Ti West has had a great run of films. Everything he does is compelling work. His latest work with Mia Goth in both X and Pearl have been some of the director’s most popular works and for good reason. Both films are uniquely their own and speak a very specific cinematic language. Pearl goes full-on prequel and is an amazing piece of work for taking on this technicolor throwback that really does sizzle.
Martin Scorsese is easily one of film’s finest directors in our history. I mean Casino, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas? That is a titan of cinema. Scorsese recently took in a showing of Pearl and the legendary director was absolutely smitten with the picture and Ti West’s ability. It isn’t easy to keep the director of Casino up at night or to get him to love contemporary works, but Pearl surely did just that.
“Ti West’s movies have a kind of energy that is so rare these days, powered by a pure, undiluted love for cinema,” Scorsese told A24. “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.”
The synopsis for Pearl goes like this:
Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Hoping for a more glamorous life, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations and repressions all collide to horrific effect.
If I was Ti West, I would have shrunk into a little ball and then become pure energy and exploded. I mean, I can’t imagine hearing Scorsese compliment work like that. Truly amazing!
Have you seen Pearl yet? If you haven’t it is worth the trip to the theater.
