Really Surprised!

Best movie ever!

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This title keeps getting pushed further and further up the list of Sci-Fi/Fantasy films so eventually, having drained much of the selection, I went for this one. The overly pretentious introductory credit sequence should have clued me in but I am not averse to "art"-y films that tend to linger and rely on soft music cues and sometimes inexplicable imagery to get a message across, usually so long as there is an actual message, even if the message is one of entertainment. Despite my patience for such styles of film, what leaves me decidedly impatient is a film that meanders about, either taking entirely too long to actually begin its storytelling in the mistaken belief that its initial setting and/or its characterizations are strong enough to hold up for nearly 1/3rd of the film's runtime without actually going anywhere (and in this case, it entirely is not), or simply being insufferable. The characters we are introduced to in this film are insufferable. The elderly couple begins its time onscreen as being almost cute. But the longer the film drags on, leaving us with little actual subject matter and leaving us wondering what the film's name even is, the more this couple becomes insufferable. They banter about in the sort of empty-headed, inane manner that is the punchline of stereotypical Midwestern moron type characters. What is further infuriating is that the elderly woman dotes over a disgustingly realistic infant doll, treating it like a real baby, even in public. It's horrifying to look at, and one character, a cashier, glares at it in horror and then nothing further is made of it. After a grueling 20 minutes or so, we finally move on to the next couple, a younger one that is described as being "artistic", engaging in photography that tends to be extremely violent, with the two of them apparently often violently attacking each other for their art. I say they are "described" as such because this plays absolutely no role in their story going onward. This woman is pregnant, and by this point in the film, happily, we've gone through enough empty film that we can start up the actual plot with this couple. In short, stuff is happening. That's about as vague as it gets because that's about as vague as the film wants it to get. It's not Nothing happening, it's clearly something. Some manner of explosion occurred over this small town, which news reports claim to be a meteor, and now some people are going missing, some people are walking around in fugue states, some people are suffering burst blood vessels in their eyes, and black horses randomly appear in places. We get about half way through the film before these events start to unfold, culminating in the ultimate sense of "what the fuddery" as the younger Helen goes to the doctor and... she's not pregnant. She didn't have a miscarriage, she didn't lose the baby, it's just... gone. Unfortunately, so much time has passed in the film thus far that I as a viewer have completely and utterly disconnected from the characters and the plot. I no longer care for them in any way and have no thoughts on the film other than wondering how soon it will end. There is nothing to this film in terms of writing, acting, cinematography, or sound design that can hold one's attention long enough to sustain sitting through this incoherent dribble waiting for actual story to unfold. Everything is "average", "acceptable", "ably performed and executed". It's immensely disappointing that as the film unfolds, more and more insanity and inexplicable phenomena unfold, and yet by the time this all has happened, the film has blown its proverbial load on essentially nothing. A pack of boring, two-dimensional characters, lots of quiet, unremarkable music, and a broad sense of moodiness over nothing in particular. We are essentially watching a science fiction horror movie unfolding in the background. We are watching a group of ordinary, average people living their lives while a history-making paranormal event is unfolding just off-screen via brief news snippets and occasional background interactions.Maybe that stuff is lush fodder for "artsy" movies like this, but it was just plain boring and a dismal waste of so much time.

I felt as though I was tricked into watching this mess of a "movie" with the 6.1 rating here. It never went anywhere. What's with the nutty ladies and the dolls?. The floating head? That silly horse creature. I could go on and on but I wasted enough of my time on this disaster of a show already. It works better than Ambien.

H. is filled with symbolism and contrasting juxtapositioning of material. The film seems to take its title from the main protagonists, two women named Helen who both live in Troy, New York. One is late middle-aged and a member of "Newborn Angels," a group of childless women who dote upon ultra-lifelike infant dolls as if they were live infants, including setting alarms for 3:00 AM feedings and, yes; even breastfeeding them (or at least pretending to). Helen's husband, Roy, seems devoted to Helen at most times, but there is also an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and boredom in his attitude, especially toward Henry, Helen's reborn infant doll. The second Helen is younger, perhaps in her early 30s, and is part of a performance art team along with her husband. The focus of their chosen art genre seems to be death, violence, and blood. They have been known to have knock-down, drag-out arguments with each other, including hitting, punching, and bruising one another at times. They include this as part of their art. Helen is expecting a child. Her husband, Alex, is a known philanderer, but he also seems to genuinely love and treasure Helen. These two women are followed as contrasting parallel stories surrounding a suspected meteor explosion that causes many people in troy to start behaving strangely around the time of the meteor event. Some are convulsed by an ear-splitting whine that precedes the meteor. Others wander away from home and family without knowing where they are going. The older Helen's husband has a fishing buddy named Harold. Roy and Harold decide to go fishing at nearby Lake George, which also turns out later to be the destination of all the missing people who wander off from their homes. Helen does not hear from Roy for a couple of days after the meteor explosion, and suspects that he must be one of the people who wandered into the field near lake George where all the other missing people have congregated, lying down in the snow in semi-fetal positions.Many of the missing people are found to have no memory of who they are or how they got to Lake George. When Helen calls the hotline for the families of the missing people, she is told that Roy is not among those found lying in the field near Lake George. She is very upset, and asks if there are any men who have forgotten who they are and have no ID. She is told that they have one such "John Doe" who has not been claimed by anyone yet. She goes to the hospital and finds that the John Doe is not Roy, but is close to the same age. She pretends that he is her Roy and claims him anyway, not revealing the truth to the officials at the hospital. The younger Helen feels that there something wrong with her unborn child and has a sonogram performed during which the doctors find that there is no fetus present in her womb. They conclude that Helen has suffered a false pregnancy, but Helen will not believe it, insisting that she feels the baby moving and kicking inside her. Around the time of the meteor event, Helen drives to Lake George and winds up lying among the other missing people there. But for unknown reasons she becomes the only fatality among them. Alex is heartbroken over his wife's death. Here the film mysteriously ends.Two of the major symbols that recur in the course of the film are the stray black horse, which appears in three separate scenes: first blocking the road in front of Roy and Harold's car. Next running through the streets of Troy amidst the confusion of the meteor event. And finally in the woods near Lake George with the younger Helen. Here the black horse appears in two forms: as a normal horse and as a man-horse creature that confronts Helen just before she gets to the field where she lays down and dies. The other symbol is the giant head of a statue, presumably of Helen of Troy, which is found inexplicably floating in Lake George. It is either the remains of the meteor itself or it was blown off an existing statue somewhere. We are never told where the head or the horse came from during the film or given any specific information about their significance.This film may bore many people, but I found it really enthralling, especially the reborn doll scenes. I had never heard of such a thing before I saw this film. The dolls captured my interest initially (they really creeped me out personally!) and the other story elements carried me along.

I saw 'H' at Berlinale this year and I thought that this film was brilliant. I loved the characters, both Helen's and their juxtaposing yet equally heart provoking struggle with children really captured my attention. The ending was also something spectacular and heart wrenching. Also, I found the twists in the myth to be just enough that the film had a 'modern day' feel without deviating from the originals too much.It was visually stunning, the cinematography and transitions between shots and even 'Acts' were very pleasing to the eye, as were the location choices. I feel however that if you were not completely familiar with the myths you may be quite confused for a small portion of the film, until it became obvious to every viewer what was happening. Saying that, I would absolutely recommend this film to anyone even slightly interested in mythology, and even if you are not.