Renegade
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Movie Reviews of Renegade
Movie Review: for the visuals
Summary: 5 Stars
the movie as good or bad is irrelevant, you just need to see this for the ayahuasca sequences, the closest thing to a real trip i've ever seen put on video. seriously.Movie Review: Cool A*s!
Summary: 5 Stars
Absolutely fantastic. A true gem. This flick excels and in the process creates a whole new genre - the fantasy/Western. It will become a cult classic.Movie Review: A metaphysical western
Summary: 4 Stars
(Very) Loosely based on Jean "Moebius" Giraud's famous comic strip, Blueberry, Jan Kounen's Renegade only uses the French artist's work as a starting point for which to go off on all kinds of fanciful, metaphysical tangents. It starts with obvious nods to Sergio Leone's expansive widescreen spaghetti westerns and ends up tripping the light fantastic with blatant references to the cosmic climax of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
From the opening shots of vast, sun-drenched desert landscapes to the lush, green forests that the Native American inhabit, Renegade is saturated in atmosphere. It is rich in texture and detail that immerses the viewer in this world. Kounen uses an impressive arsenal of visual tricks, such as time lapse photography and dissolves to enhance the mystical effect that he is trying to achieve. By the film's climatic 20 minute mind-trip, the director cranks up his style to a whole other psychedelic kaleidoscope of computer generated abstractions that threatens to overload the senses. After the ten-minute mark it gets to be a little much and after that point it becomes an endurance test.
Renegade is a western but with a definite European sensibility that is steeped in symbolism and flashy style. Kounen simultaneously celebrates traditional western iconography (six-shooters, horses, etc.) and subverts it with images of mysticism and magic (animal totems). In this respect it bears more than a passing resemblance to the similarly minded western, Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch. Like it, Renegade is an artsy western but with pretensions to 2001-like cosmic and spiritual awareness. After the last image fades you are practically choking on the dense and intense imagery that comes off as extremely pretentious. But after awhile and once the film's imagery sinks in, some of Renegade's striking imagery lingers.
Movie Review: Magical Blend of Amazonian Shamanism set in the American West
Summary: 4 Stars
Like one of the other reviewers wrote: "If you love westerns...DON'T BUY THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!" This is an incredible blend of the director's experience of studying in the Amazon with shamans and spirits of the rainforest. I could have never imagined it could be pulled off so well. I read horrible things about the story of movie, so I was coming in with very low expectations in that arena. As a result, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't painful at all, and the presentation of the shamanism is so accurate I got shivers many times during the movie. I only gave it 4 stars because the narrative of the story wasn't strong enough to merit 5 stars. I soooo look forward to seeing more of this director's work. He has already made several documentaries that directly explore shamanism in "Other Worlds" and a series of documentaries -"Another Reality"- which includes a beautiful presentation of the Hindu Saint Amma Chi. Neither are available for sale as far as I know.Movie Review: The Destination is never as important as the Journey
Summary: 4 Stars
And this film proves that to me in leaps and bounds. I have never had the pleasure of reading the comic books, but now having seen the film...I feel that tracking some of them down would be a very worthwhile endevour.
As a student of spiritual mysteries I was completely enthralled by this film. The story line moves very quickly, with unearthly undertones to even the most mundane of scenes. This is not a film that you watch...it is a film that you feel. Delving into the world of the mind of the Shaman is something that must be purused with caution, especially when it comes to the media of film. Beyond any doubt however, this movie captured the truth of this with such depth and heart...there aren't really words that can do it justice.
As far as acting and directing...again, very well executed. If you are a fan of either Vincent Cassel or Michael Madsen you will not be dissapointed.