Friday, February 29, 2008

Muriel Awards 2007: Best Film, 2nd Place


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(187 points / 15 votes)

"There Will Be Blood shouldn't work. With its collision of stark images of a landscape about to be violated, abrasive music and unapologetically large-scale performances, Paul Thomas Anderson's fifth film could have easily been a well-intentioned mess and an interesting curiosity on a developing filmography. Instead, There Will Be Blood achieves a demented harmony and proves its much-debated director as one of our strongest and most original auteurs. For all the filmic influences woven into the film, it's no pastiche - no film in 2007 was so singularly strange, beautiful and disturbing.

"The foundation of the past hundred years as told through the eyes of liars and madmen, There Will Be Blood is unsparing in its dissection of a protagonist that cannot be redeemed or even explained. Anderson is aided immeasurably by his leads, Daniel Day Lewis' silver-tongued Satanic charm complimented perfectly by Paul Dano's perverse preacher (humility has never seemed so menacing), and every role is just as perfectly cast - even the background actors are a perfect collection of faces. The pitch-perfect collaboration extends to the production team, from Jack Fisk's stunning sets to Robert Elswit's painterly manipulation of light to Jonny Greenwood's unforgettable score. Together they make There Will Be Blood an exhilarating,
almost unbearbly tense moviegoing experience, its many dissonant notes held together (as all of 2007's remarkable films are) by the unmistakable cinematic high of being carried by a director with total confidence and the moviemaking genius to match." ~ Andrew Bemis

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