Sunday, January 5, 2014

Movie Review: The Stranger


Having never seen one of Ray's films I wasn't too sure of what to expect. What I got was an immensely pleasurable film with a great cast and performances.

The story of a long lost uncle coming to visit his niece's family for a week is both tense and heartwarming. Her husband is suspicious that he's a con-man while her son immediately bonds with the old man through his tales of the world. Written by Ray, I got the sense that this was a real family with strong bonds and the dialogue shows this.

Though there aren't many locations there's a real sense of place when you're in this family's home, almost as if you would know exactly where you were going if you were there. During the outdoor scenes there's vibrant color and beautiful scenery to behold and I was never bored throughout the two hour runtime.

Much like Kurosawa's final film 'Madadayo' this is a smaller movie than what has come before in the director's canon but from what I've read, just as powerful.

A great film from a director whose work I'm looking forward to delving deeper in to.

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