The Master
(15)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams. USA, 2012, 144 mins.
Released on 16th November 2012
Reviewed by - 22/11/2012
Dinosaur Dystopia
This is a brute of a film, a clash of two behemoths, time-warped into
the 20th century. Mind-boggling and visually arresting at nearly two and
a half hours long Director Anderson does not spare the eye or the brain.
It's peace-time 1950s America and a new esoteric cult is born. It's omnipresent
Master (Lancaster Dodd – Hoffman) runs the organisation with an
autocratic hand, family members and acolytes alike blindly accepting his
proscriptive analysis of past, present and future.
Into this world crashes Freddie Quell (Phoenix), a war-damaged, misogynistic
misfit who has problems with social interaction and relationships. His
eccentric behavioural traits are flagged early on in his reaction to a
sand sculpture built by off-duty shipmates. He also displays a craving
for alcohol in all its derivative forms. Lethal ethanol infused coconut-milk
cocktails end with him high in the crow's nest, the crew helpless to intervene,
and rocket fuel from shortly to be mothballed missiles is also fair game
for his addiction. Then during a Naval debriefing his psychological inadequacies
are further exposed in a Rorshach Ink Blot Test in which he can only see
explicit sexual imagery.
De-mobbed, Freddie briefly holds down a department store photographers
job. However he cannot go to the darkroom without sexual dalliance with
the female floor walker or recourse to a shot of developing fluid for
company. A fight with a customer costs him his job. Mooching around the
docks he sneaks aboard a boat hosting a fund-raising party for the embryonic
cult and a serendipitous attachment to The Cause is born.
There is now a lot of metaphysical content for the viewer to take in.
Surreal and hypnotic sequences, with sound-tracks to match, confront the
new Apprentice as the Master segues and croons his way across the hall.
Mind-numbing exercises without dissent are now de rigueur.
A bristling magnetism between the leads now drive the action. Freddie's
contorted face (part grimace part crazed smile) is enjoined by Lancaster's
sweaty features, a tyrannosaur at the table as he boisterously tries out
more outlandish alcoholic concoctions. Not everyone is happy with this
two man tour de force. Discontent from Peggy (Adams), as Dodd's latest
wife (who attempts to prevent the binge drinking) and waverers is met
with sporadic violence as the Master calibrates the doctrine.
Eventually the authorities catch up with the dubious fund-raising tactics
and the set-up moves to England. The Apprentice by this time has had enough.
Exhausted and unenlightened of the misdemeanours in his past lives he
fails to find redemption with his first girlfriend. Given a last chance
he travels to the new HQ for a final meeting with the Master but eschews
his tutorage in favour of the village pub. Here his horny, raptor stare
fixates a female across the bar and the old rewards of sex and strong
spirits help keep him going in this lifetime – if not the next with
the Master.
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