Here's my Paris MOvie Journal entry.



FIRST MAN (Damien Chazelle 2018). A movie about the Moon landing and Neil Armstrong that's radical in its harsh minimalism. It's hard to forget the final sequence where Neil (Ryan Gosling) and his wife (Claire Foy) stare wordless at each other when he's in quarantine, or the many blastoffs that are shot as a series of explosions and blurry closeups. You think it was a budget issue but then, given some sequences, probably just an artistic choice. Did Armstrong really take his sorrow over his dead daughter into his moments of greatest triumph? Was he so inarticulate, and did his wife push him so bluntly to say goodbye to his sons and admit he might not come back? Beyond the triumph here, there is a constant sense of tragedy, and very little celebration. Props for originality, but somehow it feels false, starting with Gosling, who isn't monolithic and grand enough. Watched at UGC Odéon 23 Oct. 2018. Metascore 84. AlloCine press rating 3.9.