French Film Month day 4
May 19th 2008 18:03
Where to start?
On this occasion, two french titles are under the magnifying glass. One of the last psychedelic works of director Alain Robbe-Grillet Gradiva (C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle) and a morbid and disturbing picture, Ordinary Man.
Gradiva for me is a mess. Maybe I'm too young, or not delicate enough, but it felt uncohesive with seemingly random scenes of nudity and torture. And while nothing overly graphic is shown, it seemed sometimes unnecessary. I'm a horror-buff by the way, so this is not me being uptight and squeamish. An orientalist in 50's - 60's Marocco encounters a seductress called Gradiva, who we are unsure about whether she's dead or alive. In one scene she's clearly a ghost, in another she's having a coffee outside of a bar. Our hero, John Locke is seemingly lured, drugged to be framed as a murderer, but in the next scene everything turns upside down storywise.
Dream and reality mingles, paranoia and chaos rules over the picture. It may be a good, thought provoking movie, but my wild guess is that it's not a masterpiece that I have failed to understand, just an experiment gone wrong. I recommend it only for your own responsibility.
Ordinary man on the other hand is enjoyable, if you can digest disturbing material. A regular furniture store owner assaults a couple in their car at one night, kills the man and kidnaps the woman.
As he's unsure about what he wants to do with his new "girlfriend", soon the girl ends up in his car's trunk, where he keeps her most of the time. All this with wife and a daughter in the background unaware of Dad's odd habits. As the story unfolds with dark-dark humor and interesting psychological insights, the inevitable end emerges, just to take a 180 degree turn. I won't spoil it for you, but let me just say that it's one of the strangest happy ends' you've ever seen.
As for Cannes progressing, it's a bit of a letdown for me that the reports on Filmklik.hu are not more than brief glimpses of red carpet sightings, cut abruptly as I've mentioned before. So my next Cannes related piece will go behind the scenes a bit, and you can expect it to arrive in the end of the week, since I'm preparing for an important exam on Thursday, so wish me luck and see you later, film lovers!
On this occasion, two french titles are under the magnifying glass. One of the last psychedelic works of director Alain Robbe-Grillet Gradiva (C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle) and a morbid and disturbing picture, Ordinary Man.
Bondage and sexual torture awaits you
Gradiva for me is a mess. Maybe I'm too young, or not delicate enough, but it felt uncohesive with seemingly random scenes of nudity and torture. And while nothing overly graphic is shown, it seemed sometimes unnecessary. I'm a horror-buff by the way, so this is not me being uptight and squeamish. An orientalist in 50's - 60's Marocco encounters a seductress called Gradiva, who we are unsure about whether she's dead or alive. In one scene she's clearly a ghost, in another she's having a coffee outside of a bar. Our hero, John Locke is seemingly lured, drugged to be framed as a murderer, but in the next scene everything turns upside down storywise.
Dream and reality mingles, paranoia and chaos rules over the picture. It may be a good, thought provoking movie, but my wild guess is that it's not a masterpiece that I have failed to understand, just an experiment gone wrong. I recommend it only for your own responsibility.
An unimaginative poster for a good movie
Ordinary man on the other hand is enjoyable, if you can digest disturbing material. A regular furniture store owner assaults a couple in their car at one night, kills the man and kidnaps the woman.
As he's unsure about what he wants to do with his new "girlfriend", soon the girl ends up in his car's trunk, where he keeps her most of the time. All this with wife and a daughter in the background unaware of Dad's odd habits. As the story unfolds with dark-dark humor and interesting psychological insights, the inevitable end emerges, just to take a 180 degree turn. I won't spoil it for you, but let me just say that it's one of the strangest happy ends' you've ever seen.
As for Cannes progressing, it's a bit of a letdown for me that the reports on Filmklik.hu are not more than brief glimpses of red carpet sightings, cut abruptly as I've mentioned before. So my next Cannes related piece will go behind the scenes a bit, and you can expect it to arrive in the end of the week, since I'm preparing for an important exam on Thursday, so wish me luck and see you later, film lovers!
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