Halfway through; I feel like I've seen everything before in this multi era sci-fi dystopia existential ponderings romance costume drama, though possibly never this stylish. This is like one of those high end fashion brand shorts that are deep if you live in a lifestyle magazine. Except long and slow because long is refined and slow is artistic. Shortly after; Is this [spoiler]the monologue by that incel dude that killed a lot of people[/spoiler]? Will it go somewhere interesting? Maybe there is a reason that cineast people hype it after all. Nah, not really. Another stylish environment and a dip into the edgy with some TRVE POSTMODERN reference dropping that devolves into media art and then of course we're back into the Alphaville Matrix for the finale. I wish there was as much energy put into substance and maybe some originality as there was in scenography and repetitive foreshadowing. But really, there wasn't. I think my original association to fashion mags holds up. The print is colourful and the finish is glossy but the text is recycled fluff and despite the thickness of the magazine the paper is still thin as could be.

>"Come here. Don't be scared. There must be beautiful things in this chaos. Don't be scared... You're here." Heartbreaking. Echoes of past lives barely remembered, rippling through time. Lea Seydoux might actually be the most beautiful human alive. >"When love is evergreen, evergreen..."

While it's true that the pace is too slow and there are so many metaphors that at times they seem contrived, the film is so beutifully done that it all pays out in the end. [spoiler]The pace is slow so that the audicence gets the feeling this is a love story that has been dragged out for years (a faster pace would have spoiled it; even make it impossible). The metaphors have to be contrived as it punctuates how easy it is to overlook the warning signs, how muddled they are when you are caught up in your emotions, only making sense in retrospective. The final scene (the howling) is exquisite, it captures the whole theme of the film: the inevitable and self-fulfilling awful pain of heartbreak.[/spoiler] P.S. Léa Seydoux is amazing, can't believe I hadn't watched her until now.

Hmm. Persistently confronted with boredom.

I hadn’t felt so deliciously manipulated since I watched Haneke’s Funny Games. This film stayed with me long after the credits… rolled (?)