MisterWhiplash This is a film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, whose credentials are mostly with the Dogme-95 crowd (his film 'Festen' is supposed to be one of the best, and one of the few to really attempt to follow the rules), and this is certainly not apart of that previous group of films and filmmaker. It's a dark-but-whimsical romantic fantasy made up of parts of science fiction and tragic romance, sort of like if Philip K. Dick tried his hand at doing soap opera.Indeed the word 'opera' is quite appropriate for this film. Much of Vinterberg's style here is operatic, such as sequences where one of the main characters (emphasis on 'characters') are ice skating to some very bombastic music, the lighting striking like out of a shadowy dream... indoors on an ice rink.But what about the film you might ask? What makes it such a cult-film object to be discovered (as I did through a friend who wouldn't stop raving about it, how 'weird' it gets)? It seems a straightforward sort of sci-fi premise: a man is married to a woman (Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes respectively) and the former wants to divorce the other as they've been split apart for a while and he doesn't see the relationship going anywhere (this is mostly inferred, and mostly early on). But she won't sign, and so he goes to New York city to confront her, amid her ring of celebrity and media that surrounds her. A good lot of time he's just waiting in a TV studio looking at monitors, some of them about new in Africa of some devastation going on.Oh, what kind of devastation? It's actually the future. That I neglected to mention is not entirely by accident. Vinterberg doles out information sparingly, and one can just grasp the ring of the plot by the end of the first half hour, and then it turns into a chase movie. Sort of. Nefarious figures, such as a "Mr. Morrison", are on their trail, or rather on Elena's trail as John tries to keep her safe. From what? Well, so it goes, she's a clone, or she has a bunch of clones made up from her.I would want to keep much of the surprises of the film spoiler-free, but then how much can be really spoiled here? Vinterberg's style is more concerned with the mood of the camera, how emotional the actors get, than with the story. He seems to almost be kindly (or just bizarrely) mocking storytelling in a sense, and by this he also has Sean Penn's entire role in the film being that of a guy on a plane, once close with John, speaking into a tape recorder he hopes for John to hear. Well, it's like poetry, it rhymes. So there.There's also dead bodies here and there in the film. It takes having to look at the back of the video box (or sticking with the movie till the last shot, which is posted below) to fully understand that it is a post-apocalypse kind of environment. It doesn't appear to be. This and other little moments in the film, or even how Vinterberg's cameraman ace-Danny Boyle collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle go about making certain scenes disorientating with dutch angles and see-sawing in a scene with a shot, that make it such a bizarre item. But Vinterberg also trusts the audience to try and keep up with him, and for the most part he's successful.By the end it is moving, if sometimes a little silly (the many clones and how they're 'taken out' so to speak make for unintentional laughs), and it has been an experience. It will turn off people who may not expect such twists and turns and performances that go just *this* high (::puts fingers an inch apart::) from going over the top. He also has the trust of an actor like Phoenix, who does some of his most subtle and perfectly forceful work as Polish-émigré John, and Danes who gets some chances to be hammy but barely takes them.It's All About Love is the kind of movie I would recommend only to certain people that I might know personally, or to those looking for a loopy art-film that is glad to be as sappy as it wants to be. Or those who will savor a closing shot like the one above. Or those who want to get a gage on who their 'other' is on a first date.

bitter bufallo My second time watching the movie I picked up a lot more than I did the first time. The ending in particular seemed more tragic the second time through because I noticed that John may have been able to save Elena. Maybe not from the apocalypse, but from her disease of the heart. I might be seeing hints where none exist, however if you pay close attention to the acting and narrative in the film you may notice what I am talking about. Just another warning, this part contains huge spoilers. Read this after you see the movie!Evidence that John could have saved Elena:-When John first meets the clones, the one with the knife screams "You killed her!" This line caught my attention, since it could be foreshadowing that he does kill her later in the film. Marciello (Sean Penn) says on the plane something along the lines of "John, you can save her. Kiss her John." Could this be hinting that kissing her would cure or ameliorate her heart problems? -Relating to the previous comment, notice that through their whole trek through the winter forest not once do they kiss. -After Michael leaves he dies very quickly in an extremely heavy blizzard. It is clear that what he really dies from is his heart problem. He is cut off from everyone he loves. Elena and John have abandoned him, he is rejected by the rest of his family, and he is feeling a horrible sense of guilt for his betrayal. After he dies we cut to a scene of Elena and John who are dancing on the ice. They are both happy, the scene is serene, and the weather is almost perfectly calm. The question then is, why didn't Elena and John both perish in the same storm that Michael died in? The reason may be that the storm and cold are somewhat subjective. In other words the storm may vary from person to person depending upon the condition of their heart. It may even be that those dead on the street experienced the storm and cold, while others around them were unaffected. -When they are dancing on the lake, notice that Elena is perfectly happy and energetic one moment, but as soon as John lets go of her she looks completely tired and exhausted (great acting by Claire!). She then kind of lags behind John all the time that they are walking. They start to become separated and as a result Elena's heart gets worse. This scene, if I am correct, is a sort of microcosm of the movie itself. They would have been perfectly happy if they would have just stayed there dancing and experiencing love for one another, but instead John decides that they need to start going somewhere. It is the embodiment of what Marciello says: "We should have just stayed by the lake in Poland".-We are at the scene were Elena is Dying. We think that she has died, but then John cries over her and finally kisses her forehead. She immediately wakes up and says "What is happening, John". It was heartbreaking to realize, but it seemed that her surprise was from her heart getting better! She is at the brink of death and the kiss on the forehead brings her back for a moment. John however does not realize this, and tries to comfort her. He props his head up and the connection between them is gone. When he resumes crying over her again she is already dead. Conclusion: Once you put together all these subtle hints you have a very interesting and very tragic ending. John might have been able to save her, but instead he weakened her heart by sending Michael away and continuing to travel when he should have been giving her love and affection. Even a simple kiss at the last moment might have revitalized her. Even if they were going to die no matter what, they would have been much better off spending their last few hours alive with each other, rather walking to nowhere. I see their trek through the winter forest as a metaphor for life. We embark upon our own journeys to find such things as fame, wealth, or status. We may get lost on the way or find that once we get there it is not important. We waste so much time trying to get to these places, but yet the time would be so much better spent with those we love. Maybe I am right about John killing Elena, maybe I am not. Watch the movie again and judge for yourself. If this movie completely confuses you, remember that it is not a movie that should be taken literally. It is a dream, and dreams tend to present information in a fragmented and cryptic manner. You may be confused simply because you do not have the right experiences or knowledge in life to interpret this dream. This is a brilliant movie, but to recognize it as thus you need to appreciate beauty, understand metaphor, recognize subtlety, and use whatever intelligence you have. In case you cannot do that though, ill just tell you right now that it's all about love.

stavr0ghin I can't in any way comprehend how can someone say that he/she can't understand this film. If you have more than 16 years and you didn't understand this movie than you should never touch a film from now on and comment on IMDb as if your opinion matters in some way.This movie is a ultimate work of art.. a masterpiece. If you didn't understand it than make the good choice.. watch it again and again and again, until you will get it you **** or kill yourself.. Because of you this film has a overall note of 5 and this kind of films will never be made because you ***** represent the majority, the public...Whatever, if your IQ is higher than 5 than go see this movie. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.11 out of 10. a masterpiece

Anahita We all want love after all. We want family bounds and people to rely on, friends who support us and stick with us when we are in trouble.This was all about love. The separation was a disease and Eleana (Clair Danes) who worked hard to gain a successful career as a ballerina, got weaker and weaker as the result of not having the love she desired in her life, the love of being a white bride, purity, youth and togetherness with someone she loved.... May be she realised it when it was too late, when she was no longer wanted by the media, corporations who made money out of her talent; when she felt she was missing that long wanted link, to be attached to someone she loved.When John (Joaquin Phoenix)came back to get his divorce paper signed, it was too late, her heart already was weak, the disease was in an advanced stage. She tried to cure it, she tried to quit her job, but the people who used her including her brother betrayed her behind her back.So from Eleana's point of view, all she wanted was her life and happiness back. From David and Arthur's point of views, it was all about making money, no matter how many lives would be ruined; they were using people as their business tools. But from John's point of view, it was all about love. You could see in his eyes when he was watching Eleana that how he cared and how he longed for her, and that was the reason he left, because he loved her and he wanted her happiness and success. And finally that was the reason he got involved in the end.The Ugandans were symbolic to my view, something in John's imagination... He saw them on television screens and when he was dying. He saw them attaching themselves near each other to the place they were born so that they stay as a family and not to separate, to keep love! The fact that John's brother lived in aeroplanes and always in the sky showed the result of this family dis-attachment and confirmed that even when people leave each other, they still think about each other all the time, in their isolation and they still try to make sense by keeping contact...At the end... we hear John's brother (Sean Penn) trying to communicate with John .... "You are probably somewhere in snow... you are probably somewhere sleeping." So deep inside family members have this connection and that is why by separating families and disconnecting people from love, the world is going to be a very cold place to be and people finish their lives in isolation and from a cold heart somewhere and this would become so natural that no one will care after all.This also proved that even when these four family members tried to get together at one point, they did not really make it and that killed John and Eleana. In distance Michael, Eleana's brother died in storm and John's brother was in a plane that could not land anywhere at all as everywhere was snowing... so he was going to die as well...Love is something that has to bound all of us humans together and if we are not connected, sooner or later, the life stops metaphorically and in this film symbolically.