I Was Alone Again at Least for a Little While Eves Bayou
Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain.
This is director Kasi Lemmons' start film and she has entered the world of movie theater with a very bold start. Eve's Bayou is a very passionate story about life and love with a family surrounded by night secrets. Lemmons' has boldly introduced united states to a world in which magic is obvious and characters are deeply developed. There isn't ane actor in this movie that you do not fully appreciate. Everyone in this film gives everything that they have to help create this hidden masterpiece. Roger Ebert named this film the best of 1997, and I hold whole-heartedly. What makes this motion picture different from other films of this nature is that Lemmons keeps u.s. grounded. We are constantly reminded of where we are and whom we are dealing with. There is not some outside element trying to sneak in and disrupt the peace; it is a completely internal motion-picture show that allows u.s. to devote ourselves to this desperate family. She controls Jackson with the greatest of ease, and gives us i of the most powerful kid performances always. If I had the chance to give the Oscar to Jurnee Smollett for her office of Eve in this pic, I would have gladly handed it to her. Her operation allowable the film. She was the strongest and most beautifully developed character in this film. Smollett was outstanding. I have never been and then impressed with a child actor equally I was with her in this film. Her optics gave us all the drama that nosotros needed. I never thought that I would witness acting in its purest form come from a kid. For anything, this film is worth seeing just for the operation of Smollett. She literally steals the scenes from everyone, even Mr. Jackson.
I mentioned earlier that I loved the fact that this film kept us grounded past continually showing usa scenes from the bayou. It kept our minds focused on where nosotros were and the environment that surrounded these troubled people. Amazingly, Lemmons has transformed this setting into more than than just a place, she has given information technology life. Not simply through our characters, but it also is the center of near of the magic that occurs. It is a very symbolic reference. A bayou is a creek or a secondary waterway that is a passageway to another larger bounding main. In this film, Eve represents the bayou every bit she travels to her family, the larger body of water. As well, whenever Mozelle calls upon the 'spirits' her first sight is of the bayou. Lemmons may exist saying that the bayou is more than just water, it is the center of everyone's universe in this town. Perhaps it has more meanings, but I actually felt that Lemmons was using the bayou as more than than just a place setting, it spoke to me more well-nigh the characters.
Finally, I would like to add that coupled with the amazing acting, Lemmons gives some of the nearly memorable management behind the camera. The scenes when Mozelle speaks nigh how she lost her second husband (the one that loved her the most) considering her lover wanted her to himself was riveting. Told through the mirror, this was one of the about interesting ways to tell a flashback. Instead of using the classic 'black and white' or faded lines trick, Lemmons actually brought the scene to u.s.a.. Nosotros witness it firsthand and this allows united states to be impacted deeper. I felt the connexion, and it worked.
Overall, this was a gem. I wasn't expecting to see such a caliber of acting and direction equally I did in this film. The cinematography was outstanding. Lemmons has an eye and a passion for this film, and it is credible with every scene that she captures. The Batiste family engulfs all of your emotion. Lemmons takes innocent children and captures you within their world, giving you only brief moments to breathe. She shows us the power behind Jackson's phonation and the ability he has to expand his career. This was a surprise for me, but a well enjoyed surprise. I suggest you lot cheque this movie out when time permits. It is a rare find that you lot will probably see in the bargain bin at any local store. Pick it upwards and savour it. I do not think you will exist disappointed.
Grade: **** out of *****
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Witchcraft and the modern Southern daughter
A bayou is the Southern U S term for an ox-bow lake, a stretch of stagnant water left behind past a river running through level countryside after it has fabricated a short cut through one of its banks. The characters in this motion picture have been left behind by history in the Bayou state of Louisiana. They are nice, middle-grade creole folk going nowhere. Louis Baptiste (Samuel 50 Jackson) is the local medico living in a fine frame house with his fragile ex-beauty queen wife and iii children including the film'south narrator, 10 year sometime Eve (Jurnee Smollett). Family unit fable has information technology that an earlier Baptiste, a French full general in the Napoleonic era, had his life saved by a local blackness slave girl, the ancestral Eve. She married him and had xvi children, thus kick-starting local development. By the early on 1960s, in which this movie is fix, the Bayou is your archetypal Southern backwater. Louis didn't get that bit at medical schoolhouse about not screwing your patients and in fact information technology seems to be an integral function of his practice. His sister Mozelle (Debbie Morgan) is besides a therapist of a sort - having the gift (or curse) of second sight she finds lost relatives by exercising her psychic powers. Unfortunately she's hopeless equally to her own affairs- her three husbands, all much loved, accept all died prematurely.
At the start of the motion picture Eve, in voice over fashion, announces " The twelvemonth I killed my father, I was 10." Then we switch to a party at the Baptise house where Eve discovers her Dad having it off with a patient in the railroad vehicle business firm. He laughs it off, but the seed of dubiousness is planted, and when there is an incident involving Louis and Eve's older sister Cisely (Meagan Good) the stage is set for tragedy. In fact the movie is not so much about murder as about guilt, the particularly bully variety which afflicts someone who injures some other he or she adores and is dependent on.
On the style, as the film moves through lush swampy scenery at an accordingly languid pace, nosotros run into the residuum of the Baptiste family and Diahann Carroll, enjoying herself as a downmarket sorceress. In that location's no sign of the racially witting Due south - every bit far as race is concerned we might besides be in the highlands of Scotland. The whole film has a dreamlike quality (Brigadoon?). As Eve explains, her story is well-nigh the way memory is formed often every bit much by imagination as by what really happened. I seem to remember they told united states that in Psych 101 but it is rather more than poetically put on this occasion.
The photography is gorgeous and the acting more than than proficient. Jurnee Smollett in her start office stands out, but Debbie Morgan as Mozelle the psychic aunt produces a three dimensional graphic symbol from a part which could easily accept been done equally caraciature. Samuel L Jackson fills the nib equally the charming philanderer Louis.
The film is apparently the first from writer-manager Kasi Lemmons, though Samuel L is credited every bit one of the producers and very likely had a say in the product. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to innovate all the main characters in such a rush at the political party in the opening sequence but it's all sorted out in the finish. The brief black and white "psychic" sequences fit seamlessly into the rest of the picture and somehow one doesn't terminate to ask just how Mozelle does it.
At the end of the day, y'all wonder how a child of 10 could go through what Eve has gone through and non become a gibbering wreck. At the cease, she sits on the edge of the Bayou with sis Cisely, contemplating a gorgeous sunset, apparently at peace with the world. Is the temper so thick, so cloying, in the Bayou, that even murder and mayhem are quickly forgotten? It's a beautiful sensuous (and sensual) temper though, and worth sampling.
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Mojo better blues
The ghost of Tennessee Williams hover over "Eve's Bayou". The action takes place in a moss draped Louisiana backwater, and the family under ascertainment (in their big gracious bayou house) is ripe with desires, disappointments, and the mysterious smell of sex activity as whatever in Mr. William'southward neighborhood. But the notable accomplishment of actress-author Kasi Lemmons in her characteristic directorial debut is in creating a landscape quite beautiful and entirely her own - a fluid, feminine, African American, Southern gothic narrative that covers a tremendous corporeality of emotional territory with the lightest and most graceful of steps. The story belongs to immature Eve Batiste. "The summer I killed my male parent, I was 10 years old," a grown up Eve announced in a provocative prologue voice over. Simply the drama unfolds (in an unspecified bygone era when well to practise woman wore gorgeous dresses to parties in their own homes) is far more shape shifting than such an audience grabbing statement can convey. Eve's father, Louis, is a suave, popular medico and gentle family human being who'due south as well a womanizer - a flaw that bedevils Eve's graceful mother and especially torments Eve's older sister, Cisely, who adores her daddy more than than she should. Eve, meanwhile worships her big sister. And in reaching out to support Cisely in a cardinal sexual struggle neither girl understand, Eve turns start to her father's sister Aunt Mozelle a vibrant, enigmatic woman infused with good-witch spiritual powers, and then to Elzora a voodoo priestess with potent bad witch abilities. Lemmons thus lays out big themes - the little seductions of fathers and daughters - the thick bail between sisters - the ability of dark and light intentions in the textile world. Simply she covers any traces of "heaviness" with shimmering, dream land visual elegance. And she makes up for any rough spots from the movie'southward younger actors with with a lovely score, and a great soundtrack of classic jazz and blues.
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Stunning Imagery, Haunting Beauty
"Retentiveness IS A Pick OF IMAGES, SOME ELUSIVE, OTHERS PRINTED INDELIBLY ON THE BRAIN. THE Summer I KILLED MY Begetter, I WAS ten YEARS One-time"
With those shocking opening frames from the moving picture, 'Eve'southward Bayou'(1997), I was hooked from start go.
'Eve's Bayou' is an anomaly. Information technology has accomplished a rare distinction of excellence in all departments of pic making; from the direction to the writing, from the interim to the cinematography.
Here was a motion-picture show not content with telling a tale of cornball retrospection. Instead, it shocked the senses of the unsuspecting viewers with an eerie collage of imagery, underscoring the spooky suspense with an undercurrent of tumultuous emotion (jealousy, loss and sadness; anger, vengeance and guilt) all culminating into the inevitable foreshadowed tragedy.
Just of course, this is far also distinguished a film to nowadays an easy resolution. From there spring along the painful revelation on the very essence of memory and the perception of truth, distilled and faceted with the passage of time. A valuable lesson indeed.
Poetic and shadowy, the dream-like moods sustained throughout this poignant film is its over-riding strength. For hither was a film which sights and sound has transcended the mere plot convention of its humble genre origins. Thankfully, the motion picture turned out the ameliorate for it. Coupled with the celebrated fact that this was the product of a starting time time director(Kasi Lemmons), one tin can't aid but feel the divine intervention bestowed upon this film to make information technology such an magically entrancing experience.
Alongside 'Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Sugariness Hereafter', 'Eve'southward Bayou' certainly ranks as one of the most hauntingly beautiful piece of cinema ever committed to film.
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Rich family unit saga with an interesting twist
This film is at present showing on cable here in Australia, and is a far amend than average offer.
Written and directed by Kasi Lemmons, the pic is a powerful family drama set in the sixties in the s of the The states. It stars Samuel L Jackson every bit a small town dr. with a wandering eye. The story is told from the viewpoint of his middle child, Eve, wonderfully played past Jurnee Smollett, who sees her centre-course family life threatened past her father'south infidelities.
No tale set in a bayou village could exist without references to black magic and voodoo, and this film also has them as a rather central part of the plot. Only these elements are handled skilfully and believably, and heighten the tension that develops.
One of the interesting tools used by Lemmons is to tell and retell a story from different characters' perspectives, asking the viewer to determine which is more truthful, and indeed, whether the truth is paramount.
Jackson gives a sparkling performance as Dr Louis Batiste, a homo of warmth and generosity who is well regarded past the local community that he serves. His family is seemingly a happy and close one, until the children begin to question some of the adult behaviour they witness.
Jurnee Smollett's Eve is the master protagonist around whom much of the story is centred, and she effortlessly moves back and along between being a precocious deviling and a young woman with powerful emotions. The residuum of the cast is also very skillful, including a voluptuous Lisa Nicole Carson as the temptress Mattie Mereaux, and Diahann Carroll as a bayou witch.
This picture moves along at a good pace and is a little more than you might expect.
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Exquisite!
This was a delightfully good movie. Set in the Louisiana bayou land in the lx's, it is a wonderful story of a well-to-do black family unit defenseless up in family tensions that drive the plot simply never overpower the family's beloved for each other. Infidelity, an over-protective female parent, the psychic aunt's tragic loss of loves and a delicious dose of voodoo all make this a practiced watch. The child actress, Jurnee Smollett every bit Eve, delivers a cute operation with talent far beyond her years. Debbie Morgan is terrific equally the fortune-telling wise, merely cursed-in -dear Aunt Mozelle.
Lynn Whitfield and Samuel L. Jackson are besides superb equally the parents whose complex and troubled relationship's bug spill over onto the children, especially the 2 daughters, Eve and Cisely. Cisely sees herself as a buffer comforting her father and trying to protect him from her mother whom Cisely sees every bit a rival for her father's affections. Eve bounces around among the angst of being a eye child and the want to sympathize the adults' world. This definitely a pic to come across. It's a shame that jewels like this get disregarded in the usual Hollywood hype machine.
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Actually, really good
I had never heard of this film when my married woman ordered it from NetFlix, and I go along wondering why. This is a terrific motion picture. Jurnee Smollett every bit Eve is truly excellent, and not just "good for a kid," or "good but annoyingly precocious," she is just plain good. The story is wonderful, and I dear the fact that the race of the characters is hardly mentioned. It's a story about people, and it doesn't matter on what continent their ancestors originated. The cast is uniformly excellent, especially Samuel Jackson (one of the picture show industry's almost versatile actors), and Debbi Morgan. Small parts portrayed by Branford Marsalis and Vondie Curtis Hall are very nicely done, and add color to the background of friends and relatives of the Batiste family unit. I enjoy the manner the film shows us the world of psychic perception and Voodoo, and the degree to which belief in them can bear upon beliefs. The location filming is wonderfully evocative of the steaming south, and the direction spot-on. I recommend this film.
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A Strange Voodoo Story
The story is set in 1962 Louisiana. The Batiste family is headed by charming doctor Louis (Sam Jackson). Though he is married to cute Roz, he has a weakness for attractive female patients. Ane nighttime Louis trysts with married and sexy Metty Mereaux, not knowing that he is observed by his youngest daughter Eve, who is there past accident.
The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert naming it the best film of 1997. Despite the praise, information technology seems to have been largely forgotten, and did non merit a single Oscar nomination that year. Going in to the pic today (2016), I had never heard of information technology, nor did I have a clue what it was about.
The all-time function of this motion picture is that yous can never be sure how much is existent. Because about of information technology is told through the eyes of a 10-twelvemonth sometime, some things may be misunderstood or distorted. A 2d viewing might exist helpful.
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A heavy simply gripping motion-picture show.
The first time I saw this flick I rated information technology 8; the 2nd time it got a 9. There is much visual beauty in the moving-picture show: a lovely, serene setting and many gorgeous women. The pic focussed on the devastation caused past a begetter who could not resist cute women fifty-fifty though he loved his family. As the film ended, I was left counting the number of people who would have considerable guilt to deal with simply the end was, nevertheless, very satisfying.
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Another fantastic flick that didn't get the recognition :-(
I came across eve's bayou at the video store and decided to give it a shot. I am and so glad I did. It is i of my favorite films. The story is outstanding and the acting has got to be some of best acting I have always seen. Its a shame that there aren't plenty quality roles for black actors considering there are some fantastic black actors and actresses out there. I like to think I can recognize talent when I see it and the performances in this film were nothing brusque of top notch. I immediately went out a bought this movie afterwards I had rented it because it was just that good. The voodoo/cajun/french/bayou vibe was cool and I remember thats what attracted me to it to begin with when I rented it. Just wanted to share that with you folks and permit yous know that I would highly recommend this film.
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A slow and mayhap stretched drama simply well crafted and rewarding nevertheless
In 1962 Eve was only about x and lived with her family in Louisiana. Her father, Louis, is the pop boondocks doctor who has a beautiful wife and three children (including Eve). However he is likewise knowing most his popularity with the women in the town and is quite the flirt. When Eve sees him kissing and touching another woman behind their house it distresses her but she is convinced by elder sister Cisely that it was all her misunderstanding of the situation. This is the offset of a serial of events in her retention that she recalls ended with her killing her father. However, the retentiveness of a child tin can be such a subjective matter.
Starting with the statement from Eve most her hand in her male parent'due south dead, I was fix for a mystery that would be dark and tense but the picture left that mystery in the air while going on to be a slower, but simply as interesting, story. This is despite the fact that it seems to rely quite heavily on voodoo and similar Southern clichés to motion the story frontwards. Although this gradually becomes less of import it is quite obtrusive early and I constitute information technology a little fleck off-putting only gradually got over it cheers to the story overcoming it with a existent emotional interest from the characters. The writing of people is strong and the direction is quite bodacious, even if some of the sets and shot-framing were reminiscent of daytime TVMs (an affect the music doesn't help).
With the characters and their stories well written, it required good performances all round and it is to Lemmons' credit that he draws strong performances from all ages of his cast. Although Jackson is the big name involved, information technology is really Smollett who won me over. Fugitive the "cute kid" clich̩ she delivers a really convincing performance that is the heart of the film Рinformation technology is a real weight to carry it, but she does it well. Jackson himself is expert, not overplaying his graphic symbol to the point where we detest him, only simply as far as united states disliking him for the weakness that he knows he has. Good and Whitfield are both skilful and they are where the master battle for feminine attention from Louis Рinformation technology is touching to run across Good grow and fascinating to see Whitfield respond to it Рproficient writing and good acting. Support is roundly good just they take less to practise РSmith in a minor office, Carson using her ample body, Ayler playing a clich̩ and Curtis-Hall sporting a haircut that looks similar information technology fell onto him from a tree. Nevertheless the chief performances are and then good it doesn't really affair Рthey produce a film that is both emotionally engaging and simply well-nigh avoids melodrama.
Overall this is a moving picture worth seeing. The story relies a bit too much on voodoo and such, and is rather forced to the extremes of events but it is covered by never losing focus on the characters; characters that are well written and very well performed on the whole. A bear upon likewise soapy for some tastes I'k sure but for me it was quite engaging and a very enjoyable lilliputian drama.
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One of the most beautiful movies ever
This has to exist i of the most well shot and directed movies I've e'er seen besides the GodFather I &Ii. The acting in the moving picture was first-class. Jurnee Smollett is an excellent actress likewise every bit Debbi Morgan - both should have been nominated for an honor. The cast well picked. Samuel L Jackson graphic symbol created a dearest/hate relationship with me. The women were absolutely cute.
What is amazing is that this movie did not receive any type of nominations or honorable mentions, much less advertisement when information technology originally came out. I am amazed how the script of Proficient Will Hunting was nominated for an Oscar and more than amazed that it won. Kasi Lemmons thank yous for such a beautiful motion-picture show.
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Kasi Lemmons' finest film!
But one Black person (John Singleton for Boys N the Hood) and iii women (Lina Wertmüller for Vii Beauties, Jane Campion for The Piano and Sophia Coppola for Lost in Translation) have been nominated for the Best Manager Oscar to appointment. Both those numbers should have swelled in 1997 with Kasi Lemmons' atmospheric direction of the spooky drama Eve'south Bayou. This nail-biting tale of family tension in the Louisiana bayou in the early 1960s was among the finest films of the 1997, but was completely bypassed in the Oscar race amidst the hysteria over Titanic. Regrettably, Lemmons (who won an honor for Outstanding Directorial Debut from the National Board of Review for Eve's Bayou) has had merely 2 small budget directorial opportunities since. This is an amazing piece of cinema with fine performances from the ensemble bandage. Samuel L. Jackson, Jurnee Smollet and Debbi Morgan all turn in A+ performances.
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A Masterpiece!!
Never has a moving picture of such SUPERIOR quality been overlooked by then many!! Had this been a white picture show it would have walked off with SEVERAL Oscars! Ane last annotation, to the mainstream press Debbie Morgan has been acting magnificently since the SEVENTIES, so how in hell practise you refer to her role as " all-time breakthrough!??" that is just inexcusable!
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Unforgettable Motion picture
Kasi Lemmons' debut film is a surprisingly great, multi-layered and even-toned reminiscence. Every bit seen through the eyes of young Eve (the deceptively simplistic Jurnee Smollett), Eve's Bayou recreates the hazy subjectiveness of one'south ain memories, and how what we call up may or may not actually be what truly happened. It's rare, especially for a offset characteristic, to successfully continue ane betoken of view, however inaccurate, through the unabridged movie, but Lemmons excels both equally director and author. She gets fine support both behind the camera and in front of it. Backside it, Amy Vincent'due south lazily cute cinematography is as exhilarant as Aunt Mozelle's Southern drawl and Terence Blanchard's score perfectly underscores the action. In forepart of it, Lemmons is blessed by Sam Jackson's sexy and understanding turn every bit a womanizer, Lynn Whitfield as his suffering wife, the aforementioned Smollett, and a powerhouse named Debbi Morgan. Every bit Mozelle, a fortune teller who sees all but her own hereafter, Morgan commands the screen, underplaying when other actresses would attain for the rafters. She figures in the almost achingly brilliant scene of the year, one that drives home once and for all the power of retentiveness. For a picture show nigh memories, Eve's Bayou is unforgettable.
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A New Classic
Hitchcock was once famously quoted every bit saying, "Yous demand three things to make a good movie: a practiced script, a good script and a good script." This citation does not just suit Eve's Bayou; it defines it. Kasi Lemmons, who both wrote and directed the pic, has made an unrepeatable tour DE force about memory & magic and the consequences that they may bring. The script is full of twists and turns, and given that its narrated in a totally singled-out fashion, the more credit that should go to Lemmons. The film is excellently acted. Jurnee Smollet(Eve) and Debbi Morgan(Aunt Mozelle) paints the whole flick with a multifaceted array of emotions; grief, anger, irony, whatever feeling or sensation that they display is done wonderfully, non just with talent but with versatility, too. Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, and Meagan Good provide fine supporting roles. The characters in the picture are all well illustrated; each ane suffers from different things, simply the most admirable concept (grapheme-wise, that is) is that it'southward not all a affair of expert and bad.
Despite all odds, Kasi Lemmons' management is just superb, both fooling and disorienting the viewers with the diabolically clever story, and managing to skillfully execute the complex narrative (which at the aforementioned time is very neatly edited, besides). Her taut, hawk-eyed direction is mainly what makes the film work.
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A moving picture as engrossing as a novel
Yous know how you become when yous're deeply into a novel and you lot can't stop turning the pages... then accept a bathroom suspension earlier you get-go watching this movie. Simply of course you lot have to only deal with the stride of the pic which is swell in this case and leaves not 1 dull moment.
I think this was i of the best movies of 1997 and should have received more than recognition. I look forward to what Kasi Lemmons does next.
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Parts in search of a whole
For all the obvious talent and technique that went into "Eve's Bayou," I'm sad to say the total experience left me cold and unmoved. From the kickoff there seemed to be a lack of focus. Only what was being said and why? The film seemed to move from one crises or unpleasant situation to another, without a central theme or motivating factor. All the characters seemed to be in need of therapy, and a reason for giving them attention was unclear. A major problem was in the scripting, which for me lacked cohesiveness. The actors were uniformly stiff, as were the production values, including Kasi Lemmons' direction; what was lacking was Lemmons' primal theme. It was a long journey downward these lamentable and dismal swamplands, and without a hint of a plot, one seemed to drift from episode to episode aimlessly. It's actually a shame so much genuine talent was to a caste wasted on such an uncohesive tale. There have been many casualties resulting from the death of the plot device in contemporary drama. "Eve's Bayou" is a prime example.
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Little Masterpiece puts Hollywood Blockbusters to shame.
This trivial movie is in my meridian 20 list after having seen well over 3000 movies. Jurnee Smollett'south operation as the young Eve left me mesmerized for days. Information technology was so evident the piece of work was a labor of love, and it delivers. The story is provocative and memorable. The performances are all excellent and well integrated. There are good reviews here that do a fine task of praising this film and then I won't elaborate. I merely suggest that thoughtful viewers will notice this a thoroughly satisfying little masterpiece that on a side by side to aught budget puts nigh Hollywood blockbusters to shame.
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Fascinating
Without a uncertainty one of the most original and inventive films of all time, Eve's Bayou is one of those films that, later on watching it, you immediately feel the urge to see information technology once more. Incredibly hard to describe and mesmerizing to regard, it is irritating for all the perplexity it crafts effectually the viewer's mind and fascinating for its uniqueness. Seldom has a pic had such an touch on on me, seldom has a film left me thinking, "This is it. This is what cinema should be similar." In that location truly aren't sufficient words for me to describe the motion picture. Eve's Bayou is a flick worth seeing over and over once more, considering of it's thematic and narrative density and richness. The joy we obtain from Eve's Bayou does not arrive with the solution itself, just with the solving of information technology. A riveting experience, "Bayou" proves to be vividly innovative and ingeniously stimulating. And in a time where originality is the main cistron that the vast majority of Hollywood films seem to lack, it comes equally a breath of fresh air. A labyrinthine masterpiece that is as psychologically worrying equally it is incredible. Now... where was I?
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Absolutely stunning!
I beloved to discover that a flick which I have never heard of turns out to be a gem, peculiarly when it makes you think. Mind processed information technology is not.
I came across this film in the budget DVD section of one of the chain stores when I was ownership a agglomeration of films that I had never heard of to scout when it got too hot in summertime to move outside. After information technology had lain around for several months, I finally got around to watching it, and information technology just blew me away!
This film held my attention from the opening scene. To begin with, it was set in a completely different world - Louisiana, which may be an American country, but is withal "foreign". The film contained elements of mystery, family unit life, and adultery in an exotic mix spiced with voodoo. The story centered around an upper eye class creole family, descended from a Frenchman and a freed African slave, who bore her liberator xvi children!
The film began with a political party at the elegant home of the Doctor, Louis, the father of the child Eve and philandering husband of Roz. The family unit included Louis' female parent and sister, who had the gift of second sight and who "was not unfamiliar with the inside of a mental hospital." From that party, events unfolded, the significance of which depended on the perception of the participant. Eventually tragedy strikes, merely was it provoked or did he have it coming?
Not only was the setting and story oh and then different, the performances were splendid, including the modest cameo roles, and the background music just so haunting that I concur with all those reviewers who establish it to be one of the all-time films ever.
I would only dear to see what this group would exercise with an all black version of "Streetcar named Want."
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***** out of five
There is non one word in the English langue that has enough imagination behind information technology to depict Eve's Bayou, but when films are of such loftier recognition as this talk is cheap. I approximate that is why some of this movie'due south greatest scenes are played in silence. `I was x years onetime the summer I killed my father.' Tells Eve in a narrative introduction, making it hard to tell if we are being told a story in flashback or viewing a period of exaggeration. This was a delicious introduction, making me wonder if I would be exploring a forgotten chronicle or subsiding in metaphor. Would this be an abbreviation of something or indirect deliberation of something else? On some levels I am yet in awe over such a question. We witness the lifestyle of a young girl named Eve, the threads of who's name is derived from suffering in its cruellest form, slavery. Eve lives with a family built on 1 older sister, ane younger brother, a mother, a grandmother, a father who is a dr., a crook, an all around low-life and a cursed aunt who tin see the future. One night later witnessing her daddy with some other women Eve is stricken with awe, her emotions are sent into spirals, the family doesn't know, but is thrown into a vortex of uninspired feelings and everything resides in Eve, however all that comes out is detest. Hates fuels this film, perchance more accurate is resentment. The characters tell their stories, each of which protest a unlike view, without speaking, only to evade righteous use or words. There is a fable to behold hither but no means by which to generate a decent forward movement so it strays, it ponders, it entices and it enthrals through sounds, imagery and feeling of mass awareness. But this never removes the fact that these people resent each other, or perchance themselves, I don't know. I don't demand to. Director Kasi Lemmons creates something astonishing hither. At that place is a universe within a timeframe that tin can be haunting without being affirmative. She places her photographic camera in front of characters, but to take them look off to the side as they speak every bit if to mean something that we can't see. A lot of films are cocky conscience, they are certain of themselves, accept conventionalities in their structure and lead us where they want us to become. This film goes where we desire it to lead. Lemmons takes us downward one path, non to educate us, merely to make ethical decision about another. This film struck me with style not dignity, nearly would have gloated and went for emotion bondage. I loved how information technology made me see what I shouldn't only to congratulate me with what I actually couldn't illustrate on my own. There was a sensation to this, a stigmatic receptor of insubordinate journeys into fearfulness and loneliness with the passion of a war torn beast, this is cloth that will by no means evoke happiness in yous, yet bring forward spear-headed emotions. This is not a film that runs in forwards way, it may not even take a story to produce information technology's movements. This motion-picture show is like a painting, it is meant to be emotional, an array of colours that grab the mind and persuade it exist, not ask it to follow. Yet although artistic, this is non David Lynch, it is non strange, it has characters who not but sympathise reality but live in information technology. You don't expect Eve'due south Bayou to atomic number 82 yous across the realm is sanity because this is goose egg you expect it to be and everything you believe it won't come up to. Due to this, scenes collide in un-primitive style. There are no commencement or ends, cuts represent nix only an editor doing his job, this is a train wreck of melodramatic lather opera in this class of distillation, one of the all-time films of 1997. And it works on the grounds of discovery. I dear films that push from one thing to he next in hopes of finding something unrecognizable, this motion-picture show does 1 ameliorate. It places these happenings in a realm of constituency, leaving the viewer never to know what to brand of such offerings. All the actors play their parts for what they are worth, they all accept the aforementioned basic role to play, merely on unlike emotional arks. Samuel L. Jackson is particularly skillful as Eve's begetter, a human who struts around oblivious to himself. The script, as well and original work by Lemmons, presents some other fiendishly clever device in which to motivate the audience. She portrays all characters as constituting neither good nor evil. The only villain in this story is the story itself. Empathy is the only hero on brandish in these surroundings. This is a piece of piece of work that is artistic, poetic and reprehensible, sometimes all at the same time, sometimes all of its on game. It is a movie that twists around bends and hides between crevices only to watch itself unfold. I had no thought how such a complex story could stop, but waited in silent anaesthesia to find out, and and so volition you lot. Not because it is unforeseeable but because it doesn't come to conclusions, it simply can't.
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Assured and Daring
"Eve'south Bayou" is so assured and daring, you're nigh petrified the moving picture's going to mess up, make some kind of boneheaded move. You're sitting at that place, rooting for this thing not to fall off its conceptual high wire. But hallelujah, it keeps its balance; and you're exhilarated from showtime to stop.
What'southward great about this pic is the way it deconstructs time. But the structure is not capricious. Each new twenty-four hour period yields more data in a skillfull order: We acquire what happened, in tantalizing increments. And with each revelation, the large picture changes radically. "Eve'southward Bayou" doesn't just depict you into a dramatic mystery, it makes you lot enlightened of human mystery. And that's nutrient for thought and entertainment.
FYI: Debbi Morgan gives ane of the best supporting performances of the 90s, bar none. This woman is a revelation! First-class acting from the rest of the cast also.
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Non Very Interesting
I was flicking through the TV Guide a few nights ago and saw that in that location was a movie almost to begin called EVE'S BAYOU . Despite sounding similar a brand of soap I decided to sentry simply because it starred Samuel 50 Jackson who is always value for money
Jackson plays Doctor Louis Batiste who is a naughty boy since he is caught playing " horses " with a female patient past his ten twelvemonth one-time girl Eve . What then becomes clear is that the story isn't seen through the optics of Dr Batiste but by Eve and then Jackson'south casting amounts to something slightly more than a cameo . The story itself is beautifully filmed and acted by the bandage but is woefully as well low concept to be of much interest for those of united states of america who tuned in hoping to run into a funky actor dude battle the forces of voodoo . You lot read that right - voodoo really features in the plot somewhere and it's nowhere as exciting as information technology sounds
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Humanistic Gem
In "Eve's Bayou," small isn't only beautiful. It's terrific. Past small, I refer to the below-the-radar activity that takes upwards most of our time: the joys, misunderstandings, passions, animosities and yelling matches of everyday living. This is the stuff you don't run into in Hollywood movies, except as pocket-size accompaniment to "bigger" concepts, such as the saving of the world, the sinking of the Titanic, etc.
Kasi Lemmons'movie, winner of a National Board of Review and Independent Spirit Award, exults magnificently in this stuff. Eve's Bayou is a humanistic gem of a picture show, with unforgettable performances from Jurnee Smollet(Eve) and Debbi Morgan(Aunt Mozelle). The interaction among these and other characters is so arresting and (above all) so not-hyped, in that location'due south no need for special effects or over-the-top premises. The film is a fountain of narrative surprise. You never know where this matter is going. And it's such a pleasure to tag along with these characters.
There you have it: a flick that hinges entirely on character. It could be that the summertime/fall flavour of hyperbolic story lines has induced me to oversell this movie. Just I'thou letting my giddiness ride. Perhaps y'all will, too.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119080/reviews