Far Side of the Moon (2003)

One of my all time favorites.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This movie is an acquired taste. At first, I don't realize that Philipe and Andre's connection besides being brothers. Both are brilliantly played by the writer and director, Robert LePage. He is a visionary who has written, directed, and act reminds you of French Canadian Woody Allen. In this film, he plays Phillipe, a loner who wants to get his Ph.D. in proving men's narcissism and the quest for space. He has tried to argue it a few times before and been denied. In his quest, his mother dies. He and his brother have an estranged relationship. The film explores Phillipe's history especially his fascination with space. This film has its moments especially the spa scene at the gym where he runs into Carl. I can relate to Phillipe who I think is misunderstood. The ending threw me off completely and I didn't get it. We can all relate to Phillipe who has a dead end job answering phones for the government.

Seeing the recent 2009 sci-fi movie Moon, reminded me of this movie which also has Mooon in the title. I'm giving this a 5 rating because it's a Canadian movie, set in my favorite city of Montreal. I saw this movie when it was released and there were two others in the theater including me. After it ended we all looked at each other, and simply shrugged as we were so confused about what the movie was even about. It was one of the few times I've spoken about a movie to total strangers spontaneously after seeing it. Apparently it was a play adapted to a movie setting, yet the special effects were too cheesy, like the rope moving the moon across the scene was visible. Also the main character of this movie is just not a good-looking man, and for one of the twins he plays he looks extremely bad. This bad-looking twin is unfortunately the star of this movie and he wasn't a sympathetic character. He is working on his master's and works as a telemarketer, and is miserable. This movie was too disjointed, or maybe I don't get the philosophical message underlying it. I just saw someone miserable who is perfectly willing to stay miserable and avoids positive change. I whole-heartedly support Canadian films, yet this is the worst Canadian film I've ever seen. (And that is saying a lot, as there are many mediocre Canadian films.)

Many people claim that Robert Lepage is a «genious» ! Well, he might well be... But who could deny that his physique is very far from being pleasant to look at...? We all know that -- due to an early illness -- he's TOTALLY hairless -- no facial or body hair whatsoever ! So, of course, he has to wear wigs. Wigs that are ALWAYS noticeable to sharp eyes ! In this movie, he wears two different wigs since he plays two different characters -- two brothers. And even with artificial eyebrows, his face is «strangely» unbecoming. Therefore, one can say that both brothers are rather UGLY and somewhat effeminate -- specially the one with long hair -- ironically, the one who's NOT supposed to be gay. In most of his films, I think that Lepage seems to be obsessed with at least two themes : the difficult relationship between brothers and having a scene set in a sauna -- often where gay characters are found. My comments might seem superficial but... are they ?

For people in the Theatre community, Lepage is a much heralded genius. But the nature of theatre is that you have to be in the right place at the right time to see his work. With this movie he has etched a beautiful masterpiece for world wide viewing (granted it gets a decent release). I'm not sure if it's just my enthusiasm from having seen the play but the story was just one that I felt I wanted to embrace again. The stage play was so cinematic that a movie seemed inevitable, and the transitions between scenes were even enhanced through the use of a camera rather than stage. This is really too biased to be a review, but if you haven't seen it, you really should.