John Cassavetes Marathon Part I of V
What starring in Rosemary’s Baby does to a mofo.
A piping hot unorganization of toxic emotions and behavior spoken through the before and after of a spiritual separation between a middle-class, middle-aged couple, ready to give their left kidney away to figure out where the f**k satisfaction or meaning could be found now that the chains are loose. It’s pretty authentically acted too might I add, and John Cassavetes’ obsessive zeal for these “distant-from-privacy ranged” close-ups make you feel strained right into the drunken suffering of our characters who’re up in arms with classic existentialism while momentarily avoiding a top-tier yet unfulfilling consumerist family lifestyle. Faces is the ugliest tool in the shed when it comes to “desperate rambling,” with no invasive walls to censor it. What a night to survive, for both its fictional personas and real life audience.
In simpler words, this is Cassavetes’ DIY or vérité Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Let’s live our mid-life crisis through the youth AGAIN, why don’t we? Tsk, tsk.
Verdict: A-
“Faces” is now available to stream on The Criterion Channel, HBO Max and Kanopy.
Burning the Celluloid 
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