Across the Universe

Last weekend I had the chance to watch "Across the Universe," a film by Julie Taymor who also directed one of my favorite movies,"Frida." Across the Universe is a musical based on 33 of the Beatles songs. I was a little hesitant at first because it seems pretty daring for someone to re-record these ledgendary songs. I thought it would be as bad as a sequal is to an original...but I was wrong! It was so eye popping! Each scene was paired with a Beatles song that defined that era of anti-war, struggle for free speech and civil rights, mind exploration, and rock 'n' roll. It seemed sort of warhol-esque. It moved from realistic to very surrealistic. I guess whimsical would be a good way to describe this. I usually am not a big fan of surreal musicals, but with this one I can not get enough of it. I am normally not much of a film critic, but more of an art critic. This is so artistic I think that is why I have so much to say about it.

One of my favorite parts, I guess you could call the climax of the movie, was Jude's artwork with rows of bleeding strawberries that turns into a hallucination of strawberry bombs being thrown into Southeast Asia. Symbolism: at the same time shows Max and the other soldiers in war. Also another good part with super creative choreography was the "I Want You!" with Uncle Sam while Max gets recruited into the army. So much fun to watch, it had to have taken forever to perfect that.

The music and vocals were fantsastic. I watched the special features and they expressed that all the vocals were captured live on set rather than pre-recorded and lip-synced.(did I spell that right?) :) Well anyways...I hope you all get a chance to see this movie. I did not live in the 60's, but the history and overall impression seemed very accurate.