tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16811040.post302978672206334732..comments2023-08-26T14:24:27.968-07:00Comments on soul food movies: THE RAPTURE (1991, USA, Tolkin)Ron Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05744783679902979376noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16811040.post-25283336284681777942009-12-02T22:04:58.271-08:002009-12-02T22:04:58.271-08:00I vaguely remember seeing this movie several years...I vaguely remember seeing this movie several years ago. I'm only 18 right now, as I was BORN in 1991 :), but I remember as a younger kid watching this film and being very scarred. As such a young kid I found the whole thing very disturbing and mind-boggling. I think I'll have to re-watch it now that I'm older. Thanks for the comments you guys, you got me interested in watching it again so I can actually have the chance to analyze it now that I'm older.Alyssahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06917617423991118331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16811040.post-25076642814497469282009-11-23T09:34:38.525-08:002009-11-23T09:34:38.525-08:00Darn! Something went sideways when I was moderatin...Darn! Something went sideways when I was moderating comments this morning, and I unintentionally deleted a comment from Spencer. I believe it was for this film, saying that the film had scarred him when he watched it years ago. Apologies, Spencer: please re-post, I'd love to have your comments in full.Ron Reedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05744783679902979376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16811040.post-57372072645836617462009-11-18T20:05:19.015-08:002009-11-18T20:05:19.015-08:00Hey, I'm glad you found this blog too! Thanks ...Hey, I'm glad you found this blog too! Thanks for taking the time to post such a thorough and thoughtful comment on the film. You're right: there's nothing else like it.Ron Reedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05744783679902979376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16811040.post-3360065681446208082009-11-12T19:01:10.067-08:002009-11-12T19:01:10.067-08:00I saw this movie the first time in the late 1990&#...I saw this movie the first time in the late 1990's. I remember being jaw-dropped mesmerized by the bizarreness that began about halfway through. Until then, I thought I knew what kind of movie it was. Then, as the story unfolded in the second half, I had to abandon all preconceptions formed during the first half. When it was over (that first time), I remember just sitting there stunned. Speechless.<br /><br />I re-watched it again last night, and was so disturbed that I had to get on the internet and find someone else who has seen this crazy film. Which led me to this blog.<br /><br />THE PLAYER is greatly successful at satirizing shallow show biz, and THE NEW AGE is a fine black comedy, but THE RAPTURE is like no other movie ever. What can one compare it to? Nothing. How can a movie be so intensely about religion, and yet ultimately, you really don't know which side of the aisle Michael Tolkin would chose to sit on. Believer? Non-Believer? Belief in what?<br /><br />The audacity of the storytelling puts Michael Tolkin in a class by himself. When the car alarm goes off at Vasquez Rocks ("the desert") and they scramble up the steep incline... to dare to combine such tragic and comic elements... it makes even the Coen brothers look tame. (Not to mention the utter illogic -- what difference would it make to God, whether you were waiting on the desert floor or atop a rock fifteen feet higher? Like that itty bit of extra elevation would make all the difference, when ascending to Heaven.) <br /><br />The pathos in her pathetic scramble up those rocks, mistaking a car alarm for God calling... Taking a moment to grab the stuffed pandabear toy, because her daughter wants to take it to Heaven. Oh. My. God.<br /><br />Yes, everything that happens to her during those last few weeks is of her own making. And yes, the ending is worthy of discussion. What could initially be perceived as a story-telling cop-out develops much more depth when one ponders that concept of Free Will, and that whole hubris thing. <br /><br />She blamed God for something she did. How can God be about love when he made her kill her baby? she asks. Ah, but God didn't really make her kill her baby, helllooooo... <br /><br />As I watched it the second time, I came to see this as less being about religion, and more being about mental illness. Imagine all the apocolyptic images of the film's last 10 minutes as being mere fabrications of her disturbed mind. Imagine if that last shot of her in Limbo (Purgatory?) had dissolved to her sitting alone in a prison cell. And you would know that the whole Gabriel's Horn, 4 Horsemen montage was her fantasy. And now she'll spend the rest of her life semi-catatonic in a mental institution. <br /><br />Just a thought. <br /><br />Anyhow, I'm glad I found this blog.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com