I am cautious about praising Cedric Kahn's films, as the subject matter of a lot of them have no appeal to me. I did see ' Red Lights ' and was not impressed and sadly as this is based on a Moravia book that is a favourite of mine I expected better. The book translated into English has been titled ' The Empty Canvas ' and later translated simply as ' Boredom ' in recent years. But to return to Kahn's interpretation. It is frenetic and has no still points ( those moments to let the film breathe and to contemplate the film, as I believe one needs in any creative work. ) Charles Berling gives a fine performance as the man obsessed by possessing another human being, but clearly the director wanted him to be on the edge of breakdown throughout the film, and Berling obliges. The young woman who plays Cecilia is adequate and conveys well the empty canvas of a being who allows any projection of another's desires upon her. The film hurtles along, and at first I was gripped but succumbed to boredom at the endless repetition of Berling's abusive behaviour. The film shows Paris in an unglamorous light which was good, but the camera rush to move at top speed left no time to reflect. The sexuality is ugly, which is an approach that is valid but there again Cecilia's body was pounded too often and I was left wondering how much the obsessed man had so much sexual energy. In the end I found I no longer cared what happened except for the casual use of a prostitute at the end which I did care about, but clearly her fate was left and cast aside by Kahn. I also found the use of the only black person in a phone booth to be abused dislikeable, considering she was the only black person I saw in the film. I am not calling it racist, but it saddens me that in both directors I like, or are indifferent to, do not include people of colour, or homosexuals to be on the same level as heterosexual white people. Much as I praise Rohmer he too is included in the list of those who marginalise those who are not in their image of the human state of being. I have not seen enough of Cedric Kahn's work to see if he expands his vision to encompass a wider canvas of human nature. I give it a 7 for Berling who is a fine actor I admire, and reluctantly for the energy of the film which personally I felt needed to calm down more often than it did.
Review of Boredom
