Opus Zero | Little White Lies

Opus Zero

12 Aug 2019 / Released: 09 Aug 2019

A man with headphones, looking up intently.
A man with headphones, looking up intently.
3

Anticipation.

Always nice to spend some time with Willem Dafoe.

2

Enjoyment.

Separate narrative threads never quite come together.

2

In Retrospect.

Stylish scenery can’t save this sluggish, over-laboured effort.

Willem Dafoe plays a com­pos­er who goes look­ing for answers in Mex­i­co in this slow and mean­der­ing drama.

Let it nev­er be said that Willem Dafoe isn’t a hard work­er. In the past two years alone he’s received 13 cred­its, with a fur­ther three projects expect­ed in 2020. At Cannes ear­li­er this year he received rave reviews for his per­for­mances in Robert Eggers’ The Light­house and Abel Ferrara’s Tom­ma­so – but with those films yet to name a UK release date, instead our atten­tion turns to a 2017 curio that has final­ly slipped into cin­e­mas: Daniel Graham’s philo­soph­i­cal Opus Zero.

Dafoe’s brood­ing com­pos­er Paul trav­els to a remote Mex­i­can vil­lage to take care of his recent­ly deceased father’s affairs, but while sort­ing through his belong­ings, dis­cov­ers a pho­to­graph of a young woman that cap­ti­vates him. Through con­ver­sa­tions with the locals he dis­cov­ers she went miss­ing some 30 years ear­li­er, but the film doesn’t real­ly dwell too much on that plot thread, instead quick­ly becom­ing dis­tract­ed by a doc­u­men­tary crew who arrive in town and quick­ly clash with the residents.

Even with its sub 90-minute run­time, the film moves at a snail’s pace, as Paul wan­ders around the vil­lage and then dis­ap­pears almost entire­ly towards the sec­ond half as the film­mak­ers take over, with the direc­tor attempt­ing to con­vince the vil­lage folk to act nat­u­ral­ly” and being met with gen­er­al bewil­der­ment. The moody cin­e­matog­ra­phy and philo­soph­i­cal mus­ings with­in the script hint at a desire for auteur cred­i­bil­i­ty, but the final prod­uct is a mean­der­ing, wispy bore that not even Dafoe can carry.

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