Wonderful character development!

Well Deserved Praise

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Well, this masterpiece is beyond reviews. But today, just found my original movie ticket from Jun/18/1999 at 9:30pm, when American Cinematheque in Hollywood-CA, had 7 showtimes Jun/17-20, with Martin Scorcese & Francis Ford Coppola were present in dedication to Mr. Jerry Garcia, which helped pay for rescue of this almost lost occult treasure. In its full-length version of 3hrs. "I love this movie... I saw the film 3 times, which in my case is exceptional" -- Luis Bunuel. Can't forget this masterpiece, and happy to be there once in a life time! Presently, waiting to see if Netflix could have it for rent, and see it again, this time with a vintage eco-vert red wine bottle...

Sorry but I'm really not going to jump on the bandwagon with this one. What could had been a great but foremost entertaining, epic movie, just wasn't.That's really the biggest problem of the movie; it just isn't very entertaining. The movie started out alright and it actually looked like this was going to be a likable adventure movie but it very soon turned into one that consisted only out of a bunch of uninteresting characters, sitting down and talking to each other.And that's all this movie was to me really; talk, talk, talk! And that for 3 hours long. No, I found very little enjoyment in this movie, though I still can't rate it poorly, since it's definitely a good looking movie and got skilfully put together, by director Wojciech Has.I loved the fact that the movie looked as if it was going to be an adventurous story of almost epic proportions, in perhaps the same style as an ancient Greek tale, filled with strange situations and unusual characters that had to be dealt with. But imagining my disappointment when the movie started heading into a totally different and far less interesting direction. I expected to love every second of this movie but I ended up counting the seconds for this movie to end.In that regard this movie really reminded me of the movie "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", which is also an highly rated one by about everybody else but is one I just couldn't like. It's similar because both are movies that present themselves as big, long, adventurous, fun movies, that however in my opinion totally forgot to deliver on its entertainment. What they also have in common is that their main character really isn't that interesting or likable. I like Zbigniew Cybulski (the Polish James Dean) and all but I just couldn't really like his character in this movie.I wouldn't exactly say that I was bored with this movie, it just was one that couldn't ever really interest me. Not with its story, not with its characters, not with its humor, not with its entertainment, not with its settings. In other words, with nothing really. I won't start yelling that I want these 3 hours of my life back but I will say that 3 hours is a long time for watching a movie that I never really liked.One thing I did like was the way the movie looked. Even though I didn't liked the movie very much it still was obvious to me what a talented director Wojciech Has was. He had a very visual and a bit of a surreal approach, which he added to the movie. Who knows, maybe I'll still end up loving some of his other worked, since I'm normally also actually quite fond of Polish cinema.There is nothing really horrible about this movie. It just was one I never got into and cared about, mostly because it to me never became interesting and/or entertaining enough.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Perhaps more than any other film, Saragossa Manuscript begs for multiple viewings. A fascinating way to watch this movie is to simply see it as space unfolding. At the highest level the structure is a set of interconnected stories which loop back on one another. Each story is a separate, nested world with a narrator who serves as a portal. This is not unlike current theories in physics about the multiverse, with separate worlds that wormhole into and out of one another, connected by black holes.Also, the frame by frame construction of the film is deeply spacial. The setting of the Sierra Morena seems to have not a single flat surface and the camera is often askew to accentuate this. Elaborately constructed sets are filled with boundaries and connections. Characters interact thru barred windows and seem to constantly flow into and out of doorways and windows. There are many long narrow corridors and alley ways. The camera captures ascending and descending stairways and shots are wide angle to create a feeling of great depth. Often action is focused on a figure in the foreground while another character secretly slips into or out of the room thru a doorway in some distant corner.This unsettling and masterful manipulation of space is in large part what propel the story so convincingly, since the many boundaries and connections determine which relationships are consummated and which things remain forever out of reach.

Although I usually try to avoid very long movies, I was glad I took the time to watch this one. Based on Jan Potocki's marvelous, somewhat `enlightened Gothic novel', this is another congenial literary adaptation of Director Wojciech Has; it's a shame this is the only one of his movies easily available. The film tells of a young soldier traveling through Spain and meeting a lot of strange characters that all have their own stories to relate. Of course, the series of interlocked stories-within-stories may appear complicated, but there is always the opportunity to just lean back and enjoy the story being told right now; or to look at the diagram in the great DVD Edition to make things clear. And surely there doesn't seem to be a central thread if you don't watch the end of the movie. (How useful would a review of, say `The usual Suspects' be, if you didn't watch the ending?) And, by the way, there are a lot more stories and framing devices in the novel… It's no wonder that (Danger! Pretentious name-dropping ahead) this is one of Luis Bunuel's favorite movies, the structure of some of his later films, especially `The Milky Way' and `The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' bear a lot of resemblance. And there's a scene in `Monty Python's Life of Brian', in which the Pasheko – Character reappears. (It's too close to be a coincidence.) To cut a long story short: If you prefer films with a straight forward narration; this one's obviously not for you. But if you're open minded and like to see a highly original, imaginative epic, try it.