A fantasy treated like a reality—this doesn’t always happen with the same ethereally dazzling result like David Fincher does it. Winning 3 Academy Awards—Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, and Best Make-up, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button grabs what they just deserve by bringing in the screen an incredible story captured in a sophisticated, classy, and grand cinematography and a production design superbly done. The movie is an affirmation of of human interaction with people and what these people do as brought upon by a very significant and vital element of life and of the film—time.
The film follows the unusual and even grotesque life of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) who is born looking like an 80 year old man. He is abandoned by his father and adopted by Queenie (Taraji Henson) who attends a home care for the old men and women to whom Benjamin seems to be just one. He grows older, but looks younger. He learns more but looks less old. He meets Daisy (Cate Blanchett) at the shelter, they become friends and will eventually be together. After they leave each other for personal pursuits, they finally decided to live together, this time looking more of the equal age. They are given a daughter but Benjamin is not prepared to be a father in the state of his bizarre condition. He leaves Daisy and their daughter, asking his wife to look for a normal father that will give their daughter a normal life. The next time Daisy meets Benjamin, he looks much younger while she looks much older, and their daughter already grown up very loving of her known father. Benjamin continues to get old and yet look very young. He dies a baby being cradled in the arms of the old Daisy.
Time is the core of this film. It explores an extraordinary reverse life process of a man creating pumping curiosity. There is no need finding logic or exhausting our faculties for answering such curious case because what we need to find is a heart that can understand what the intellect can not answer. The heart of a single moment is the purpose of that exact moment. We may unconsciously appreciate it but our hearts do consciously so. The turnaround of Benjamin’s life—growing young instead of growing old is only physical; and it is the matrix that provides us with the explanation that human beings do what they can possibly do and that human beings are just generally the same—that we all pass through life whether we grow old or grow young physically.
Where it gets most of my veneration for the film is its technical elegance. A visual achievement definitely made possible by its shimmering visualization, remarkable make-up, and startling effects. The classy feel from all the flashback scenes blend with the grandeur of its production values. While I am blown away by its excellent visuals, I am bothered though by some of its parts. I have always had a problem with films trying to tell a life-long story in a film. There are times that the three hour narrative justifies the 70 year story or more but there are also some that doesn’t. I think that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of those. I think this is due to the seemingly rushed ending and prolonged beginning of the film that makes the time frame distorted. Since the most important part of the film, at least for me, happens in the point where Benjamin is to leave his family, the concentration of actions and time should have happened also in that later part of the film. There are also points in the film where I can’t let go of my adoration to the film because there is a feeling of awkwardness that draws me back. I materialize that awkwardness in the realistic treatment of the film that is really fantastic. I can’t say that even with the likes of Fincher, this type of approach always works. The sensitivity that you see something you know will never happen in the real world devised that it really does happen somewhere and sometime consists of that awkwardness.
Nevertheless, the film is still a first-class film. I f you set your mind to thinking that the purpose of a film is to let you visualize strange stories you will never ever witness yourself, then this film has absolutely done its purpose. The curious Case of Benjamin Button’s filmic excellence is completely enough for you to see this Oscar multi-nominated work of creativity.
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