mardalsfossen01 Review of Knight of Cups

Knight of Cups (2015)

I think I get it, but it's so hard to sit through

[6/10 · 4 January 2020]

I was waiting for it to end honestly, because as a viewer I felt so confused for most parts. It has amazing cinematography in it at times, no doubt. Has some good actors in it but they don't act that much (also a lot of improvisation). Bale is mostly walking around, gazing into nothing or cuddling with some chick. Not a lot of spoken words, and yes, that is the point. The main character feels lost in life and the viewer does as well (and I think that's the intention) with all these random camera shots lasting 5-10 seconds and barely words being spoken for almost 2 hours and when they are, they are often kind of cryptic. The 'Knight Of Cups' appears once in the movie as a tarot card and I looked it up, it stands for making the next step and that's also the father's last word in the end 'Begin', since the protagonist feels lost - That's some advice. Also in the beginning we hear the father's voice reminding his son of the story he told him as a kid about the Knight who drank from Cups and then forgot about the pearl he was supposed to find. So maybe that's a metaphor that he wasted his life for women and parties (cups) and therefore forgot about finding a true meaning (the pearl).

We have to take the movie as it is and it's more a piece of art than a theater movie and it was hard to sit through honestly for me at times and in my opinion they could've told the same story which has some good thoughts a little bit more entertaining for the viewer.

There are moments though which are calming, almost like meditation with the beautiful cinematography and calm music playing. So the 'movie' somewhere has it's place and has something interesting about it.