Message 1:
From: ganimedes
Ravenous is a cult movie. Eviscerated for the established reviewers, but with strong supporters among the avant-garde and countercultural reviewers who are capable to see beyond the surface and find smart metaphors about war, the struggle to control one's appetites (for violence and domination), references to addictive behavior: drinking, peyote-smoking, Toffler's single-minded religious preoccupation's) and to the pleasurable to sin. The raunchy, bloody and disrespectful of both movie conventions and American history (explicitly Manifest Destiny, the impending California gold rush and the generalized American conviction that if you're not constantly consuming and bulking up, you're a failure, and that remorse is for suckers). And an oddity of genre mixing - part western, part historical satire, part adventure movie, part horror film. Reviewers are constantly complaining about the emptiness of the most of the films, but when they have a film with cultural references with a sardonic treatment, they dislike it too alleging that these elements rarely add up to anything, and when they do, they're overshadowed by the director's confusingly edited but spectacularly nasty bloodletting.
The main reason because the common public reject ravenous (even without see it) is for the cannibalism issue. Cannibalism is the latest taboo (with the incest) of our civilization, and the most of the people have an automatic negative response toward a movie with this kind of subject. But I think Ravenous is more a Vampire alike movie. Basically for its sexual intensity between the two leading men. They played the sexiest scenes in a movie the last year. More sexier than a romantic comedy or a conventional drama. Both actors are superlative and very attractive. Ravenous is subversive version of the classic tale of the beauty and the beast: a beast (in a moral sense) trying to seduce a beautiful woman and a hero salving her. In Alien the beauty and the hero (heroin) is the same person. Ravenous goes much more far, the beauty and the hero are the same person but the beauty is a man and as a hero is actually a coward. This is a controversial fact among the critics. Some reviewers, with a conventional assign man hero in mind, reprove the lack of courage of Boyd, his passivity, his fragility. Ravenous isnīt a conventional film so its characters arenīt conventional.
For example, Johnny Bray of TechnoFILE says: "Maybe I'm being unfair to Pearce, because he does a pretty good job in the last five minutes of the movie, when he goes from becoming a cowardly half-assed cannibal, to finally becoming the hero. He' has the look, the walk, and the overall style of a movie hero, and I'm thinkin' this wasn't the best role to cast him in (he probably fired that agent pretty quickly!)."
Fortunately there are others reviews with the contrary opinion as Donna Bowman (Nashville Scene) "Although Carlyle has the showy part and gets most of the good lines, it's Pearce who makes the film work. The protagonist of a horror film is mainly required for reaction shots, and most actors run out of interesting ways to look terrified pretty quickly. But Pearce finds divisions and subdivisions of fear, revulsion, weariness, and pain, and he expresses them all without histrionics. " Or Marshall Fine (Gannett News Service) :"Pearce, so good as the straight arrow cop in "L.A. Confidential," brings a smoldering self-loathing to this role. As Boyd, he aptly captures the conflict in a man who hasn't the heart to be a soldier, let alone a practicing cannibal "
Message 2:
From: Hidden Faith
I found that without a strong female presence in the entire movie, Boyd's gentle nature was used as a metaphor for men dominating women, as Ives clearly dominates Boyd throughout the movie. I also agree that the scenes they share are very sexual in nature....or maybe the right word would be sensual....as Ives coolly calculates his seduction of Boyd. He teases and flirts, and still Boyd refuses to give in.....so then he lashes out. I don't know about the rest of you, but that sounds like a relationship to me. (You only hurt those you love----Or so they say anyway.)
Thinking the core characters in this context, it seems to have a kind of Romeo and Juliet ending don't you think?
Message 3:
From: DanzigerE2
It is very Shakespearean, yes, I have thought that to myself once of twice already. The thing that interest me is that the viewer is not upset when viewing the end, well at least I'm was not and the people I know or have seen it with were not. Such as at the endings of "Titanic" or "The Green Mile", your bawling. At the end of "Ravenous", I personally accepted the fact that Boyd and Ives had to die. It was inevitable. Even if Boyd lived, he would still be this Wendigo, and would slowly become Ives. Yeah, it leaves room for a sequel, but who wants that?
At the end of Romeo and Juliet you feel quite the same, or were meant to till Danes and DiCaprio messed up the play with that film they made. Sorry, I'm a craze Shakespeare fan and purest, so if you enjoyed that film version of Romeo and Juliet, just ignore me. At the end of most of Shakespeare's tragedies the viewer is not crying or upset by it, you accept it as the ending that had to be: Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet and so on and so on. I think your on to something here Hidden, it is very Shakespearean. Maybe that is why I like it so well.
Message 4:
From: ganimedes
Usually the public of horror films are male teenagers. But I notice that Ravenous has a lot of female followers because its erotic and romantic accents. "Yet each man kills the thing he loves, some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!" (Oscar Wilde). Anyway I donīt agree with the reviewers who criticize the performance of Guy Pearce as stunned, stiff and overshadowed. I mean the role was written as a coward, vulnerable, sullen, moody, and silent tormented man; so he plays his role with touching perfection. If the role was written as a Stallonesque type obviously he fails, but this isnīt the case. And one of the things that I like in Ravenous is to see a man so sensitive and complex. Iīm very tired of the monolithic one-piece action man heroes. I want to see more complex characters. Such as Ives and Boyd are. Ives is an epicurean and Boyd is a stoic.
Message 5:
From: DanzigerE2
I agree completely. Moody is a great word. I was impressed by the fact that he is quiet. Rarely in a motion picture do you find a character who is quiet. He doesn't have very many lines at all, but you know exactly what he is thinking at all times which just proves what a great actor he is.
At the end of Romeo and Juliet you feel quite the same, or were meant to till Danes and DiCaprio messed up the play with that film they made. Sorry, I'm a craze Shakespeare fan and purest, so if you enjoyed that film version of Romeo and Juliet, just ignore me. At the end of most of Shakespeare's tragedies the viewer is not crying or upset by it, you accept it as the ending that had to be: Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet and so on and so on. I think your on to something here Hidden, it is very Shakespearean. Maybe that is why I like it so well.
