Yorgos Lanthimos has been leading up to Poor Things for a long time. This is a best-of-career tour de force for the director, cinematographer, designers and several its actors. I was blown away.
The movie used a single camera, four archaic lenses and an Ektachrome 35mm film stock they had to create from scratch in a Kodak lab to shoot it. The result is a movie unlike any I've quite seen before. The colors are so rich - a result of the use of reversal stock, a very unusual and risky approach for a feature film, since there was no negative to work from. The textures are so bold and detailed, and the whole aesthetic immediately sets it apart from most recent movies.
I saw Ferrari recently and found the digital camera work dull. Then I walked out of this movie reawakened.
All of the visual effort would be pointless if there wasn't a good story and actors to brave it, but both Emma Stone and Mark Rufffalo have never been better, coming off like demented vaudevillians on an absinthe binge. They totally own and bring to life a script which would terrify most performers.
Easily one of the best photographed movies of all time. Vittorio Storaro's work here is peak, there's a tremendous command of light and shadow, stately images that are so precise that each frame of the movie could be hung on a wall.