A riveting, stunning film. Focusing on an obsessive couture designer in 50’s London, played by the remarkable Daniel Day Lewis and his relationship with the muse/Cinderella figure, waitress Alma and his sister Cyril. Like couture, the film has the highest level of art in all areas of cinematography and, like appreciation of couture, is subtle and refined, leaving one marvelling at the skills involved to create the artefact. The overall impact is very powerful indeed but as one examines it in more and more detail, more and more beauties and evidence of skills come to light - as I said, the film to me seemed like the visual embodiment of couture. The process, and D-L’s performance, is obsessive, fetishistic and ultra-controlling - all qualities which seem to be needed to produce this art form.
Day-L is, as always it seems, utterly remarkable in his extraordinary commitment to the creation and his evoking of the character through the subtlest means and the camera is the perfect medium for this - the tiniest hint of a smile on the corner of his lips, the pause before reacting to a remark. He achieves a sense of stillness and focus whenever he is on the screen that is a wonderful and moving reflection of his artistic obsession and is in itself a couture performance. remarkably though, his fellow performers match him - perhaps not with the degree of intensity he has as that is not such a central [art of the ri character as it is his, but they match him in quality - particularly Lesley Mandeville as his sister Cyril (an intriguingly gender-suggestive name) - as much if not more of a muse to him as Alma - althuogh in life generally rather than dress production.
The camera work and editing - incredibly intense close-ups of faces and creative actions and slow movement, if movement at all, create the perfect mood and style for the telling of this story. This was particularly powerful in the final scenes where the actual actions and events could, if just read about, seem melodramatic and even implausible in a normal society and relationship; but here neither of these elements fall into the normal and conventional depiction of these two.
The use of the music was interesting as it often suddenly changed without warning as a mood or action warranted it - and the style of music changed according to circumstances. Very often a clear sound-world is created by the composer for the film (I think particularly of LOTR trilogy) but here there was not this and the music seemed at times almost to be a quicksilver representation, accompaniment and commentary on the characters mood and actionn in films only one of these elements is the focus but here, unusually, it seemed to change constantly - another example of how every aspect of cinema was a support for and a reflection of the moods and nature of the story in general and the maon character in particular.
So, an amazing film and one I am very glad I have finally managed to see. You should do likewise.