When he’s not creating his own masterpieces or fueling endless Twitter wars with the occasional comment about Marvel movies as cinema, filmmaker Martin Scorsese is doing what many of us do – enjoying movies.
The Oscar-winning cinephile recently took in Ti West’s new film “Pearl” which just opened this weekend and is in love with it, so much so he sent a short review of the project to distributor A24, who has shared it with the world.
The film, a prequel to West’s “X” earlier this year, was shot in secret and stars Mia Goth as the young version of the villainous and murderous character from “X”. Here, she’s an aspiring actress in 1918 in what becomes a blood-soaked, technicolor tale quite different to “X”. Here’s Scorsese’s take:
“Ti West’s movies have a kind of energy that is so rare these days, powered by a pure, undiluted love for cinema. You feel it in every frame. A prequel to ‘X’ made in a diametrically opposite cinematic register (think 50s Scope color melodramas), ‘Pearl’ makes for a wild, mesmerizing, deeply — and I mean deeply — disturbing 102 minutes.
West and his muse and creative partner Mia Goth really know how to toy with their audience … before they plunge the knife into our chests and start twisting. I was enthralled, then disturbed, then so unsettled that I had trouble getting to sleep. But I couldn’t stop watching.”
West has a third film set in the same universe, “MaXXXine,” which is on the way and will be set in the 1980s with Mia Goth returning. “X” is now on VOD platforms with “Pearl” currently in cinemas.
