It is scrupulous in its attention to all the surface details that define time, place and mood.
"It was a mystery that I wanted to resolve for myself," Mention-Schaar said of her reasons for making "Heaven Will Wait," which is one of a recent spate of movies that take up the subject of radicalization, though it is unique in its attention to women.
It is stunning in its attention to the most trivial of details, not to mention what it seeks to extort from willing public officials who have a simplistic worldview worthy of George Babbitt.
"Color" recalls the dispersed musicians back onto a single stage, but it is no less exacting in its attention to the tactile qualities of sound unfolding in space: a transformation with suspense, at once gradual and unrelenting.
But it's a breathtaking achievement too, its beauty and power lying in its attention to detail, the way it forces the reader to look, and look again, at every aspect of the logistics of battle, from horses to trenches to foot soldiers to officers.
According to Maslin, the film is an "interestingly wild hybrid of visual styles and cultural references" whose "animation is weak when it comes to fluid body movements, but outstanding in its attention to detail".
But it also strikes a balance — fond but cleareyed, fetishistic in its attention to period detail yet devoid of sentimentality.
That would have been both distracting and redundant, since it's impossible, while watching a movie so intimate in its attention to the towers, not to be haunted by thoughts of their fate.
Structurally, it is a Chekhovian mosaic, similar to Rodrigo Garcia's films in its attention to minute personal detail but somewhat lighter in tone.
