The Fourth Dimension
2012 Directed by Harmony Korine, Aleksei Fedorchenko …
Synopsis
Created under a “manifesto” whose directives would make Lars von Trier shudder, this three-part film might look on paper like an exercise in forced hipness. Fortunately, its directors – Harmony Korine (USA), Alexsei Fedorchenko (Russia) and Jan Kwiecinski (Poland) – prove innovative and just insane enough to make The Fourth Dimension an exhilarating experiment.
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"The Oil is gold, and it's cotton candy."
The Fourth Dimension is a film made up of three short films, all of which are supposedly connected by the theme of exploring the fourth dimension. I didn't really concern myself with the fourth dimension aspect of these shorts, as I didn't really see the connection at all. Instead, I focused on appreciating the shorts as individual films, and as a result, I enjoyed all three.
The strongest of the shorts is Harmony Korine's short that stars Val Kilmer. Kilmer plays himself, and himself runs a motivational seminar. The work that Kilmer does here is improvisational wizardry. All he is spewing is nonsense, but it is wonderful nonsense.
The second short is…
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Film #5 in my Harmony Korine Project
The Fourth Dimension is an anthology film put together by Vice directed by Harmony Korine, Aleksei Fedorchenko and Jan Kwiecinski, and if you're thinking "Why, Cole, I've never of this film!" well, neither had I before I started this project, and the good news is you can watch it right here!
This is ostensibly about time (hence the title), but that's only really evident in the second segment, which is a fairly unique take on time travel. It's probably the weakest of the three - it's not bad or anything, it's perfectly decent, but not much more. The lead actress is hella gorgeous, though.
Korine's segment is the first, but it's the third…
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As an anthology film, "The Fourth Dimension" lacks an overall cohesiveness that keeps it from being fully satisfying. However, Harmony Korine's opening segment starring Val Kilmer is probably my favorite 30 minutes of film captured this year, therefore I'm willing to excuse some of the pitfalls within the other segments. Nonetheless, all three films are worthy of watching, they just feel like they shouldn't be attached to one another.
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The part of this anthology that will likely get the most notice will likely be Harmony Korine's piece, which has Val Kilmer playing a particularly odd version of himself as motivational speaker, but while it's amusing, it's the other two pieces, by Silent Souls's Aleksei Fedorchenko and Polish newcomer Jan Kwiecinski, but resonate a bit more, taking simple sci-fi-ish concepts and turning them into stories which resonate suprisingly well.
It winds up being kind of a quiet anthology movie - none of its segments really blow the audience away and they don't come together as something greater - but it does all right.
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Pretentious is as pretentious does. Quite often, the worst thing about arthouse movies is when they aspire to be obscure more so than aspiring to be good and having the obscurity be an unfortunate side effect. The Fourth Dimension comes perilously close to being the former: executive producer Eddy Moretti devised a creative outline which each director taking part in the project had to adhere to. In it were instructions to make sure someone was wearing tap shoes, that stray dogs had to be featured and a main character should be missing a tooth. A sideswipe at the dogme 95 movement or a sincere search for depth?
The film is split into three distinct segments; each questioning what the fourth…
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Film #5 in my Harmony Korine Project
The Fourth Dimension is an anthology film put together by Vice directed by Harmony Korine, Aleksei Fedorchenko and Jan Kwiecinski, and if you're thinking "Why, Cole, I've never of this film!" well, neither had I before I started this project, and the good news is you can watch it right here!
This is ostensibly about time (hence the title), but that's only really evident in the second segment, which is a fairly unique take on time travel. It's probably the weakest of the three - it's not bad or anything, it's perfectly decent, but not much more. The lead actress is hella gorgeous, though.
Korine's segment is the first, but it's the third…
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velvet killed elvis
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Lotus Community Workshop (Harmony Korine) - 4 stars
Chronoeye (Aleksey Fedorchenko) - 2.5 stars
Fawns (Jan Kwiecinski) - 1 star -
You ever like a movie so much that it feels like it was made just for you? Val Kilmer was finally cast in a role that he was born to play: Val Kilmer.
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Three sentences for three films then:
Korine sees no wrong in the cotton candy of being alive in motion in the world.
A.F. sees history (life) less malleable than mediated, and smaller than he'd ever hoped, no matter the size of his ideas, because life is as small as it is iterative and thus infinite.
Jan K sees the void as a circus fresco for the taking before the flood that we brought forth from our pasts washes this petty planet.
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This was a pretty interesting flick for the most part. Personally I felt the Harmony Korine's segment was the strongest. All it's about is Val Kilmer as himself saying a bunch of weird-ass shit as a motivational speaker of sorts and then scenes with him and his girlfriend. It wasn't mind-blowing but I was pretty entertained by Val Kilmer. Fedorchenko's segment was pretty interesting too. It's about a frustrated scientist who invents a machine that allows him to see the glimpses of the past and of the future. There was almost an extremely great pay-off at the end but I felt he ruined it with what, appear to me at least, as a rather nonsensical ending. Kwiecinski's segment is just alright really. A bunch of 20-somethings fuck around in a town that's been evacuated for a while. Nothing really engaging at all.
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"The Oil is gold, and it's cotton candy."
The Fourth Dimension is a film made up of three short films, all of which are supposedly connected by the theme of exploring the fourth dimension. I didn't really concern myself with the fourth dimension aspect of these shorts, as I didn't really see the connection at all. Instead, I focused on appreciating the shorts as individual films, and as a result, I enjoyed all three.
The strongest of the shorts is Harmony Korine's short that stars Val Kilmer. Kilmer plays himself, and himself runs a motivational seminar. The work that Kilmer does here is improvisational wizardry. All he is spewing is nonsense, but it is wonderful nonsense.
The second short is…
-
As an anthology film, "The Fourth Dimension" lacks an overall cohesiveness that keeps it from being fully satisfying. However, Harmony Korine's opening segment starring Val Kilmer is probably my favorite 30 minutes of film captured this year, therefore I'm willing to excuse some of the pitfalls within the other segments. Nonetheless, all three films are worthy of watching, they just feel like they shouldn't be attached to one another.
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"The Fourth Dimension" is a clear reminder that portmeanteau films can and do work when the essential themes at the heart are abided by. It's rare in this day and age that you get a film like this so you really have to embrace it, take it at face value and appreciate the sporadic-ness of each story - all three of which are shot beautifully and play out just the opposite of what you expect them to.
You can watch it here, for free via Vice's YouTube channel, and you can read my full review here at my wordpress blog.