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Knowing
Knowing is an odd film and a dangerous one for Aussie director, Alex Proyas. Rooting his film in reality and then sliding increasingly towards the supernatural, the trick here is to maintain story plausibility and, more importantly, a credible conclusion. Proyas has previously proven to be adept at pure fantasy (The Crow, Dark City) and stark reality (Garage Days) but can he succeed in mixing the two? The answer is an emphatic ‘yes’ for although the conclusion of Knowing sounds a little ridiculous if you say it out loud, Proyas notches his film from the real to the unreal in increments small enough to prevent us from throwing up our hands and crying, "this is bullshit!" Of course, this is also the magic of story telling and it is to Proyas' credit that we buy it wholesale.
The film represents an outstanding technical accomplishment which, arguably, is merely par for the course for Proyas - the premature death of of his star never stopped him from finishing The Crow and his mastery of technical wizardry was on full display in both Dark City and I, Robot. In Knowing, the brilliantly staged, wince-inducing disaster sequences tragically and effectively drive home the full impact of the senseless destruction of human life during a catastrophic event. The film may be a slow burner but when something happens, boy does it happen!
Knowing has much in common with the recent remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still except there's no Keanu to save the day here, Proyas takes us down a much braver and nihilistic path. The film also has similarities to Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain with its themes of loss and the afterlife though because the story is initially deceptive in its intent, this is not immediately apparent. And although Proyas shoots for similarly lofty goals, its implementation is simply not as elegant as Aronofsky's film. Of course, Nic Cage is no Hugh Jackman either, even if the film does play to the strengths of Cage's limited acting range.
However, being somewhat less than Aronofsky's magnum opus is barely a fault and taken on its own terms, Knowing is a consummate cinematic achievement.
Stuart Jamieson
official website
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