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Reviews
Don't Look Now (1973)
Bad cinema
I couldn't believe that the film I saw was really the one depicted here as a "masterpiece"... I am not joking, this is the truth: I sought for other similar titles to see if Don't look Now was really the film I had started watching.
Yes, I interrupted my viewing because I wanted to make sure, but also because I was bored. I can very well understand why people call it a masterpiece: it's because they don't care about the cinematographic quality, which is very bad. I was pleased to see that some reviewers noticed like me the appallingly poor quality of the sound, both effects and voice-over. That's bad cinema and it does make the movie hard to watch. That to me stands in the way of calling a movie a masterpiece...
As for the story, well, like it not: it makes no sense.
The acting may be good, but it's hard to tell with such bad direction, and with asynchrone sound...
I really wanted to add my comment because I can imagine the disappointment of the person who goes out and buy the DVD on account of the good reviews in here.
My advice to you is: try and watch it first, or read more about it before buying it.
Elevated (1996)
Same as Cube
This short tells the exact same story as Cube. I liked Cube for the cute trick of having one set for the whole movie. But after seeing this I wonder if Natali actually has anything to say.
People seem to be OK with being left to imagine a lot, but here you really have to imagine everything. There is virtually no plot apart from the movements of the actors. The dialogs are pointless and repetitive and the acting is not really convincing (like in Cube) but this is a small budget short.
We are left with nothing as for the reality of the "aliens", the motives of the guy in the suit and of Ben's. Only the woman seems to be like some sort of office clerk who may well be a normal person trying to go home. Apart from the killing of Ben we don't have a clue as for what is going on, just people stuck in an elevator.
Leave it to our imagination? I wonder after seeing Elevated and Cube if Natali will ever have more than one idea.
I'll have to see Cypher...
Werckmeister harmóniák (2000)
It's a film, it's a movie... both boring and pretentious
Let me tell you first that I'm French and I don't get the difference between "film" and "movie" as we only have one word for film which is film.
So this is just pictures, right?
** Spoilers, maybe.
It's a slow movie and that's where the movie gets its length, not from the accumulation of ideas that need to be assimilated. Not from the time we may need to contemplate such beautiful imagery. A 3 minute shot of a man walking from the foreground to the distant background didn't make me think. Well it made me think that I wish I had brought a good book to the theater, but it didn't make me reflect on what I was looking at.
Are we supposed to understand that men are insane, or that we are lost... I don't know... And the thing is: you don't have to make it so dull! Any of the messages (Ha Ha!) that this film, I hear, is carrying could be summed up really quick and with better images.
And for those of us who aren't christians or whatever, the whale thing is lost: I know it's a bible thing but I don't know what. There should be a warning like "Read the Bible first"...
Just reflect on this. The man who did this thing used pictures, sound and movement to tell his story. He didn't write a book, he shot a movie. So please don't tell me that this is supposed to be more philosophical than, say, Pascal.
I don't mean to invite people not to go this this movie. I don't regret having seen it and I do intend to go see Satantango, which is now playing in Paris, and seems much more promising.
I only want to say that it's really a dull film, even if you like slow, intellectual, maybe complicated movies (as do I).
The House of Yes (1997)
For kids
Very disappointing film. I was expecting something funny and maybe some satire, but it's very conventional, very predictable.
The ending falls flat, that's exactly what we think is going to happen from the start. But usually there would be an unexpected turn of events... Crazy girl thinks she's Jackie O, kills her brother. OK, so she's crazy, didn't anybody know that?
I didn't buy the characters either, but being French I may have missed some references (got the Kennedy fascination alright). To me it seemed like a bunch of rich idle folks who were bound to kill each other lest they die of boredom.
I think I could have loved this movie as a teenager, but today it seems like it's "outrageous for the elderly", in the sense that all that is supposed to be dark in this story (the incest, the cheating, murder) is showed in too neutral a way to be interesting. There is no comment good or bad on any of the moral issues. Incest is not openly condoned, so the moralists can feel good but it's not clearly condemned either so the thrill remains. Same for murder (accepted by the brother and performed by an irresponsible) and for cheating (she thought of someone else: her fiancé). Well that leaves us in a gray, tasteless area.
It's a nice movie, but I don't like nice.
Sous le soleil de Satan (1987)
Not a good movie... this is a fraud
Pretentious French cinema at best... more likely, a failed attempt at cinema.
As a French and a movie lover, I admire many french authors and film makers that are deemed 'difficult' or intellectual (I adore Godard for one). This movie is not a masterpiece of cinema: it lacks all the characteristics of it.
The actors are the major problem of the film. Depardieu has no spirituality and it shows. Sure he's a "nice guy" in life and he can be very good in lighter roles, but how anyone can find him convincing in this role I can't imagine. Sandrine Bonnaire, apart from the fact that it takes tremendous imagination to believe that she is supposed to be attractive, is not movie actress. Her performance is that of a boring theater player (I caught her several times looking at the audience, waiting for applause).
As for the story, it jumps from scene to scene without any sense of continuity or progress, it's mere accumulation that goes nowhere.
But then of course it won a Palme d'Or, well that must mean it's good and we're not able to grasp such high and elevated thinking!
Sorry I don't buy.
Vidocq (2001)
Crap wrapped in pretentious technology
This is one of the stupidest stories ever. Why does Vidocq let the killer keep murdering people? Why wait to catch him? Dunno... What's that about old perverts having no sex, loving to make-up? What's that about blood of virgins being pure? Crap!
The images are pleasant for a while, but don't make for a whole movie. The editing is so bad at times I wonder if it's been monitored by the director.
The actors can't do much with those stupid characters, except for Depardieu. Canet is especially bad (how ridiculous is he at the end when he is finally exposed).
And yet another unbearably stupid coup de théâtre!
As a French (I know that I don't represent the French point of view on this) I am appalled at the French trend to try and do as good as the Americans, that is pointless movies with fast moving images.