Across the Universe

Julie Taymor
(133’, USA)
*

Critics will rightly savage Julie Taymor’s (Frida, Titus) new opus for being the tacky, self-indulgent rampage that it is, but it’s perhaps better to try to understand what the heck she was thinking. How could a film that takes The Beatles’ back catalogue, places it in the mouths of cutesy, American Idol–style warblers, and uses it as the sole basis by which to understand the complicated underpinnings of ’60s counterculture, possibly be good? Appealing to 13-year-olds, yes, but actually good? Remarkably, Taymor’s intent seems genuine: her utopia is a postmodern, multi-ethnic free-for-all, where a colourful sense of fun positively steamrolls over any specific conceptions of tradition or history. Here, in a nutshell, is the chink in Taymor’s armor: she is too attention deficit for discipline, her generous aesthetic defiantly ignorant of precedents that might actually help her—like, say, those set by the best movie musicals (Singin’ in the Rain, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg), which always make room for plot and character development, on top of their adherence to sheer spectacle. (DB)

Originally published September 2007

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