Foreword: Volker Schlöndorff’s Baal made me want to throw up all over myself. I’ve sat through some truly ugly and thoroughly noxious films in my time, many of them more overtly hideous than this one, but boy oh boy, I cannot think of the last time I sat through an 80 minute film that felt this interminable by dint of its awfulness.
That said, I didn’t write the blurb for Baal for this month’s Criterion round-up for Paste Magazine, so take my briefly summarized reaction here with a grain of salt or maybe more. I did, however, write about the very good The Age of Innocence and Women in Love, which I liked better than Age even though I am a shill for Scorsese and for Day-Lewis, apparently.
A Constant Visual Feast 