This Must Be the Place: short film review

Thanks to Experimenta Media Arts (who gave me a free ticket) I saw This Must Be the Place (Paolo Sorrentino, 2011) this afternoon at the Kino Cinema in Melbourne. Sean Penn was brilliant as Cheyenne, an aging rock-star who sets out to find a Nazi war criminal, living in America who has tormented Cheyenne's estranged, recently deceased father. This is a poetic, philosophic and intelligent film with an acquiescence that adds to the films existing beauty, stunning expansive landscapes and unique characters that represent individuals living on the edge of American society. Although Cheyenne is 'mind fucked' by his prior use/abuse of alcohol and heroin; demonstrated by his slow talk and slow movements, he persistently delivers some home grown philosophy, not unlike statements made by Forest Gump (Tom Hanks), but perhaps more intense and insightful. I really enjoyed this film, not only because of the unexpected stark contrast between Cheyenne and his wife Jane (Frances McDormand) a firefighter who shares a mansion and regularly eats vegetarian pizza with him, but because he wears more make-up than her and dresses more glamorously. However, what remains with me long after the film is the numerous close-up shots of Cheyenne, his stark blue eyes surrounded by black eye-makeup, his curly, black hair that constantly falls onto his face, which he blows away, as well as the deep wrinkles that mark his aging face. This is humanity, warts and all, displayed so acutely in the pimples and growths on the reddish face of the Nazi criminal, Muller, whose, thin, naked, vulnerable body towards the end of the film exemplifies the pale, emaciated bodies of Jews exterminated in concentration camps. There is great depth in this film, which investigates Cheyenne's perception that 'something is not quite right' in life and his determination to do something, after all, that matters.