In spite of what you may have read, the film is not "set in some
imaginary third-world country at some point in the future,"
anymore than King Lear is about prehistoric England. Failure to
recognize the true setting should immediately disqualify any reviewer.
Masked and Anonymous is a spot-on accurate portrayal of what is going
on RIGHT NOW, seen through the eyes of someone with vision and not just
eyesight, someone who has looked through the eyes not only of Charley
Patton and Elizabeth Cotton but also of Emmett Miller and even
Daniel Decatur Emmett.
...it is the only motion picture I have seen so far in this millennium
that seems to have a clue about what is going on in America. Moviegoers
will get it or they won't. Great pains have been taken to ensure that
they won't even see it.
It is a tale of almost unbearable sadness and loss. When Dylan sings
"I'll Remember You," as electrifying a performance as has ever
been caught on camera (all the songs are performed live, there's no
lip-synching in this movie) you feel that he may well be singing
not merely about a person but also about that "lost America of love"
that Ginsberg mourned in "A Supermarket in California," a work that in
its visionary aspect and intensity "Masked and Anonymous"
resembles. (Its ultimate antecedents are of course Shakespeare's
history plays.)
