Customer Reviews

Proof [Import]

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Russell Crowe (as "Andy") works in a restaurant. Out the backdoor, he helps a cat with the left-over food. A blind man, Martin, (played by Hugo Weaving, Lord Of The Rings: [2001, 2002, 2003]) walks by with his cane and knocks over the food and the crate the cat was hiding in. Russell Crowe takes notice of the blind man and also that the cat has died from the accident. One day, Martin is in the restaurant. Even pouring a glass of wine is difficult. Later that night, Crowe tells Martin about the cat being killed. Martin insists it is not and he knows a vet that can help the cat. Crowe offers him a ride. At the vet, Crowe discovers Martin takes pictures with a camera. A blind photographer. When the pictures are developed, Martin asks Crowe to describe each photograph. To Martin, the pictures are "proof" that what he sensed, is what Crowe saw through his eyes. "The truth". A helpful friendship begins until a woman (played by Genevieve Pichot) gets in the middle.

Absolutly amazing this movie ! It's one of the best movies I've ever seen !
Hugo Weaving is great, starring the character of Martin, a blind loner cold man full of bitterness who trusts anyone more probably because of his strange relationship with his mother.Really talented this man !
Geneviève Picot is also very good at the character of Celia, Martin's housekeeper. She's a strange perverse woman who is secretly in love with Martin completly obsessed by him.
Russel Crowe 's starring Andy who becomes the only person Martin trusts in.
The actors, the script all are great. I recommand this movie.
Thanks for this really rare entertainement.
I ask some kind of movie more and more...

Utterly compelling, meticulously performed and unsettlingly true. Watch this one carefully!

A movie about a blind photographer? Well, throw in a young Russell Crowe and Hugo Weaving, and it might be worth a look.

In fact, Proof is a real eye-opener (!) Of course, it's about relationships universally, and the blindness is just a gimmick, but no matter. It works whether you care to look below the surface or not. The acting is excellent and the story is gripping.

Proof is another of those Australian Government-subsidized films that quietly lure you in, then won't let go: Chez Nous, Strictly Ballroom, Cosi. . .

Hugo Weaving is incredible at playing edgy, complex roles. After you see Proof, watch him in The Interview.

Proof, an Australian film, stars Hugo Weaving as Martin, a man obsessively distrustful of the world, so much so he feels he has to take photos of everything around him, as proof they really exist. Uno-teeny-tiny problemo. He's blind. So he has to find someone he can trust to describe the photos to him. The person he chooses is Andy, a kitchen worker at a local restaurant, played by a very young looking Russell Crowe.

Hugo Weaving as Martin displays his trademark intelligence and sensitivity. Martin is smarter than hell but socially maladept. Andy is a charming ne'er-do-well who accepts the "job" of being Martin's eyes out of a combination of pity, what-the-hell, and actual liking for the guy.

Geneviève Picot does a fine job as Celia, Martin's housekeeper who is intensely attracted to him and regularly tries to seduce him - advances he routinely rejects. Geneviève's Celia is obsessive, manipulative, domineering, rude and yet still, in some bizarre, disturbing fashion, sexy. And if you think that's easy....try it some time.

As the movie starts, Martin's life is extremely regimented and limited. His only real relationship is one of conflict with Celia whom he keeps at arms length. But still he endures the pressure of her advances, her attempts at manipulation, the little cruelties when she's displeased with him and deliberately moves objects into his path for him to trip over. His relationship with her may be sick, but she's all he has. Celia had the job of describing Martin's photos to him before Martin gave the job to Andy because - for good reason - he doesn't trust Celia.

We have two great actors (and one great actress) in this film, all doing extraordinary work. In a quiet way, this movie is about Martin battling for his soul, fighting to become a whole human being. His relationship with Andy is the first time in his life he's ever reached out to another person. It's the story of how this friendship between very different individuals, its rewards and disappointments, gives Martin the strength to make badly needed changes in his life.

Favorite line of the movie: "I forgot." Trust me, in the context it's delivered, this is absolutely hilarious. My girlfriend, after watching Proof with me, for weeks and months afterward, would suddenly look at me and say, "I forgot," before bursting into laughter.

Proof is a superb film, an actor's movie with performers fully up to the job. To quote Roger Ebert - though he was talking about a different show - "I just want to hug this movie."

See it for Hugo not for Russ. They both play great parts but Hugo is the man. Blind and not very trusting can be the worst thing for a man. This movie has it all a little love a little mistrust, friendship. And it makes you want to take pictures of everything.

You're probably here because of Russell Crowe. Well - as long as you can do without action scenes and swordfights, you won't be disappointed, and might even be astonished at Russell Crowe's range, because he plays a perfectly ordinary person.

I'll leave the plot to the other reviewers. This is a tiny film, with only four characters, one of them dead. Hugo Weaving is so good as the blind photographer that I was amazed when I saw him in "Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert" and realized that he wasn't actually blind.

The movie also contains one of the funniest scenes in all moviedom, ending when the doctor examines Weaving's eyes and says: "You've been blind since birth. Why were you driving?"

If you like slightly slow-paced movies that care only about the development of the characters (think "Remains Of The Day"), you will love this film.

This film has been an important adjunct to a lecture I do for mental health professionals on the meaning, importance and function of keepsakes in grief and in lifelong individuation. The lecture has underlying themes of the powerful impact of pathological beliefs on our lives and also shows that decathecting brings hope. So does this film.
Proof is about Martin, a blind photographer on a mission to find someone he can trust. Someone who can tell him the truth contained in a keepsake photograph he has kept in a safe for over 30 years. A photograph he took at 10 years of age. The photo will either confirm or deny his inner belief that his mother hated him for being blind and that she was embarrassed by him. He believed that she lied to him because she could,in order to punish him for being blind, because, he felt, she wanted a "normal" child. He believed that she didn't really die, that she left him, because she wanted to.
During the film, Martin's inner belief system, the belief that no one can be trusted is challenged as he develops a bond with Andy, played by Russel Crowe. Their relationship has heartwarming moments that provide experiences to force Martin to rethink his inner beliefs. But as my husband reminds me, Martin is developmentally crippled. Just as he's never experienced male bonding in his earlier life, he has never experienced love with a woman. He runs from a seduction scene with his vindictive (and complicated) housekeeper. We see a scene afterwards where he begins to cry and we sense that he is beginning to grieve and to make more conscious connections about the impact of his belief system on his life. As Martin learns a new idea, that there are trustworthy souls who can be enjoyed, that new experience is ultimately stronger than the betrayal that ultimately tests his friendship with Andy and their relationship survives the betrayal. Martin learns to accept the imperfection in human experience. In the end, Martin realizes that his mother had not lied to him and that his inner belief is not true. He is finally able to decathect from the punative unyielding belief with his deceased mother, to begin to grieve her loss and to decathect from his most precious keepsake. We see he is able to make better relationship choices, to free himself from the repetition compulsion with his vindictive housekeeper as he is able to fire her in the end and as he struggles to accept the ambivalence in human relationships and in his relationship with Andy.
In the end, we imagine him being able to put his cathartic energy elsewhere and to move ahead in his life to take risks in forming closer personal relationships. Martin is finally unlocked from his past and is more able to enjoy his present and to begin to imagine a different kind of future.
While my review hasn't focused on the triangular betrayal that evolves in this film, the important point in the talk that I give is that Martin's cathartic energy is initally so passionately tied up in his mother and in the keepsake that he is chained to his past. The attachment to Andy begins to change his life so that he can decathect his energy from his deceased mother and from the keepsake and move forward. Decathecting brings him hope for a different kind of future.

I've watched this movie alone, and with friends. Every time I see it I find a new depth to it. The relationships and characters involved are so deep and multi-faceted that I imagine I'll still be finding new things about it in the future. I must-see!

This is the first time I saw either Russell Crowe or Hugo Weaving in a film but the real reason to watch is the wonderful script by Jocelyn Moorhouse. This is a very simple film about truth and Weaving's character's quest to discover whether his mother was being true to him, and whether he can trust the outside world.

All three main actors (Weaving, Crowe and Genevive Picot) are brilliant, and I agree with another viewer that Picot's housekeeper character is the most interesting. Even though she is obsessive and manipulative she becomes more sympathetic (and pathetic) by the end of the film.

I'd also like to mention that the film was scored by Not Drowning, Waving - an excellent Aussie band. I liked it so much I had to pick up the soundtrack BEFORE I picked up the video.

One of the best and most overlooked films of the 90s and an absolute must-see for Russell Crowe fans.