By my count I've seen nine of his features, the best of which are Les Voleurs, Ma Saison Preferee (both Deneuve/Auteuil) and his most recent dawn-of-AIDS drama, The Witnesses, followed by Wild Reeds and Strayed. Some slur him as "middlebrow," but Kent Jones finds he has "a novelistic sense of story, a musical sense of rhythm, and a filmic feeling for the beauty of people in motion. I think his toughness is the main reason for his relative invisibility in America, where we customarily expect cinema to provide us with some sort of comfort."
So?
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 14:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Wild Reeds is the closest he's come to a great film, and holds up very well. The Witnesses isn't at its level, but I admire his glancing depth, which is very much a Jean Renoir trick and one Ozon and Denis would do well to note.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 19:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Thoughts here.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 19:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Did you think the Michel Blanc character ever actually had sex with Manu? I thought he was just willing to fund him for the proximity.
I should see it again, the distributor stupidly sent out screeners thst were SQUASHED from widescreen for review last winter -- nuts.
And I still found Wild Reeds a lil too dewy around the edges.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 15:24 (fourteen years ago) link
It's difficult to say. They had no sexual chemistry, which is probably the point.
The dewiness in WR is in the young intellectual/homo, but Techine undercuts it with the surly Algerian and the oxen charm of the future Come Undone hunk.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 6 August 2008 18:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Elodie Bouchez has been on "Alias"!
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 7 August 2008 14:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Girl on the Train not at The Witnesses' level, but pretty good.
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 03:08 (twelve years ago) link
I saw The Witnesses. It WAS kind of middlebrow, tbh
― "300" blows (admrl), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 03:13 (twelve years ago) link
in what sense?
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 03:23 (twelve years ago) link
I don't know... somewhat didactic melodrama? I didn't hate it, I just hated some things about it.
― "300" blows (admrl), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 03:30 (twelve years ago) link
Hm. I find him the very opposite of didactic. In his latest film I wished he'd pressed harder actually...
― Gus Van Sotosyn (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 03:38 (twelve years ago) link
New one (well, last year) opening soon in US, with Bunuel muse/Bond girl Carole Bouquet in lead. Euro reviews pretty divisive, seeing tonight.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 12 June 2012 19:12 (ten years ago) link
Unforgivable out on Netflix today.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 4 December 2012 13:49 (ten years ago) link
His new one is a bit strange-- terrible English title, In the Name of My Daughter -- a character study sort of disguised as a noirish casino thriller. Based on a bizarre real-life case, it's cut faster than anything I've ever seen from him; the young actress Adele Haenel steals it, she's this year's "It" Femme apparently.
It ends up in court and old-age makeup, alas, but you also get to see Catherine Deneuve go from Ethel Barrymore-regal to singing "Stand by Me."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9jHGbGMQzY
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 12 March 2015 04:04 (eight years ago) link
Drat. The screening at MIFF is standby only tomorrow afternoon.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 March 2015 01:46 (eight years ago) link
Am watching tonight or tomorrow morning.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 May 2015 17:13 (eight years ago) link
OTM on the editing, which is noticeable immediately; but except for too soon a cut from the time Agnes demands money to open her store to actually opening it each scene gets its due weight.
You're right about the expendable last quarter.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 30 May 2015 22:25 (eight years ago) link
new teenboy hate-at-first-sight romance, co-written by the Girlhood auteur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOSPninRQwI
― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 9 October 2016 07:36 (six years ago) link
Thomas is such a great character in this. His run in the mountains at the end is a kind of liberation, I guess, but even his earlier snowy trudges felt triumphant to me.
― geoffreyess, Tuesday, 15 November 2016 04:16 (six years ago) link
Film of the year.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 15 November 2016 11:20 (six years ago) link
My favorite film of 2016.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 November 2016 02:15 (six years ago) link
I've been watching his films starting at the beginning. Wild Reeds is maybe the best one so far I think but a lot them are good. I most recently saw Changing Times, which is interesting in its extreme close-ups, ever-moving camera, fast dialogue, multiple storylines and seemingly disorganized representation of events. I haven't gotten to any of the ones since 2004 yet
― Dan S, Sunday, 10 November 2019 01:07 (three years ago) link
I really liked The Witnesses
― Dan S, Sunday, 24 November 2019 01:46 (three years ago) link
like BPM (Beats Per Minute) it is easy for me to relate to, it is a movie about events that defined my life
― Dan S, Sunday, 24 November 2019 03:14 (three years ago) link