{"id":7692,"date":"2019-08-08T12:08:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T16:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7692"},"modified":"2019-08-08T12:24:03","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T16:24:03","slug":"review-the-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7692","title":{"rendered":"Review: THE MOUNTAIN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bizarre and haunting, this lobotomy drama will leave you hollow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Rick Alverson is a talented director with a unique vision. And with \u201cThe Mountain\u201d he proves that he has an idiosyncratic eye and strong voice. He just needs a script that conveys, dare I say, a brighter message.

When the young, introverted Andy (Tye Sheridan) loses his father (Udo Kier), he\u2019s visited by Dr. Wallace Fiennes (Jeff Goldblum). \u201cI knew your father,\u201d the lanky, bespeckled doctor tells Andy. The boy looks up at the man with barely an expression. Over dinner, Fiennes suggests that Andy join him on the road as an assistant. Andy\u2019s job will be to carry the doctor\u2019s gear and to take photographs.

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Goldblum and Sheridan play two very wounded souls.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the early 1950s, a time when it was acceptable to treat mental illness with a controversial and crippling procedure known generally as the lobotomy. The process involves poking a barbaric instrument above the eyes and into the brain. The result is a deadening of the patient, and if they patient isn\u2019t paralyzed or killed, the brain is so damaged, the person that once was is not longer there. It was banned, ironically, first in Russia on moral grounds and later in the US in the 1950s, although examples of its use persisted for years.

The fictitious Dr. Fiennes is an expert in this horrifying treatment, methodically inflicting brain damage on those he \u201ctreats.\u201d \u201cThe Mountain\u201d approaches his work with a cold and calculating frankness. Fiennes is depicted as a devotee to the craft, but who masks his guilt with alcohol and a woman in every port. And Andy has another reason to dislike Fiennes. He knew Andy\u2019s mother.

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At just 22, Sheridan has already amassed an impressive body of work.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bleak and uncompromising, Alverson, working from a script he wrote with Dustin Guy Defa (\u201cPerson to Person\u201d) and Colm O\u2019Leary (\u201cThe Comedy\u201d), \u201cThe Mountain\u201d is an disagreeable and troublesome film. It\u2019s also beautifully shot and acted.

Shot by Lorenzo Hagerman, who lensed Alverson\u2019s 2015 \u201cEntertainment,\u201d the movie is presented in the 1:37:1 aspect ratio. This ratio, which is also referred to as Academy, has become the retro soup du jour these days with Jennifer Kent making use of it in her startling new film \u201cThe Nightingale,\u201d and Robert Eggers employing a more extreme narrowing of the image with his upcoming horror film \u201cThe Lighthouse.\u201d I\u2019m mixed on the use of this aspect for a drama like \u201cThe Mountain,\u201d especially when the images are so vividly captured and dreamily colored. Other than maybe a period reference, what is the narrative purpose of limiting the visual scope? I wonder\u2026

While the narrative subject matter is utterly distasteful, \u201cThe Mountain\u201d does offer several terrific performances. Goldblum once again reminds us that he\u2019s one of the most underrated and poorly used actors working today. As Fiennes, he\u2019s a tragic monster, who, at one point, is turned away from an institution only to stare off blankly as though he\u2019s one of his ill-fated patients. There\u2019s a vacant quality to Goldblum\u2019s work here that hints at the actor\u2019s charming charisma, while dimming it into something to be pitied.

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Denis Lavant dominates the last third of the picture.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tye Sheridan, the fresh-faced youthful actor who has amassed an impressive filmography at age 22, pulls back here playing Andy as a caged animal. It\u2019s almost too reserved in that Goldblum, who is also required to be dulled, isn\u2019t playing his role big either. But given the material, both performances are just what the doctor ordered. Add on top of that a gonzo turn from French actor Denis Lavant (\u201cHoly Motors\u201d) that dominates the film\u2019s last third, and you have a varied mix. Lavant is certainly an actor who goes for it, and here he adds something very different to the story, but it almost feels out of place. I suppose that his over-acting and exaggerated emotions are meant to be a release for the audience who are grappling with the barbarism associated with the practice of lobotomy, but I found it a bit indulgent and even distracting.

Painfully morbid and unpleasant, \u201cThe Mountain\u201d is a necessary film, in that it exposes a dark medical past, but that doesn\u2019t make the movie easy to digest or, God forbid, to enjoy.

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Rick Alverson’s new film tackles an unpleasant subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1675,501,1677,1674,1676,171],"class_list":["post-7692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-denis-lavant","tag-jeff-goldblum","tag-lobotomy","tag-rick-alverson","tag-the-mountain","tag-tye-sheridan","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7700,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692\/revisions\/7700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}