the horror of war and the inhuman suffering of innocent people. Of course, such a story very much touches for the most alive, drawing from the viewer all the necessary emotions and reverent empathy for the heroes. But why, one asks, cram a separate part of the narrative into the film, since the plot is divided into two parts, in which one story is devoted to the events in Africa, and the other transports the characters to the modern civilized world without war and tears. For drama, this, of course, is useful and necessary, but what was so much to go into endless philosophy, because it simply killed all interest in the picture. Minutes become hours and hours become infinity. If we were to remove philosophical attacks from the script and cool the director’s aspirations in the desire to stand out, it is quite possible that a very strong emotional film would turn out without retreats and passing scenes. Personally, I had the impression during the viewing that Sean Penn caught the author’s lotions from Terrence Malick during their joint work on the film “Tree of Life”. Of course, I am not against such experiments, but with such material as the genocide of my own people, everything looked faded and depressing. Of course, in technical terms, the picture is made at the highest level. The visual picture looks rich and bright, and the music of Hans Zimmer, as always, reflects the essence of what is happening. I especially want to say thank you to the entire cast, because their emotions, words and actions cause fear and respect, admiration and awe in every scene. Real talents in the acting plan demonstrated the highest level of their skill.
I will not persuade you to compulsory viewing, because it is up to you only, but I will only say that if you are a true fan of actors or such a topic is close to you, then you must definitely watch the movie “The Last Face”.
Enjoy your visit.
It is always nice when a person with a name gathers a couple of people with no less grandiose names and makes a non-standard movie. Thanks to these names, more people will see the movie. Only now, starting very fresh and enthusiastic, Mr. Penn still slid into a banal love story. Whether there was not enough script forces to bring topical themes to the masses, or again a commercial move to attract a larger number of viewers, but the film, which raised the horrors of being on the topic of the day, was turned into a melodrama with nudity.
Excellent camera work strongly pulls the film towards positive assessments, because it is pleasant to look not only at the beautiful Bardem and Theron, but also at the picture as a whole. As for the aforementioned film stars, Javier looks quite convincing in the role of a selfless doctor. While Charlize was not surprised and was as before calm, smooth and neutral.
In general, the film turned out to be beautiful, albeit sometimes very cruel. What is it? About love?? More like yes than no. War and violence!? Not more than yes. About relationships?? Yeah. About duty, honor and self-sacrifice!? Yeah. As a result, we get a very rich film for thought, which is quite possible to watch without putting any special expectations and claims before it.
6 out of 10
Just a cruel fate befell the last directorial work Sean Penn - critics at Cannes were torn apart by their reviews, the French media even called the tape "the worst picture in the world", distributors in the United States turned their backs and sent the film to the summer program "Video on demand", and in the international box office of the country cut down the venue and released in limited release.
The first thing that comes to mind - Sean Penn gave a reason for such a beating. The actor, after his second "Oscar" in "Milke" gave out a few excellent roles than actually and known career of this filmmaker, he had previously not the most successful work, both acting and director, but "The Last Face" is just the apogee of evil from critics. It is no secret that Penn has an active aid fund, which arose as a result of the sad events on the island of Haiti many years ago.
Perhaps this is the first reason that Penn allowed when many considered this tape mercantile and just another marketing campaign for the fund. The second reason is his ex-wife Robin Wright, who about ten years ago dreamed of first playing in this film, then directing for some time, and as a result, this party went to a quick ex-wife. By the way, she was one of the first who in an interview decided to hit after the premiere of the tape. The third reason is a personal relationship with Charlize Theron, which was in effect at the time of filming, but was never approved by the yellow press and was always received in various publications. If you take all these factors – of course, why not Penna and torn.
But if you think more pragmatically - the film is not so bad, and the story of the relationship between the main characters, against the background of civil wars of various African countries does not cause any rejection during the viewing. The fact is that when black children are hungry and die, as they are accustomed to in the genre, this is exactly the comfort zone in which Westerners love to be. And here, the daughter of the missionary and the surgeon twisted the novel - it's like cynicism, and with such statements made almost all film critics.
In the film enough original humor, mostly from the character Javier Bardem, as well as in the tape just an incredible number of bloody scenes, mainly on the operating table. Perhaps the supporting actors did not make much contribution to the story, but the two main characters in general compensated for their contribution with a good game.
"The Last Face" - the film is not bad, if you do not know anything about its fate, then looking from a clean face they may even admire. By the way, Penn’s son plays in the film, the role is insignificant, but quite expressive. As a result, this loser of last season will still find an objective viewer, even if Penn did not reach the level of "In the wild" or "Promises", but purely from the director's side shot a suitable and somewhere dramatic film.
7 out of 10