Posthumous (2014)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Ok, it's a romantic comedy and we shouldn't expect much of it. But, come on, there are so many clichés and it is so far from real life that it is difficult to follow this. There are some good sentences and Huston and Marlin are good actors. But the whole thing is completely dischargable.

A disgruntled, unsuccessful artist named Liam Price half-destroys his own artwork one night in the basement of an art showroom, after seeing that a set of works by a lesser artist has been put on display instead of his own pieces. Liam walks home drunk, falls asleep in a tunnel, and his things are stolen by a look-alike hobo who then dies that night. Liam is presumed to be dead.You can see where this is going. "Posthumous" is a predictable but cute movie, sort of like "Rocky" meets "Lust for Life." It has very little substance, but the actors are clearly enjoying themselves, and it is refreshing to see a movie that at least attempts to say something about art without brooding and displaying abject suffering for ninety minutes nonstop.I say "attempts," because I think that in the long run the movie has nearly nothing to say about art. It is about a man who likes to express himself in art but is not sure if anyone is listening. He meets McKenzie Grain, a lovely and intelligent journalist (played by the wonderful Brit Marling), and finds that she is fascinated by the "dead" Liam's artwork; and so Liam poses as his own brother, telling journalist about himself and trying to describe how important it is to be true to oneself. He sees through her misplaced ambitions about being a reporter; and she begins to see through his supposed indifference to the world.This movie takes place in Berlin; but I did not get a strong sense of setting. One of the first ideas put forth in this movie is an environmental issue, that of "the bees." Bees are dying, and this is a bad thing because we depend upon bees to pollinate our food supply. This is brought up perhaps one more time in the entire movie. What is the relevance? Is Liam trying to illustrate to us, through his art, that we need to allow things to "pollinate" our world? That we must accept and embrace the little things in life, so that we can grow and prosper? This is a movie about being in the right place at the right time, and being able to accept the struggle and bleakness and death around you, because those terrible things are what make us who we are. I think the art of this movie could have played a larger role to display that idea; but the relationship of Liam and McKenzie manages to illustrate that premise in a way that is charming and touching.

You know all those little and not so little questions we all have? About life, and art, and existence, and happiness, and meaning and meaningless, and whether sometimes is worth it, and what it would entail for you to sacrifice in order to obtain that which is important? And then, how important is it anyway? This is a movie about that. All of that. I know nothing about cinematography and it's techniques, about the takes and angles, and movements and captures. I am just a viewer, a random bystander and I'm reviewing this tittle as such. It is in one word beautiful.It captured my attention, evoked my thoughts and feelings, made me root for these characters, hoping for the best. It has such an interesting premise of what happens after we die. Does our name echoes after we perish? Did we accomplished anything extraordinary, worth mentioning and worshiping? It's about art, and it's meaning and creativity. It's about love and understanding. It's a way of understanding life and one's wishes and desires in a slightly philosophical way I'm a sucker for.I loved that artistic approach, I loved the music, I loved how atmospheric the movie is, and I loved its quirkiness and sort of lightness.I've yet to watch Brit Marling's movie I don't like, and Jack Huston is such a perfect choice, it seems, for those artistic weirdos, both in this movie and as Jack Kerouac in "Kill Your Darlings". Brilliant.

This romantic drama written and directed by Lulu Wang was something I will forget quickly, except few sentences from the end... "the most convincing lies are the lies we tell ourselves"... If I say to myself that this was a good movie because I always liked the acting of Brit Marling, I would lie to myself - she was simply terrible in this artsy philosophical journey towards the oblivion! I really enjoyed the cinematography, though, and I will search for more movies where Stefan Ciupek was the guy in charge for it... amazing!The story was pretty lame, and it's about an artist who was reported dead by mistake, and his work suddenly becomes very popular... he decides to continue the charade posing as his own brother to a reporter who wants to write a story...Get it on DVD... 93 minutes are much easier handled with occasional usage of pause button.