One of the above reviewers associated this film with the works of Tarkovsky in the use of imagery. What an outrageous slur against one of the great directors of film.
To give you some idea of what a w--k-fest this film is, the entire credits are shown at the beginning of the film. Most in the audience found this hilarious but only later did I realise why this is done - so we don't find the credits more entertaining than the film. Yet today, 2 days after watching the film, this fact - the credits at the start of the film - were the true highlight of the movie. What innovation! What genius!
Despite the long, drawn out feel of the film, it is neither poetic, dreamlike nor moving. Directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic (one of Gaspar Noe's gang - he of "Irreversible" and "Seul Contre Tous"), the film aims for strangeness and profundity but veers off course pretty quickly. It isn't even kooky, funny, insightful, shocking or (if you'll excuse my language) entertaining...
And it certainly is not art. So what the hell was I watching??
Noe can get away with irreverent, eccentric or questionable imagery because there is real muscle on the bones of his films. This film is a flabby imitation, with only the trickery left to prop it up.
Don't get me wrong, I love French cinema. My wife is French, I love France, the language, the culture, French literature and history. But this film gives French cinema a bad name.
To the clown who ran the Sydney Film Festival in 2005 (Lynden Barber) - you picked an embarrassingly bad collection of films. To have this as one of the closing films of the festival highlighted what rubbish you served up.
To give you some idea of what a w--k-fest this film is, the entire credits are shown at the beginning of the film. Most in the audience found this hilarious but only later did I realise why this is done - so we don't find the credits more entertaining than the film. Yet today, 2 days after watching the film, this fact - the credits at the start of the film - were the true highlight of the movie. What innovation! What genius!
Despite the long, drawn out feel of the film, it is neither poetic, dreamlike nor moving. Directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic (one of Gaspar Noe's gang - he of "Irreversible" and "Seul Contre Tous"), the film aims for strangeness and profundity but veers off course pretty quickly. It isn't even kooky, funny, insightful, shocking or (if you'll excuse my language) entertaining...
And it certainly is not art. So what the hell was I watching??
Noe can get away with irreverent, eccentric or questionable imagery because there is real muscle on the bones of his films. This film is a flabby imitation, with only the trickery left to prop it up.
Don't get me wrong, I love French cinema. My wife is French, I love France, the language, the culture, French literature and history. But this film gives French cinema a bad name.
To the clown who ran the Sydney Film Festival in 2005 (Lynden Barber) - you picked an embarrassingly bad collection of films. To have this as one of the closing films of the festival highlighted what rubbish you served up.