360' a poorly reviewed movie that I really enjoyed!

I do love chancing movies that have been poorly reviewed - but I also know that sometimes there are very good reasons. This time, I think the reasons were academic - something about looking for deep meaning, when in fact sometimes in life there is not so much depth - we just live it and in lots of different ways and places. This is where I parted from the reviewers - I enjoyed the simple messages, the cinematography, the music and the general ambience of the film. I walked out of the theatre entertained, feeling good and slightly affirmed as a person that life is not always what it seems, and sometimes good things happen, sometimes they don't....

So the music was edgy, we travelled between Vienna, Paris and London - although we were not overloaded with the classic shots of these cities. We saw side streets, interiors and people in transit. I loved the way we saw split screens of conversations. And to the theme - life is random, sex is an important driver and we all dream of being somewhere else than where we are - and often with someone else - but sometimes we stop and recognise the futility of chasing the dream, and we get away with it - other times relationships fall apart.

The film starts in Vienna where a businessman, played by Jude Law, is married to a woman (Rachel Weisz) who's cheating on him with a photographer who's unfaithful to his girlfriend. She is dumped and is returning to her home city of Rio de Janeiro when she runs into Anthony Hopkins, sitting beside her on the plane. He is off to see if a corpse is that of his long-missing daughter. Instead of meeting him for dinner, she opts for (and survives) an evening with a recently released rapist grappling with the outside world. Then there's the Bratislavan novice prostitute Law hopes to hire, her sister who accompanies her to Vienna for her evenings out, a Russian mobster, his sympathetic driver, his unhappy wife and her smitten Muslim dentist boss.

It all happens and in something of a random order - so when we see the other side of decision taken it makes for genuine interest. The message is reminiscent of sliding doors - life has many paths and we have the options to take one of the many forks - and so do all of the people we come into contact with - this is introduced at the beginning and is pervasive throughout. I found it's simplicity refreshing and very affirming. It is not just our decisions that inform our life - it is also the decisions of those around us and sometimes we can do nothing about this, but just regroup and continue the best way we can...