Occasionally I’ll come across pieces of media that I end up considering ‘perfect’, which doesn’t really make sense with the way people normal define it. Nothing can be perfect, especially art. I ignore the normal definition for art and instead define a certain text to be perfect when it doesn’t faff around unnecessarily, spending time on things that are transparently useless to the overall piece. I could instead use ‘succinct’, but I don’t think that fits, succinctness to me implies being laconic and that nothing else needs to be said, art is in conflict with this, more can always be said. Pithy is probably a better word, but it still doesn’t sit as well as perfect does for me for a reason I still don’t know. I would categorize this film as being perfect. Perfect characters, perfect humor, perfect use of its medium, perfect ending.
After the detective and his assistant start their journey I immediately started picking up The Red Spectacles vibes, which was very pleasant as TRS is maybe in “Lateen’s Top 2.7182 Movies He Couldn’t Live Without”. And I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if TRS was actually inspired by this movie. Although the timing is a bit tight, this movie released May 1986 and TRS released February 1987.
BARREN ENTHUSIASM: https://lateen.org/txt/movie/2026/2026-09-05/