Prelude to Ecstasy
Jack Donohue

Review by Jack Donohue Patron

Prelude to Ecstasy 2024

★★★★★

Watched 12 Sep 2024

I've got a lot of thoughts on this.

From a technical filmmaking aspect, this is a masterpiece. It's almost theatrical, which is fitting for the music they create. The cinematography, the lighting, the vintage film look, the colour, the homage to so many different films, and most importantly, the aesthetic. I've been yearning for a film (especially a queer film!!!) to finally look like this again, for so long, and now it's finally here.

The film clearly pays tribute to classic film and literature, such as Dario Argento's Suspiria, Hitchcock's Rebecca, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, Ti West's Pearl, Andrzej Żuławski's Possession, which I thought was really cool to watch, and see where the band gets their inspiration from.

I know I gave this a 5 star, and I'm not thinking about changing that anytime soon because I love the band and I love the film, but I do have some thoughts...

This could be one of the best short films ever made, if... it was longer and took its time to develop a proper story, with dialogue and musical numbers. I was really hoping that's what this film would be, but instead it's a compilation of a few gorgeous looking music videos. I kinda knew thats what it would be, but I would've liked if this had taken a "musical" approach, and actually had the songs be diagetic. It would have been so much more impactful had it been a proper short film (with a length of around 45 minutes).

I honestly want to write a full screenplay based on this, just as a fun project, because I think there were a ton of missed opportunities here.

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