Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

tieman64 "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." - Ernest Hemingway1939. John Fante writes "Ask the Dust", the tale of a young man embarking on a literary career. Years later a young Robert Towne stumbles upon and voraciously devours Fante's novels, most of which attempt to paint a portrait of early 20th century Los Angeles. Decades pass. Towne embarks on his own literary career. He scores big with his screenplay for Roman Polanski's "Chinatown", a LA set noir influenced and flavoured by Fante. Towne and Fante personally meet in the 1970s. Fante dies in 1983. Two decades later Towne adapts "Ask the Dust" for the screen.Those looking for a faithful adaptation of Fante's novel will be disappointed. Towne has been sculpted "Ask the Dusk" into a deliberate, five-way romance: a distillation of Towne's long-time love for Fante, Towne's adoration of noir (and its assorted signs, trinkets and decor), Towne and Fante's love for early Los Angeles (its history, its characters, locales and heartbeat), Towne's idealisation of the Romantic image of the struggling artist, and the in-film love affair between an artist (played by Colin Farrell) and a Mexican waitress (Salma Hayek).The film can't touch Nicholas Ray's "In A Lonely Place", but to those attuned to Towne's very specific yearnings it's a very good film. Towne's no visualist, but he's a good enough writer to capture the essence of a noirish LA, with its flapping curtains, decrepit apartments, barflies, lonely hearts, drunks, scroungers, con-men, palm trees and sun-baked pavements. It's a nostalgia rush, all of which is married to an idealised, heavily romanticised portrait of a struggling artist – super good looking of course – who spends his time bedding lush Mexican women (a bosomy Salma Hayek) or sitting valiantly at a typewriter, pounding prose on page while chiaroscuro lighting bathes his body. The most interesting thing about the film, though, is its narrative arc. Farrell, who plays our budding artist (a surrogate for both Towne and Fante), has a massive insecurity complex and hates himself because he's Italian. Of course many burgeoning artists develop their artistic talents as a means of assuaging personal issues (alienation, rootlessness, self esteem problems etc). Art them becomes a means of reconnection; the product of the outsider looking inwards. The marginality of the artist then often results in the artist developing, as a sort of self-defence mechanism, a sense of superiority or inflated ego ("I hate them for making me an outsider", "I want to be with them", "I am too good to be with them", "I'm a great artist", "superior", "going places", "don't need them", "so confused!" etc). As the artist must put him or herself far out on the line, and often stand alone, such an inflation – or an almost bipolar flip-flop from feelings of unworthiness to massive self-exaltation – then becomes all that keeps her or him persevering. Now the Farrell character, because he is supremely self-loathing, begins to lash out at anyone and anything that reminds him of his own lowliness. One of his targets is Salma Hayek's character (too beautiful for such a role), a poor Mexican waitress. She reminds him of that which he wishes to escape. By the film's end, however, Farrell drops his hate, his aloofness, and begins to identify with others, empathise and speak up for them. Being a writer then becomes not a mark of status, but a duty. This tension itself increasingly obsessed Fante, his books ostensibly revolving around arrogant characters seeking independence, fame and success, while actually serving as a vehicle to introduce readers to a city, its inhabitants and their plights. In the film, Farrell's re-connection with the marginalised - the very subjects of his future art - is symbolised as a series of romantic or sexual encounters with physically deformed women and society's dregs. The film is not about "immigration", "racism" and "poverty", as some claim, but something more generalised: artists or spectators forging empathic connections with their objects. As empathy by definition cannot function without imagination, you might say empathy is itself a kind of art. This is why it is important that Towne prolong the sex scene between Farrell and Hayek, and why it is important that it is at her most desirable moment that she cough and be sickly. Incidentally, evolutionary speaking, empathy or "sharing someone else's emotion" need not yield pro-social behaviour. If perceiving another person in a painful circumstance elicits personal, physical or emotional distress, then the observer may tend not to attend fully to the other's experience and as a result seem to lack sympathetic behaviours. As empathic concern can lead to personal distress, such "commections" are also often blocked out. This may explain why, statistically, excessively empathetic humans are less likely to be pro-social and perhaps why artists prefer to disconnect and engage with the world safely by proxy.8/10 – Interesting, but somewhat poorly directed and should have been better written. Will appeal only to noir-heads, artists and romantics. Seek out Fante's much copied novel. Worth one viewing.

Chrysanthepop Set in the depression era, 'Ask the Dust' follows the story of a young aspiring Italian-American writer who gradually falls for a feisty immigrant waitress. The best thing about 'Ask The Dust' is Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Not only do they share an electric chemistry but their scenes together are the highlight of the film because of their restrained performances. Their scenes are a delight to watch.The film could have easily ended up being like a telenovella or soap opera but the two actors play their parts naturally and writer/ director Robert Towne manages to avoid romantic clichés as he lets the relationship flourish on screen. Even the love scene is suitably 'delayed' and brilliantly executed. The photography is beautiful. One of the best scenes is when Arturo and Camilla run towards the waves. While both are completely naked, the director manages to maintain the innocence of that scene without throwing in clichés.If only the film had more room for the story to develop. Many of the subplots and even the ending appeared rushed. The supporting characters, like Sutherland's Helfrick and Menzel's Rifkin, although interesting (and performed brilliantly) are poorly written. The political message that 'Ask The Dust' tries to deliver is also slightly misleading. However, Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek made this one at least worthy of a one-time watch for me.

Samiam3 Writer Arturo Bandini travels from his home in Colorado to Los Angeles. He plans to write a fresh piece on his experience in the city, but his work has gone slowly, and when we see him, he is down to his last nickel. He decides to spend it on a cup of coffee, in a near by café, but he gets into a fight with the Mexican waitress who serves him. Her name is Camilla. She is angry with life because she is mistreated by the angelo community. She wants to find herself an America husband for safety and security, and she finds herself drawn to Arturo. Although trying to focus on his work, Arturo ends up being drawn to her as well. How will this play out.Through the acting talent of its two leads, an impressive portrayal of early 20th century LA, and a story which is credible, thought provoking, and unconventional, Ask the Dust finds its voice. It is a movie that by the end does find it's way into your heart, provided you keep an open mind. Ask the Dust does not get everything right, but it works nicely for a romantic drama with Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell at the top of their game.If I am going to ask the dust one question, it would be regarding secondary characters. The screenplay does not make very effective use of them. It seems Donald Sutherland and Idena Menzel (not them specifically but their roles) are there simply to take up screen time. Menzel is pretty lame actually. Her performance is the kind of thing that would be acceptable in theatre (where her background is) but for the screen it feels hammed up, and overwrought. A careful collaboration between the art department, the costume department, and the cinematographer have resulted in a picture perfect glance at the city of angels from a hundred years ago (maybe a little less). During the day, the city is bright, shiny and surprisingly clean. But not everything about it is so admirable. The community is racist, and largely anti-Mexican , and of course every now and then an earth quake may come along and bring down a few houses. Ask the Dust is a film I can recommend if you want a non-conventional romance in which the presented couple are more than a pair of bodies, but also a pair of brains. It is a film that works. If you don't believe me, just ask the dust.

joel-280 Gorgeous bodies, gorgeous colors and camera work, pretentious dialog, banal plot. The name of the prima donna, Camilla, and the eponymous flowers that appear frequently, are enough to remind us of the plot similarities from Dumas' novel La Dame aux Camelias, the movie Camille starring Garbo and (I think) Robert Taylor, and last but not least Verdi's opera La Traviata. Beautiful, not-too-virtuous young ladies, social outcasts for one reason or another, loved, split up, reunited just in time to die of tuberculosis in the last scene... One forgives banal plots and stupid unrealistic dialog in opera, but why waste Hayak, Don Sutherland, a beautiful rendition of LA in the 30s, a deus ex machina earthquake that conveniently kills the other woman, and all that beauty on this mediocre turkey where there isn't even any beautiful singing?