Review: Slaughterhouse-Five

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Cinema Voyage - September 2009

Review: Slaughterhouse-Five

September 20th 2009 03:17

The Time Traveller's Wife is still on my list to catch at the cinema although in it's absence I thought I would review Slaughterhouse-Five. It was actually made in 1972 movie and focusses on a man who becomes unstuck in time, travelling through time and space.

Based on Kurt Vonnegut's novel of the same name, Slaughterhouse-Five was well received winning the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and earning a Golden Globe nomination for the lead actor Michael Sacks. Interestingly enough, Sacks only remained in the industry for 12 years and retired from acting in 1984 to pursue a career in Technology.

Sacks is Billy Pilgrim who somehow experiences his life in a random order, switching between events in his life with no warning. One minute he is an optometrist living with his wife and family and the next he is thrown back to World War II. What causes the switch or even how it begins is not clear although Pilgrim just seems to go with the flow managing somehow to switch from one stage in his life to another without too much trouble. Lucky for him, unlike that of Henry DeTamble in Audrey Niffenegger's version of time travel in The Time Traveller's wife, he manages to keep his clothes on.

The randomness he experiences leaves him slightly detached from that of his friends and family throughout his life but I guess viewing your death before it occurs may have that kind of effect on you.

Much of the focus is on his time spent during the war and his experiences in Dresden after being captured by the Germans. But despite the subject matter, humour abounds particularly when he is abducted by aliens (yes you heard me correctly) and his object of lust, actress Montana Wildhack, is abducted alongside him in order that they can mate and be observed by the inhabitants of Tralfamadore.

Everything is predetermined and events in the future cannot be altered giving Pilgrim a heavy lesson in accepting the bad things in life and focussing moreso on the good.

The film is hard to categorise and IMDB has it nestled under five categories - namely comedy, drama, fantasy, sci-fi and war.

For a movie made in the 70's, it has definitely held up pretty well in terms of the entertainment value it provides.

Voyage Review: 3.5/5

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Sci-Fi

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Comments

3 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by JohnDoe

October 3rd 2009 23:26

Film & TV on DVD

Hi Michelle,

I love this George Roy Hill (Butch cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting) film.

Startling comedy science fiction that is bravely ahead of its era. The book is a classic and the film should be considered so too.

Intelligent design and inventive concepts that still provoke thought beyond the final credits.

Comment by Michelle Sweeney

October 4th 2009 00:19

Competition Queen
Always Learning
Cinema Voyage

I agree. I wonder if this makes it on to the remake list as many of the classic movies seemingly do nowadays.

Comment by JohnDoe

October 4th 2009 03:25

Film & TV on DVD

The remake thing is so out of hand. It seems for every good one we have to suffer 100 that drag the original concept through the dirt.

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