Praise for a Film

A nameless movie effusively venerated by anonymous cinephiles.

Praise for a Film

“Watching this movie in the cinema, I felt like I was dead, entering a different dimension. I can’t describe it. I was not afraid. I was curious. I will always remember that feeling.”

“My biggest mistake in life was not going to watch this movie in the theater.”

“One of the most indelible cinematic experiences of my life. Absolutely stoked that I got to see it in a theater.”

“I’m gutted that I didn’t get to see it in the cinema.”

“I shed a tear when I saw it in the theater.”

“The best thing my dad ever did for me was drag me to see this in the theater.”

“Rarely do I watch a movie twice during its theatrical run as I did for this one. Both times, some people got bored and walked out. Unfathomable. It gives me chills to think about.”

“Honestly, I wish I could’ve watched this in the theater.”

“Almost eleven years later, I still think about seeing this movie in the theater.”

“Because of my age at the time, I couldn’t see it in the theater. Strange that in a film so much about time, it was my age — time itself — that barred me from experiencing it as it was meant to be experienced. The older I get, the more I think about the minor tragedy that not getting to see it earlier means a lesser portion of my life has been lived under its influence.”

“I was luckier than most. I watched this masterpiece alone in an empty cinema in absolute silence, obviously not counting the sound of the film itself. When it was over, I walked out of the theater in a deep depression. It took me several days to come back to my senses. This was the best film that I had seen in twenty or thirty years. How easy hope is born, how painful it is to lose. How even more painful it is to lose yourself, and only find yourself when you give yourself away. It’s painful even when it’s worth it, and even more so when you’re not sure it is. I lived those three hours with the main character without noticing the time even once, and when the hero died, I’m telling you, truly, a part of me died with them.”

“I went to see this film five times in the theater because of the soundtrack and sound design. Bold and transcendent auditory spectacle. Just like all great music should be. The composer needs to be mentioned in the same breaths as Mozart and Beethoven.”

“Saw this in a small cinema and was not happy — until the sound came on. It was so loud it felt like you were in the setting with the characters, every voice and sound vibrating like crazy. Went back for another watch in a larger cinema. It was still amazing but nowhere near as intense as the experience of seeing it in the cramped theater with the disproportionately loud sound.”

“My main regret with this movie was that I only bothered to see it in theaters once. I really should’ve watched it a second time. Quite an unrivaled experience.”

“Just curious why so many people say they regret they missed it at the cinema. It’s not like this movie wasn’t advertised on every available subway poster and billboard in the world before its global release. Even before it came out, it was being hailed as one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of all time. Astounding that so many who claim to have loved this movie never sought it out during the many, many months it was in theaters. Hard for me to sympathize with anyone griping now because they missed one of the most obvious cinematic opportunities of all time. People who feel bad that they didn’t see this as it was meant to be seen deserve to feel that way.”

“I never saw this in theaters. Wish I had. Going to the theater really makes a movie come alive. Best I can hope for is to set up a speaker system and use a projector at home, but that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars. Hopefully, another movie like this will come out again. Then I’ll definitely be seeing that one in the theater.”

“I remember being super excited to see this movie in theaters. At the time I thought it was the best movie I’d seen ever in my life, and looking back now I find myself in full agreement with my past self, which is not often the case with me. Great director and actors. Great setting and production design. And of course the greatest score and sound design of all time. If you’re a filmic audiophile like myself and somehow haven’t seen it, you need therapy because you’re out of your mind, and you’re going to need even more therapy after you do see it because you’ll be kicking your past self for having failed to see it sooner.”

“I freaking knew I had to watch this one in the theater. It made such a deep impact on me that I haven't had the ability to watch it again since. I’m not a film expert, but when I left that cinema, I was fully aware that I had just experienced the power of movies at their fullest possible expression.”

“The cinema in my hometown had been closed for six years and there was this whole community push to raise money and get it reopened. When it finally did, they chose to celebrate by screening this movie long after it had been out of theaters. I think it was illegal, but we did it anyway. To say the theater was packed would be an understatement — it was shoulder to shoulder! People were crammed in there like sardines on steroids. You couldn’t move and you could barely even breathe. And guess what? We fucking loved ever second of it. There should be more modern shared experiences where you’re forced to share something amazing with other people while packed in with them so tightly you can barely move. I’m telling you it was crazy weird and crazy good. It’s like being in the front row at a huge concert knowing it will take you hours to leave. The voluntary loss of agency increases your adrenaline and forces you to submit physically as well as mentally to the spectacle unfolding before you, as your only escape from your uncomfortable fusion with the crowd hemming you in is through the path your attention takes you into the art on display. ”

“Audio/cinematic brilliance. Nothing more can be said. It must be experienced to be believed.”

“Watched this film in the theater. It was pure unadulterated bliss: jaw on the floor for the first half of the movie, water filling my eyes for the second half.”

“This is the first movie I ever saw in a theater, and it’s the last. I’ll never go back because nothing will ever be as good. Everyone should envy me because my memory of the only theater experience I have ever had is so pure that it will last a lifetime.” 

“I have seen this masterpiece too many times. Now this music haunts me even when I’m not watching the film.”

“I saw it in the theater and as we were walking out afterward someone literally said, ‘You think this one will become a classic?’ I couldn’t help it; I shot them a look that said without saying a word, ‘Of course it will, you simpleton.’”

“To everyone else, this film is austere, intellectual, and depressing — but to me, it’s relaxing, meditative, and transcendent. I don’t mind going against the grain when I say this movie is highly underrated.”

“I watch this movie three or four times a month. It isn’t a film for me, it’s a religious experience.”

“Watched this on opening day. Left the cinema blown out of my socks. Tried to watch it again later that day but couldn’t because I was afraid it wouldn’t be as good the second time around and that might ruin it. Took me until it left the theater for me to watch it again, still nervous it wouldn’t live up to the first time. Well, it not only lived up to it, it surpassed it, and now a day doesn’t go by where I don’t regret not watching it a second time in the theater when I could have. Every time you see this film, you see things you missed and become connected to all the feelings you’d thought you’d become numb to and had even forgotten how to feel. To forget a feeling even exists is the saddest thing I can think of. I feel horrible for anyone who died before this film was released. They never even had a chance to see it.”

“People are born like a wet sponge that the world slowly squeezes out until they’re dry and stiff and brittle. But then movies like this come along, where the hand of human artistry turns on the faucet and holds your sad brittle sponge-form under the running tap of beauty, and you finally soften and expand and fill back up again.”

“My dream is to order the biggest TV that can fit through my door, mount it on the living room wall, and sit six fucking inches from the screen with the most expensive headphones money can buy clapped on my ears and watch this movie on repeat until I die of happiness.”

“You don’t want it to end; you want it to be real.”

“Saw this alone in the theater. Couldn’t figure out why I didn’t want to see it with anyone else. I think it’s like when you meet God, you want to be eye to eye, face to face with the Infinite. You don’t want your friends or strangers there because you don’t want God judging you for things your friends or strangers did. You just want God to see you and know you and accept you for who you are, you alone. In the same way, I feel like this masterpiece was too deep to experience with other people. I know it goes against the point of movies as a social ritual, but still, I didn’t want my awareness of another human being to get tangled up in my immersion in a perfect story. So I guess I had to see it alone, and I was glad I did.”

“I feel privileged that I got to see this masterpiece in the theater with my fiancé. I proposed immediately afterward, and I knew the answer would be yes because the film we’d just seen had been so good. It almost felt like cheating at cards to pop the question then. I feel like I could’ve been with anyone and asked them anything and the answer would’ve been a resounding yes.”

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This was originally published in the summer 2023 issue of Sixth Finch, which has a new issue out. I really liked this poem.