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Reviews
Les chômeurs en folie (1982)
Obviously the most infamous piece of crap I have ever laid my eyes on!
This being said, the odds were against me since it is virtually impossible to see this film, which was not released theatrically. I have managed to get a copy of the videotape, and although I had been waiting to see this film for a long time, I barely could watch it through. How to describe this clueless mess ? First it was shot in lavish 16 mm, atrociously under-lit and with absolutely no sense of frame. Second terrible thing : no direct sound seems to have been recorded during the filming, so all sounds have been overdubbed in studio, and the result is just awful. Chee, one of the two main actors, overdoes his (pathetic) act, and Foley artists seem to have only had their hands to reproduce all the needed sounds... But this would be nothing if the film was actually a film. Instead, it is vaguely a series of scenes hardly attached to each other, depicting the misbehaving of two unemployed youngsters, small (very small)-time crooks who think they're hitting it big when they put a hand on a camera and decide to direct a feature film. No need to go further into this... plot, the main interest of this film, for french viewers at least, being the appearance, for their first roles, of now stars Didier Bourdon and Smaïn. Didier Bourdon actually knew how to act, he is almost OK in his character, a young baron attracted by the sunlights a movie could cast over him. As for Smaïn, he only has one scene, where he plays another unemployed young crook. This being said, the film has a political and somewhat sociological background, since it begins with the Champs-Elysées parade that followed the Mitterrand 1981 election. With the invasion of the aristocratic world by André and Lucien and the evocation of the rise of new free radio stations, the director takes a look at the renewal of young energies such as they were being felt in 1981. Thus Les chômeurs en folie is not a reactionary film (what it could have been), but more a "fashionable" desperate try to make a film about contemporary society phenomenons. No need to say that 25 years later, it is so dated that it could almost be used by sociologists to study the french youth of 1981. Of course, the film fails all along the way to provoke even the smallest smirk, and this despite every running gag, every mini skirt and every nude breast Georges Cachoux conscientiously compiled.
Léa l'hiver (1971)
Mostly boring and heartless stuff.
One of these existential thrillers as they were made in the 70's, Léa l'hiver first strikes by its strenuous construction, with the ad nauseum use of flash-backs which makes the film very hard to understand : it starts with the discovery of a woman corpse, then gradually reveals the past of this woman as well as the police investigation which follows the discovery, and goes back and forth between seasons and places without any apparent logic.
Devoid of charm and warmth, Karen Blanguernon and Gilles Segal lead the pack of this cold-hearted movie, paradoxically set under the bright sun of Ibiza. This leads to what strikes me as the strong point of the film : the depiction of the spanish island at a turning point of its history. It is quite interesting on a sociological point of view : the early 70's mark the beginning of a new touristic era for balearic islands, and the film particularly depicts those changes, the way a very isolated and poor island gradually changes to become one of the main touristic sites of the Mediterranean basin. Hideous and soulless touristic resorts being built across gorgeous landscapes, developing marketing and selling processes to the masses... All this only underlines the main plot, but gives an identity to a film that wouldn't be half watchable without it.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Pure cinematic delight
It comes as no surprise that the new PT Anderson movie is more than awaited... and well, it shall not disappoint anyone who has a taste in cinema! With a sharp knowledge of the human soul, and with more than an outstanding talent for direction and for the use of every little detail that makes of an apparently trivial movie a unexpected classic, P.T. Anderson has directed an outstanding work-of-art. The story revolves around Barry Egan, a business company otner (or is he really?) who, almost at once, finds a lost harmonium on the sidewalk, meets a girl he would never had ever dreamt of, and gets chased by a bunch of crooks who own a phone-sex company in Utah. With these three ingredients delightfully entertwined, Punch-Drunk Love is in the same time an over-the-top romantic love-story, a paranoid thriller and a surrealistic trip through a man's mind. Without forgetting this uncomparable dreamlike edge, as if the film was seen through a haze. Characterization is excellent, with Adam Sandler putting aside his moronic attitudes and concentrating on a very unexpected role. Barry, who could be seen, at first, as a somewhat lighter Forrest Gump, bullied by his atrocious sisters who always considered him as the top loser of the family, once carried away by the power of love eventually discovers his strength and his long lost humanity. I know, put that way, it may sound corny, but hell this film isn't. P.T. Anderson isn't the kind of man to be bothered by cliches: he just slaloms between them, sprinkling the scenes with drops of surrealistic acid (like the car accident at the beginning), and joyously using cinematographic references (the frantic chase, with Barry running amongst warehouses, chased by shadows as in an expressionist movie, or the kiss, staged as in a shadow show). This without even mentionning the delirious music by Jon Brion, which takes the images to an even higher ground. Almost always on, the score adds to the inner turmoil of Barry, sometimes almost covering the dialogues : the effect is striking, emotions like pleasure or discomfort being multiplied by ten. This film is really an experience, a rollercoaster ride through emotions, as much as it is one for Barry's soul throughout his adventure. Please don't be bothered by the apparent strangeness of Punch-Drunk Love, for it is the warmest, most dreamlike film you will probably encounter for a long, long while.
Omar Gatlato (1977)
A funny look at algerian youth in the 70's
First feature film of now veteran director Merzak Allouache, Omar Gatlato presents itself as the diary of hero Omar Gatlato (played by very funny Boualem Benani), who directly talks to the camera, describing his everyday life: his home with all the family sleeping in the same room, his job, mostly sitting in an office dreaming about girls, his passion for egyptian movies and music, his love for a unknown woman seen on a window sill... The tone is joyous and lively, and the camera grips all the details which make of this portrait a very acute depiction of youth in Algeria in the midst of the 70's, torn between down-to-earth and day-to-day occupations and all this dreams of wealth provided by western civilization. In that matter, Allouache doesn't intent to be political in what he shows, or in a very underneath manner, since Omar's story mostly focuses on his sudden love for a girl whose voice he's heard on a tape. Difficulty to meet between boys and girls because of a cultural and religious heritage which divides the population in two distinct casts, male and female, promiscuity due to the lack of living space, ambitions often shattered by a country whose economics never could make it back since the independance : Omar Gatlato is a good testimony of an era now gone, and a perky and smiling look at a macho man such as they can only exist in arabic movies.
Les idoles (1968)
Wonderful psychedelia masterpiece
This is to my knowledge the very first film of indie actress Bulle Ogier, who was part, along with Pierre Clémenti and Jean-Pierre Kalfon, of the original cast for the play "Les idoles", which inspired this film. A film that is a tasteful blend between a stage happening and a musical. Marc'o, then a stage veteran who was directing his first feature, was a visionary, as he had grasped most of what the cult of youth idols such as pop-stars was all about: a very fertile ground for business and cynicism. Gigi la folle, the wrongly innocent sweet blonde played by Bulle Ogier, was inspired by pop singer France Gall, whereas Charlie le surineur, played by a wild Pierre Clémenti, is more or less Johnny Hallyday, a supposed natural-born rebel, i n fact a totally artificial marketing produce. As for Jean-Pierre Kalfon, the last of the idols, he plays a dishevelled and mystic palm reader turned into a frantic singer, a compromise between the Beatles under their indian period and a bunch of psychedelic bands such as they existed then. The three of them dance and sing all along like roaring lions, giving a very impressive performance of raw pop power. Although their voice qualities are not the strong point of the film, the music is rich and varied, ranging from quiet ballad to over-the-top kick-on-stage dance routines.
The portrait Marc'o gives of the french youth on the eve of May 1968 is of a world seething in unrest, reading supposed rebellion orders on the lips of their teen idols. In that way, Les idoles is a political point of view about the power of the media and music over the consciences. All this in bright and wonderful colors, psychedelic interiors, a visual world close to the world of the series "The Prisoner". A great film, a very intelligent witness of its time.
Adam et Ève (1984)
Crappy low-budget comedy
Hard to get a hand on a copy of this little seen film, the very specimen of the low-budget comedy such as they were made in the 70's and 80's in France. The director is a porn movies veteran trying to get some credibility, but the result is horrendous. The image is lavish, the sound terrible, the acting poor (actors stutter at times, but they kept the shots) and the story is hardly understandable. This is supposed to be a parodical and satyrical view upon the cinema industry, but the comical effects are so poor that everything falls flat. Great actress Alice Sapritch grins and bears to be mocked at, and all this tries to be fashionable but is just desperately unwatchable.
Parano (1981)
Hardly watchable gory-philosophical crap
To my knowledge, this film has never been released commercially in France, and no wonder why ! Shot in 16 mm, hardly audible, the story unfurls around a terrible bad actress pretending that she is a rebel to society by dismembering her family and people around her. Impossible to believe the poor thesp one minute, and the short gory scenes (a severed head on the freeway, a dismembered body in a cupboard, a dog with his belly ripped plus some gunshots) are barely OK. The director probably wanted to make a genre movie (horror for instance) while giving to it some social twist (the woman claims that for her, all social corporations like family, prison, mental asylum - where she ends up - are alike and lethal for individuality). For the fans, Joe Dallesandro has a short scene as the psychiatrist who takes care of Maria, lasting five minutes. Don't bother looking for the tape, even if I know it's been released, long ago in France, for rent. As for myself, I saw it at the French Cinematheque, the only place in the world where they would dare showing such a masterpiece !
Stress (1971)
Interesting political point of view
I saw this film at the French Cinematheque as part of a hommage given to Lou Castel. Unfortunately, it wasn't either dubbed or subtitled, so I had to understand it even though I don't really speak italian. It's quite an interesting film, even though a bit austere and politically overmeaning, about a young revolutionary student who gets home and has to face his father, a baron, who lives in a huge bourgeois mansion with a moronic butler and a girl from the mountains as a maid. The house seems somehow haunted, doors slam, shadows run in the attic, and the student soon discovers that it's his conscience that is in fact torn in two: one part tells him he comes from an aristocratic family, the other one orders him to destroy everything as to pursue his revolutionary ideals. Totally lost in this inner battle, he flogs himself, then takes his father to the guillotine. As you can see, the message is delivered in a not very subtle manner, but Lou Castel's composition is ambiguous enough to lift the film on a higher level. Very anchored in 70's ideals (Stress is a maoist film in a way), it doesn't have any impact anymore, but is worth a look.
Con quale amore, con quanto amore (1970)
Tepid love triangle
I saw this film at the French Cinemathèque as part of a Lou Castel hommage, but was a bit disappointed by what first looked like sexy stuff from Italian exploitation movies. In fact, it is a very talkative and somewhat dull love triangle between a man, his wife and his best friend. Nothing much happens, except long talks in the man's bedroom, plus some additional scenes in a party where women play the guitar one after another. It could somehow relate to incommunicability as seen in Antonioni's movies, but really, that would be pushing it a little too far.