Change Your Image
costia_ullens
Reviews
Les émotifs anonymes (2010)
A classic french romantic comedy, with more depth than expected.
Take it as a given, French cinema has a long tradition of romantic comedies, and those are among the best in the genre. The dark side is, at the end of the day, they all look a bit the same.
"Les Émotifs anonymes" makes no exception, and its first layer storyline is nothing new. From the beginning, you know what is going to happen to the main two characters and how it is going to end. Still, it is nice to watch. What is interesting is underneath. Améris uses this pattern as an alibi to tell a whole other story, this one goes much deeper than expected, though the subject is always treated on a very light tone.
The film brings you into the universe of chocolate, this bittersweet treat well known to relieve heartaches, which, this is no coincidence, fits perfectly the characters, over-emotional people. With lightness and subtlety, the film shows the constant struggle of those people to overcome everyday situation, as basic as meeting someone new or shaking a hand. You will love those characters right from the start, understand their sadness and admire their efforts to keep going.
Améris keeps up a rhythm with no time out, making of this film a thrilling comedy, with a few scenes to remember. Poelvoorde delivers a perfect, soulfull performance, showing how he masters the genre and the emotion he gives. Isabelle Carré is to fall for in her role of exaggeratedly shy gifted girl.
Religulous (2008)
A relevant satire
If "Religulous" is labelled as a documentary, it is in fact a satire. It doesn't aim to objectively present the current state of world religion. Maher and Charles have a point they want to get to, and use all the satirical tools at their disposal : ironic or sarcastic humor, exaggeration, comparison, analogy.
They interview very chosen people and systematically crash all their argumentation by pointing out nonsenses, making jokes or via other interviews. As a documentary, this film is pointless, you are not going to learn anything about religion, faith nor history. As a satire, I find this a successful attempt, even if the juxtaposition of scenes and interviews doesn't quite rise to the level of the message they want to deliver.
Nevertheless, the film shows very frightening religious - even sectarian - excesses that fit very well Charles and Maher's conclusion. Whether you agree with it or not is clearly not the question. A sufficiently open-minded viewer will acknowledge that their standpoint might be of interest in the sense that, at least, it opens the debate. This is what our society is about : debating, letting everyone express himself so that ultimately everyone can feel at home.
Not an educational documentary. Not a mockery. A relevant satire.
Vanilla Sky (2001)
"Abre los ojos" for dummies.
Though Vanilla Sky is not a bad movie per se, it is on the other hand a terrible remake of a great movie. We can see how Crowe tried to stick to Amenábar's screenplay scene by scene, how he tried to make an identical movie but shot in the U.S. with Hollywood stars. A pointless idea to start with, but never mind. We also can see how Crowe got lost pretty soon.
The characters lost their depth and complexity. They all come out with one trait only. Crowe succeeded in making the originally charming and fascinating girls look like teenage cheerleaders. Don't even get me started on the male characters. The dialogues lost their sharpness and delicacy ; the original meaningful calm scenes and silences were replaced by hysterical shouting, maybe to make it easier to the public to understand when someone is not happy. The relationship between the characters has also been damaged. This comes first as a result of the simplified-minded characters, but also as facts : for example, Crowe unbalances the forces between the two main male characters who were originally childhood friends by making one the employee of the other.
But, well, the original genius plot stays, and I can see why so many people loved that film. Nevertheless I think many of those people would change their mind if they watched the original "Abre los ojos" masterpiece. Remaking a film is worthy if it aims to adapt a basic plot to a whole other context, in order to give it a new standpoint, new insights. This is not the case. I felt I was watching "Abre los ojos" for dummies.