Through the extensive advertising campaign, Marty Supreme made its debut all around the world on christmas day. I went to watch this movie with the intention of only seeing it once, but I ended up going twice so I could fully understand it before writing this. I decided it would be best to go into the movie blind though obviously I knew it was about ping pong.
The first issue I had about this film was the use of music from the 80’s though the movie is set in 1952, yes the tracks were good but they just didn’t properly fit the time frame. With that aside, the title scene gave me chills, the transition of the ovum to a white ping pong ball was very beautiful and the addition of “Forever Young” by Alphaville created such a beautiful foreshadowing to the movie, which I will get into later.
The key standouts of this movie for me were the cinematography and Timothee Chalamet’s true dedication to his role. Throughout the successful campaign for marty supreme you can see how Timothee Chalamet truly embodied his character of Marty Mauser, I think this was extremely beneficial to his character development and helped create a very intricate character. Another issue I had with this movie was the idea of Marty Mauser’s character becoming the new “him”, when I say that I mean a male movie character that young boys look up to, often being misogynistic and self centered. Some examples of past characters like this are Patrick Bateman from American Psycho and Dexter Morgan from Dexter. I think that characters of this nature can be harmful to the development of youth, specifically young men. When looking up to a movie character the character shouldn’t be disrespectful to their female partners or hungry for money and sex, I think that this creates a very toxic ideal for youth. I don’t think this was the plan for the character of Marty Mauser. I just think that with this movie gaining an insane amount of traction before it was released made people start to idolize his character.
The rhythm of this movie was immaculate, some say it was too intense and overwhelming, and while I believe that is true, I also think that it is a beautiful representation of a fast paced life. The rhythm just felt very human. Another human part of this film was the camera movement. During the first ping pong scene the camera follows the ball as if the audience is actually following it with their head.
Though I stated that I thought the sound track was incorrect at times, the songs from the 80’s used did hold a message. I believe that “Forever young” was used to show that Mauser lives a lifestyle with the mentality of being young forever. I like that this was used at the beginning of the movie to almost foreshadow what his character would be like. When “everybody wants to rule the world” by the police was used, I think it was to show that Mauser has a desire to be the number one player and that he will do anything and go out of his way to do so. With that being said I think these songs were picked well in the sense of foreshadowing Mauser’s character.
The cast for Marty Supreme was beautifully crafted with actors like Timothee Chalamet, Odessa Azion, Tyler The Creator and more, this allowed for a very cohesive and well rounded cast. As a huge fan of both Odessa Azion and Timothee Chalamet’s work I do believe this could be their performance. You can really see the effort they put in over the six years of filming. Though it may be a controversial opinion, I love a movie where almost all the actors are attractive or at least have some sort of charm to their physical appearance and this movie had that quality like no other.
To conclude, I believe that Marty Supreme was a fantastic movie with beauty all around. Though I had small issues with it, that does not take away from the brilliant performances throughout this movie. I truly believe that it is a must watch and though two and a half hours may seem daunting to some (including me) I think it is impossible to find yourself bored during this film.
