Product Description

Good and evil, love and hate collide in this captivating adventure from award-winning director Hal Hartley. Starring Sarah Polley (The Claim), Robert John Burke (Robocop 3), Academy Award® nominee* Helen Mirren (Gosford Park) and Academy Award® winner** Julie Christie (Dr. Zhivago), No Such Thing is a provocative and deeply moving film thatwill change the way you look at the world. New York journalist Beatrice (Polley) travels to Iceland to find a monster (Burke) believed to have killed her fiancé. Once she meets the beast, he opens her eyes to the horror of his existencehe has witnessed history from the dawn of time. Moved to help him, Beatrice takes the monster to New York. But when a media firestorm erupts, Beatrice realizesher monster is more than he appears to be and the world may not be ready for the truth. *Supporting Actress, Gosford Park (2001); Supporting Actress, The Madness of King George (1994). **Actress, Darling (1965).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49533 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-07-09
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Icelandic
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com
Writer-director Hal Hartley (Henry Fool, The Book of Life) has loosened his usual arch style, but the results are no less distinctive. Sarah Polley (Go, The Sweet Hereafter) plays Beatrice, a naive young reporter who is sent by a huge media conglomerate to investigate the disappearance of a camera crew in Iceland. Eventually she finds an immortal but depressed and alcoholic monster (Robert John Burke) who wants nothing more than to die. Beatrice agrees to help him find the one man who can kill him, and she draws the monster out into an invasive media spotlight. No Such Thing is maybe too ambitious; the story tackles not just the media and world unrest, but even the history of mankind. Still, like most of Hartley's work, the movie remains uniquely engaging, a delicate mix of irony and sincerity. Also starring Helen Mirren (Gosford Park) and Julie Christie (Afterglow). --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

the trouble with satire
is that it needs a sophisticated, well-informed audience, able to make connections without large neon arrows, and aware of nuance. intelligence helps.

i originally watched this film because it was set in iceland. i watched it a second time, and am buying the dvd, because of all the subtle, quiet bits of staging, the wonderful dialogue, its absurdity, the quality of the performances, and the density of meaning and references--not only the obvious, but possibly the obscure: does this scene reference morality plays? does the movie satirize quest legends?

this film reminds me of a review the author dick francis once got--the reviewer said that francis leaves much unsaid but nothing unexpressed.

if you prefer to actively participate in a performance, to have your mind as well as your emotions engaged, this is a film you will enjoy. if every motivation and action has to be explained to you by several minutes of dialogue, look somewhere else.

We Need Our Monsters, Whether We Like it or Not
I can't remember how this film ended up in my hands (maybe a friend recommended it), but I won't ever let it go now. There is endless speculation here at Amazon.com about "what this films meanings are", and after viewing it several times, I might (and that's an awfully big "MIGHT") be able to add my two cents. But first, let me tell you briefly what this sucker's all about:

Beatrice (Sarah Polley), a nobody reporter for an obscure media magnate, is sent to Iceland to speak with the natives of a distant village about their belief that an ancient monster lives in an abandoned missile silo somewhere near their dwellings. On her way to Iceland many strange things happen to Beatrice: her purse gets stolen by a dark and sinister looking female drug addict, shadows lurk around corners, and Beatrice begins to feel that evil is not too far away from her. And she's right. Her plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean and she is the only survivor. After many, many months of therapy (and going through an oddball spinal operation that involves excruciating pain that causes her to black out), she's finally able to make it to the Icelandic village ...and soon discovers that the monster is REAL!

Robert John Burke (Robo Cop 3 and Tombstone) plays the monster who's been around since "humans crawled out of the primordial ooze." He's a sarcastic, burned out monster who's only hope is that he'll die one of these millennia and be put out of his misery of watching the human race devour itself. He's an excellent character who you just love listening to, his voice a slow cadence contained within a body who's personality swings from depression to wrath in the blink of an eye. And when Beatrice offers to help him end his life of suffering, he reluctantly agrees to go along with her (nothing has worked up until this point, so the monster has serious doubts that anyone can kill him).

When Beatrice brings him back to civilization, a media frenzy ensues. A REAL monster! Newspapers, TV, radio, they're eating it up! But the monster doesn't want any of that. He wants to be away from these gnats of humanity. But even more sinister things are afoot. The military wants to examine him to find out why he's so indestructible. The media wants to make a "Beauty and the Beast" story out of him and Beatrice. And terrible people are using their fear of him to do awful things to the monster (like beating him up and peeing on him).

Finally, Beatrice finds a scientist who proposes his method of ending the monsters existence. And a rush to end his life before anyone can stop them takes place. Can science really kill our monsters? What happens if you kill off the last monster in the world? Can we live without them?

The amazing thing about this film is that it makes you think, laugh, cry, and shiver, often in the same scene. Incredible scripting.

So what about my two cents? I think this films main focus is on the monsters in our lives and how we perceive them, and what would happen if we killed them all off. It would change the very fabric of who we are. Could you imagine a world without Dracula? Or Frankenstein? Or that little furry monster that lived under you bed when you were eight years old? What would happen to us if they never existed in our thoughts and imaginations? Is THAT a more terrible fate than actually having a real one living in an abandoned missile silo?

As crazy as this concept may sound, the movie gives implicit meaning to it by showing us Beatrice's encounter with the drugged-out purse stealer, her plane crash, her suffering through horrific pain during spinal surgery, and her eventual understanding of how important some demons are in our lives.

A fantastic film. A+

Not just for Hartley fans
While reading the reviews for this film I was surprised that everyone says that you need to be a Hal Hartley fan to enjoy it. I had never seen any Hartley films before I stumbled upon this one, but I instantly loved it. It is interesting for the fact that most people never see movies like this. No Such Thing is so absurd and creative that I feel many people could enjoy it. I ended up liking this movie so much that I decided to buy it before even seeing any of Hartley's other films.(Which I am going to do based on the power of this film)