Why does “Battle After Battle” end so perfectly? Movierulzz

The following post contains spoilers for one battle after another. Do you find this to be true?

With a score of 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and awards prognosticators calling him a front-runner in multiple categories at next year’s Oscars, I’m not sure Paul Thomas Anderson will pull it off. Battle after battle He needs a lot of defense at this point. Its richly detailed performances, vivid VistaVision cinematography, and unnerving score are self-evident. Most people I’ve talked to about this agree: This guy Paul Thomas Anderson, you know, might actually be a very good director.

For the best evidence of this, I recommend studying the end of the film, which is a kinetic chase through the California desert. I’ve read and heard some minor criticism of the sequence, even from people who liked it Battle after battle – Criticisms mainly focused on the fact that the main characters were poorly played Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn They never actually confront each other after the latter’s pursuit of the former spills over into the rest of the film, making the outcome a bit anticlimactic. As a result, after three hours of political commentary, astonishing humor, and an intense web of on-screen relationships, the film kind of grinds to a halt after a car chase.

but What A car chase, which uses action, setting and photography to wrap up every major story and theme of the film in a lovely little bow, one compact enough that Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson could use it to tie up his pesky little ponytail to keep his hair out of his face.

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The film’s finale is the culmination of a 16-year-old grudge held by Pennsylvania Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, a member of the US Army who wants to join a secret society of white supremacists called the Christmas Adventurers. Unfortunately for Lockjaw, he had a relationship 16 years earlier with an African-American militant named Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), something apparently forbidden in white supremacist clubs that worship Santa Claus. Lockjaw and Perfidia’s experiment could make him the biological father of her daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti), so Willa’s very presence puts his application for membership in the Christmas Adventurers in jeopardy.

Willa lives with Bob (DiCaprio), Perfidia’s ex-lover and (presumably Bob) the father of her child. After 16 years of searching, Lockjaw finally finds and captures Willa, and is able to confirm through DNA testing that she is his daughter. He tries to pay a mercenary (Erich Schweig) to kill her (his child!) but the bounty hunter refuses. Instead, he reluctantly agreed to hand Willa over to a militia group that would accept the contract, no questions asked. The mercenary drops Willa off with the militia and then changes his mind and frees her, allowing her to escape in his car.

This leads to a three-way chase: Willa is pursued by Tim (John Hogenacker), one of the Christmas adventurers, and Bob desperately tries to get to her before he does. The three cars follow each other through mountainous terrain in Southern California, on a desert highway dotted with a series of massive hills. Willa smartly parked her car at the top of a blind peak; By the time Tim noticed her car stopped in the middle of the road, it was too late to prevent an accident. After he emerged from the wreckage and was unable to properly respond to her secret French 75 passwords, she shot him. That’s when Bob finally arrives and the two ride off into the sunset together, both literally and perfectly.

Surprisingly, this bombastic conclusion did not exist Battle after battleOriginal text. According to Anderson on The big picture Podcast The film went into production not quite knowing how the conflict between Bob, Willa, and Lockjaw would be resolved. It wasn’t until Anderson discovered a stretch of mountain road that eventually emerged at a scouting location — an area near Interstate 78 and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in southeastern California, which the crew called “River of the Hills” — that he realized just how dizzying the footage from a driver’s perspective in this area is.

Anderson told The Credits that he views the site as “a gift from the movie gods” because “after years of driving around and looking for something, anything, it showed up to us, and we ran with it.” And at that moment he started building Battle after battleThe whole climax around her. If true, it certainly ranks among the most remarkable feats of improvisational filmmaking in recent history.

The River Hills fits seamlessly into the tale Anderson tells throughout Battle after battle. The rapid succession of peaks and valleys clearly echoes the film’s title, and with the endless series of small but infuriating troubles that Bob encounters throughout the film: a phone with a dead battery that he can’t find anywhere to recharge, and a 75 French password that he can’t remember because he’s had his brain stuffed with drugs for the past decade and a half. The whole movie He is Battle after battle. For Bob – and indeed for all of us – life is not a mountain to climb. It is like a series of countless ups and downs on a road that extends to the horizon.

But the importance of the Hills River goes deeper than that. Some viewers reported feeling nauseous during it Battle after battleChase, especially during POV shots through the windshields of the triplex cars. This is actually the source of the name; Those shots made some people seasick, and then A river From the hills.

This is true; These shots are visually similar to what you would see from the front of a boat as it passes through rough water. This links the location to the final words of advice Bob receives from Sensei Sergio (Benicio Del Toro), Willa’s karate instructor who becomes Bob’s spiritual mentor as he searches for his missing daughter.

Shortly before Sergio pushed Bob out of his car at about 30 mph so he wouldn’t get arrested for the second time in 24 hours (don’t drink and drive kids), the weary ex-revolutionary asked Sergio “This is the end of the line, isn’t it?” “Not for you! Ocean waves, ocean waves…” Sergio replies.

A few minutes later, Bob is driving across the choppy asphalt waters of the Hills River. The name of the PTA was coined – “River Hills— until he brings up Willa’s mother, Perfidia of Beverly Hills, who was absent from Battle after battle After her first act, but her actions 16 years ago loom large over everything that happens on this road.

It’s also very important that after all the chasing, jumping out of cars, drinking and driving, Bob doesn’t really save Willa; She saves itself. most Battle after battleThe middle third of Bob focuses on Bob after he receives a call from French 75 confirming that Lockjaw has finally found him. When Bob answers the phone, he smokes weed in his coach and watches Battle of Algiers.

Although Bob was an explosives expert and revolutionary before Willa was born, 16 years later he has become a borderline closet. He lives in a cabin in the woods, doesn’t have a cell phone or a computer, and spends his time playing Steely Dan covers with his buddies. (Related.) It’s a mistake to call Bob the “helicopter father”; Bob is too afraid to let Willa near a helicopter. He’s like a father with a wet blanket, smothering his daughter and doing everything he can to minimize her contact with the outside world and with anything remotely fun or dangerous.

This situation is completely understandable given Bob’s past, especially Perfidia’s abandonment of him. It’s also clear that Bob is good Dad, at least as much as his neurosis and drug abuse would allow. For example, the karate lessons that Willa takes from Sergio come in handy when she is kidnapped by Lockjaw. The way she fires a gun while hiding with a group of revolutionary nuns before Lockjaw catches up with her suggests that this isn’t the first time she’s carried an assault weapon.

In other words: Bob prepared her well for this moment. But the moment wouldn’t have nearly the same emotional impact if Bob had managed to track down Tim, or Lockjaw had somehow killed himself. For the film’s ending to make sense, Willa must apply the knowledge Bob gave her to stop them herself – and that’s exactly what she does.

And that’s what makes what Bob does even more powerful: he simply keeps showing up. After Perfidia dumped him, Bob stuck around. When Willa gets into trouble, he leaves his house, even though he really wants to watch Battle of Algiers He was stoned, couldn’t remember any of the passwords he needed, his only secure phone was broken, fell from a roof, was arrested, had to escape from police custody, and was shot. He just never quits.

When Bob retreats after Willa kills Tim, she shouts French 75 passwords at him, and he eventually responds. After all the trials and tribulations, she asks him the most important question: “Who are you?” And he gives her the only appropriate response, correct in every way that matters. “It’s your father.”

in Battle after battleIn the film’s conclusion, Bob takes some tentative steps toward reengaging with the world. He allows cell phones into his house and uses one to take some selfies. When they receive some sort of distress call on their French 75 radio, Willa sets out to help without Bob, who stays behind to smoke more weed and play with his new phone.

hope for the future, Battle after battle We won’t find it in a heroic father killing a legendary enemy, he tells us. Fatherhood is not about winning; It’s about surviving to fight another battle. That’s why it’s important that Bob and Lockjaw never interact during that final chase. Although Lockjaw died, the organization he had so desired to join was not defeated, or even diminished. The Christmas Adventurers are still there.

Despite this fact, Anderson still finds reason for optimism in the form of a father so devoted to his daughter that he gave her the tools she needed to survive in a dangerous world, and found the confidence to let her turn to him to find her own way in the stormy seas.