That Pixar’s marvelous, moving, and altogether astounding Up deserves every one of its accolades, and perhaps more, should be obvious just a few minutes into the film. But I feel a least a little bit sorry for the critics who had to sing the film’s praises. Yes, I love writing about film, and that love is rooted in a passion for sharing — some of my friends might call it pushing — great cinema with others. But every now and then, a movie comes along that’s so effortlessly delightful that I just want it to be mine, a treasure that I don’t have to share.
This seems like an odd contention for a film critic to make: Isn’t criticism a kind of proselytizing? Isn’t criticism about nothing else but sharing a love of film (even if that love is sometimes disappointed) with others?
Suderman continues:
I’m glad I don’t have to write about it in a comprehensive or authoritative way, to summarize its plot or characters and make a careful case for its greatness. Doing so, even to rave, requires putting at least a bit of distance between oneself and one’s subject, and with a film as elegant and lovely and honestly heartfelt as Up, that’s not something I ever want to do.
Does critiquing a film put distance between the critic and the movie? Can’t it bring even a critic closer to a film, by helping him or her better understand his or her own reaction to it?
Perhaps it’s for the best that Suderman was not compelled to review Up after all...
1 comment:
Normally, I'd agree. Usually, I have a hard time NOT writing about films -- love them, hate them, or somewhere in between. But on very, very rare occasions, I find myself in the position of having just watched a movie I love very much, knowing that no review I write will add to that experience. Now, that doesn't mean I don't want to talk about the film or avoid writing about it entirely. But give that the process of writing a formal review would have added nothing to the great pleasure of the film, I'm glad, in this rare instance, not to have had to cook something up about it.
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