anthonyhope Rage has been given a most surprising rating, which is what prompted me to write my review, though I don't usually do that. Surely this is a very unique film in terms of how it was conceived and so the outcome couldn't have been predicted prior to completion and distribution. This is a film that presents no more than individual characters' worldviews translated to the number of lines they each had alone on screen while being recorded. Centered around the film's subject, which is this fashion event and fashion in general, the things the interviewees said gave me material to form a solid picture, insight into what I ultimately wanted to see, and Rage succeeds tremendously here: how tiniest details give away a person's whole value system, and the value systems tend to be flawed as they are human. The actors brought with them a quality of fearlessly facing the camera through the role and also I give them credit for being very interesting on screen. The tone they set at the end is deserving of praise because it concludes the film effectively. On the whole Rage is, ridiculous as it is at times, a study of human nature, it just uses a particular setting, and perhaps that is what people are put off by. I can imagine the idea working for other subjects too, and certainly think Rage deserved to be ranked higher - really, I am surprised. Hence, I contribute with my rating of 10.

chris-3415 in classical Chinese painting, what gets left out of the composition is of crucial importance. potter's "rage" omits quite a few of the compositional elements we take for granted as essential in modern cinema - a bold move in a world dominated by Hollywood tropes and CGI. "rage" isn't what i'd call an experimental film, it's a film produced with an acute awareness of cinema as a super-saturated medium, in which the audience already knows all there is to be known. there are no new stories to be told; no killings which haven't been shown, no motivation which remains unexplored, no new formulas. but this literate, knowledgeable and sophisticated modern audience produces a space which can be activated by leaving things out, rather than putting things in. potter knows that all she needs to do is map out a bare structure, with sumptuous color and first rate actors, and all the rest of the work can be played out of the expectations we all bring to bear on the cinema experience. "rage" is a who-done-it, with andy warhol's "screen test" film series operating in the background, dressed with a kind of glossy-magazine-photoshopped look in which everyone's irises are a suspiciously similar sci-fi hue, and with a nice little twist in the end which implicates us, the passive viewers. i thought one of the most surprising things about the movie was the palpable "rage" expressed in other reviews on this site. we react like addicts when the sugar-candy experience of having everything laid out for our adrenal stimulation is withheld. this isn't a movie about the fashion industry, its about the modern obsession with surface, with effects, and its background theme is intensely political. it's characters are ciphers for the main players in the infotainment infiltrated everyday world, the businessmen, the celebrities, the wannabes, the innocents, the jaded old-hands, the haves and the have-nots. for those who were disappointed by this work, who weren't fascinated by watching, up close, great actors working, i sincerely hope michael bay's next SFX blockbusta isn't too far away. . .

ignominia-1 well not the worst movie I have seen but certainly a disappointing one given the cast and the director. The movie had the structure and intimacy of a play which would have been alright if it had explored deeper into the characters' intentions and the meaning of their actions. As it were they were predictable and cliché-y: the superficial billionaire, the jealousy ridden transvestite; the vulnerable baby faced model; the over the top "artiste" designer; the cold critic; the body guard (who had too much time to talk to the camera to be doing his job) etc. The story is unclear on what really happens to the two models though we know we should mourn but over what? Suicide, murder accident? We see repeated shots of the characters with cliché gestures of sorrow but we cannot share in the tragedy as we don't know what happened. We are led to believe that the blogger has incited a mayhem of protest but would people -young people we are told- protest so vehemently against some stupid fashion's show? Which gets rerun after the first corpse is not even buried? I don't buy that. The format should have yielded amazing performances as in THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER by Rodrigo Garcia where the actors are stripped bare in front of a close up camera, but in RAGE they chose to follow preset tracks giving little more than prefab personae and that flatness is what kills the movie. Save for Dame Dench who is always superb; Dianne Weist's smile and voice as sweet as honey and Adriana Barraza who steals the movie as Anita de Los Angeles, the only believable and truly sympathetic character in the story. I was disappointed by Buscemi and Leguizamo who can do better acting (Buscemi is excellent as a grieving father in The Messenger) and by Izzard whose straight acting does not convince me - I love his cross dressing comedy routines and he should stick to them. Law is well hidden under wigs and make up and though I was reminded of him (his amazing eyes, beautifully enhanced by make up) mid movie I did not realize it was actually him. Still his Minx was just a caricature of a shallow diva who wants to grab and hold our attention, nothing more. The vivid color backgrounds made for interesting optical tricks when complementary colors clashed and glowed almost hurt the eye, but were insufficient to keep one interested. It's a pity that Potter's failed to go beyond color and costumes for I loved Orlando, her aesthetic was formidable in that movie and Virginia Woolf's story well adapted to her eye for rich costume imagery.

hans_germany I don't post here often, in fact this is my very first comment, and wish it was a better film I felt I could say something about...Please, if you feel differently, explain it too me. This has been my first exposure to Sally Potters work.In Rage, we see a host of characters involved in a fashion show, being interviewed by and speaking with a student working on a school project. Throughout his seven days with the fashion designer, the models, the investor, the marketing consultants, the company owner, the pizza delivery guy, and others, several deaths occur, an investigation is launched, and public opinion is formed and voiced. Stylistically, we see see talking heads, declaring their thoughts and describing their own and others' actions.In my view, the film tries to be a bunch of things, but fails at most of them, miserably. First and foremost, it lacks a plot. Stuff happens, but there is no discernible character development (with a couple of exceptions, rounding up), no new or challenging views on topics we should care about, no discussion on why bad stuff happens to good people, or why people end up as bad people. This is notable, as films as Babel even Crash, and TV fare as The West Wing have taught us that issues have more than one side. Rage fails at that for the most part, focusing on illustrating that the fashion industry is bad, the media industry is bad, marketing folks anyways, and that those poor kids in China and on the runway that suffer. The film seems to work through a laundry list of things you ought to get upset about, had you not heard of them before and discussed them with your friends 10 years ago.Secondly, I straight out blame lack of directing skills for a set of inconsistent, seemingly badly enacted characters. Frank (Buscemi), Mona Carvell (Dench) and Miss Roth (Wiest) come across as at least as semi-credible, non-farcical, at times even multi-layered, or torn. Contrast this with Homer (Oyelowo), Merlin (Abkarian) and (don't shoot me) Minx (Law) - shallow monologues, farcical as far as I could tell, or plain out unbelievable and embarrassing. Either way, I dare say, could be fine. But please, don't mix! Help me understand if the film tries to be funny, or if we see an actor's most horrid performance to date. Ideally, help me understand this without the help of a pamphlet as required reading.Thirdly, try to maintain a shred of plausibility in the set-up. A kid with a cell phone camera being asked by Otto to please, not leak information, again? Diamonds trying to strike a behind-the-scenes deal, talking to said camera? Anita, doing the same, asking for anonymity? Cut that kid off, throw him out, sulk, but do not do what we see on screen! It renders the story implausible, as this asks the viewer to follow along with the cheap-looking declarative approach, no matter what. This in turn allows the makers of the film to skirt the hard work of story-telling - creating a believable universe of topics, characters and contexts.We saw the film as part of the Berlinale competition program. It did receive applause, especially Jude Law and Dianne West, but it also received applause when the words "last day" appeared on screen, and several people, possibly those more critical of what they saw, left mid-film. We wondered if Tilda Swinton is too good a friend of Potter to not invite her to this festival.3 stars, for Wiest, Dench, Buscemi, and 1 laugh/half hour.