The Mountain

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🎙️ EPISODE 213: 12.19.2019 (Note: this original podcast & critique was written before my in-depth Director Focus on Rick Alverson. Check that out for more analysis on The Mountain as well as his first four features.) Rick Alverson doesn't care. He doesn't care about exposition or telling easy stories. And he clearly doesn't care about winning over any mainstream critics or the common moviegoer. (65% on R.T. with a lowly 19% audience score?! We're doomed!)

I left this film in a daze, filled with a frenetic energy after absorbing what, to me, is an all-time classic final shot. I was confused and overjoyed in the kind of way only a piece of art that is, in part, about how art is not real can make you feel. Rick Alverson doesn't care if art is real or not. Why should we?

Jeff Goldblum deserves all the awards and Tye Sheridan probably deserves all of them and then a few more, but the latter's performance is so understated that it's possible he was just rotoscoped onto the screen. Most people live life not really there. These people probably don't deserve art. They're everyone.

I'm still weeding my way through the metaphors and deeper meanings here (on the micro), but, suffice to say, all of that is ancillary to the whole: a 108-minute long feeling. That feeling will most likely change based on the viewer. Clearly it was disgust and boredom for quite a few. But in my eyes, this film is a masterpiece. The best movie I've seen this year.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 212 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 214A ⫸

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