I'm happy to have watched only a two-hour cut of this mess — and it required some endurance still. Apparently the extra hour manages to display more dolphins, some oil rigs, and — reading the wikipedia plot — the short version even shuffles some scenes around.
I did catch the glimpse of admiration for people doing their own thing, and I knew this feeling well because I had caught it in full some time ago in "Free Solo" — a documentary about a fairly well-known climber Alex Honnold who climbs mountains without any serious equipment or safeguards. Even though scaling rock formations doesn't appeal to me much, this movie oh so spoke to me by showing that there are people who have actual weird goals that mean anything only to them — and enough self-strength, self-awareness to ignore the others. Alex has a fairly one-way relationship with his girlfriend (she is wishing for family and Alex to stop risking his life; he is caring only for the next mountain to mount), and that was the high point of movie — it showed me dedication that I didn't know was possible, I didn't know was _allowed_.
That was perhaps something that Luc Besson was attempting to invoke, and, perhaps, he did manange to do that for the french in the nineties?
Ehh. I loved the first dive scene of Enzo, with the tiny car, the ten thousand dollar cheque enjoyment and all that. I'd watch _that_ movie. Too bad everything went haywire after that.
My overall take would be that the New Age music and the aestheticization of every shot fits thematically with the ending, the movie is preoccupied with nice shots of dolphins and not much else, just as the main character. Since the movie is well-liked maybe there's more to it but for me the whole New Age aesthetic is uninteresting.
For Cinema du look, I kinda like some movies by Leos Carax, but that's pretty much it. In the 90s there's Mathieu Kassovitz who did La haine which is also influenced by advertising, MTV and Scorsese but with a much stronger feel for narrative than Cinema du look.
I'd like to see some more Cinema du Look, maybe we can fit that into the movie club somewhere. I didn't like the aesthetics of this particular movie but I don't want to judge a movement based on one movie, so I'd like to see some other examples of the genre by other directors...
I like Pola X by Leos Carax, it's a weird adapation of "Pierre; or, The Ambiguities" by Melville. Bad Blood is supposed to be good too but I have not seen it. Carax is a bit of an outlier, it's cinema du look too but a little bit more experimental.
From the 80s and 90s there is also the movies from Chantal Akerman and Claire Denis (which are not considered part of cinema du look.) I've seen a few by Claire Denis, she does intriguing, slow films. I would not say it's mind-blowing memorable stuff but I remember liking the change of pace.
But mainly, cinema du look is more like French doing B movies in the United States. I'm pretty sure Alien 4 by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is considered cinema du look. I like some of these because they are a little bit off compared to hollywood typical productions but it's not great cinema in my opinion. In the same style I think Tony Scott is much better, the narrative is tighter and the visuals are more experimental.
I'm just starting the movie and the podcast (intertwining both.) Like FlyingWaffle said, cinema du look is about MTV aesthetics. You get John Ford close-ups (low camera angle with sky behind the character), fish eye, strong visual composition for every shot, etc.
A good example of style over substance is the beginning with the kid walking on the rocks. Visually it is looking like L'Avventura by Antonioni but Besson took only the visual and removed any meaning from the settings, it's just extremely well shot. It's like Calvin Klein ads taking the aesthetics from Last Year in Marienbad. I'm not super versed in french cinema of the 70s but from what I gather this kind of visual aesthetic was new in the 80s in France.
There's a donkey in one shot at the beginning and in the context of french cinema it's almost impossible not to see that as a kind of reference to Au hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson, which is completely substance over style. I don't know if it's there on purpose or if Besson didn't think about it, but it's weird.
Anyway, I'll continue watching, if anything interesting comes up I'll do another post.
That's probably where Harmony Korine took his inspiration for the piano scene in Spring Breakers. I think that's a good spot to notice the randomness of settings, it's in there because it looks good but there's not much else to the scene.
Al FlyingWaffle said, this film was a huge success throughout Europe, and one of France’s greatest export (that part still baffles me). It’s also fascinating that the Rotten Tomato score user score is pretty high compared to the critic rating, that doesn’t happen too often.
I don’t think Luc Besson is any good, especially in this film. It feels like a lazy attempt at being artsy. I do agree with Casey though, the core idea is a good one and still comes across decently. I assume that’s why it was successful.
Something else is that even though the pacing was completely off and unpredictable throughout the film, something about that made the relationship between Enzo and Jacques more tangible and real. Relationships and shared experiences don’t have consistent and steady timelines. In some ways it feels that this film fails most of the key aspects of what makes a good film but somehow managed to get a few subtle things right. Very unusual.
I meant to harp on this more in the podcast, but it didn't quite work out in the discussion, but: I did really like the atypical nature of the relationship between the divers. I sort of mentioned this in passing, when I said I liked that it didn't just resort to the formula, but I didn't really give it enough credit. I think the rest of the movie is pretty bad, so it obscures that inner core that is actually not all that bad, and perhaps is even interesting - the relationship between the two men remains interesting the entire time, and their relationship with the sea as well, and I think it's just a shame that the rest of the movie can't support it.
I have heard about Nikita but I've never seen it. I don't know where that would fit into movie club in the future exactly, but I'd like to get to that one at some point. I'd be interested to see another Besson picture to be sure, just to see what I think of him more broadly, rather than just based on this one movie that I didn't like...
I'm happy to have watched only a two-hour cut of this mess — and it required some endurance still. Apparently the extra hour manages to display more dolphins, some oil rigs, and — reading the wikipedia plot — the short version even shuffles some scenes around.
I did catch the glimpse of admiration for people doing their own thing, and I knew this feeling well because I had caught it in full some time ago in "Free Solo" — a documentary about a fairly well-known climber Alex Honnold who climbs mountains without any serious equipment or safeguards. Even though scaling rock formations doesn't appeal to me much, this movie oh so spoke to me by showing that there are people who have actual weird goals that mean anything only to them — and enough self-strength, self-awareness to ignore the others. Alex has a fairly one-way relationship with his girlfriend (she is wishing for family and Alex to stop risking his life; he is caring only for the next mountain to mount), and that was the high point of movie — it showed me dedication that I didn't know was possible, I didn't know was _allowed_.
That was perhaps something that Luc Besson was attempting to invoke, and, perhaps, he did manange to do that for the french in the nineties?
Ehh. I loved the first dive scene of Enzo, with the tiny car, the ten thousand dollar cheque enjoyment and all that. I'd watch _that_ movie. Too bad everything went haywire after that.
My overall take would be that the New Age music and the aestheticization of every shot fits thematically with the ending, the movie is preoccupied with nice shots of dolphins and not much else, just as the main character. Since the movie is well-liked maybe there's more to it but for me the whole New Age aesthetic is uninteresting.
For Cinema du look, I kinda like some movies by Leos Carax, but that's pretty much it. In the 90s there's Mathieu Kassovitz who did La haine which is also influenced by advertising, MTV and Scorsese but with a much stronger feel for narrative than Cinema du look.
I'd like to see some more Cinema du Look, maybe we can fit that into the movie club somewhere. I didn't like the aesthetics of this particular movie but I don't want to judge a movement based on one movie, so I'd like to see some other examples of the genre by other directors...
I like Pola X by Leos Carax, it's a weird adapation of "Pierre; or, The Ambiguities" by Melville. Bad Blood is supposed to be good too but I have not seen it. Carax is a bit of an outlier, it's cinema du look too but a little bit more experimental.
From the 80s and 90s there is also the movies from Chantal Akerman and Claire Denis (which are not considered part of cinema du look.) I've seen a few by Claire Denis, she does intriguing, slow films. I would not say it's mind-blowing memorable stuff but I remember liking the change of pace.
But mainly, cinema du look is more like French doing B movies in the United States. I'm pretty sure Alien 4 by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is considered cinema du look. I like some of these because they are a little bit off compared to hollywood typical productions but it's not great cinema in my opinion. In the same style I think Tony Scott is much better, the narrative is tighter and the visuals are more experimental.
I'm just starting the movie and the podcast (intertwining both.) Like FlyingWaffle said, cinema du look is about MTV aesthetics. You get John Ford close-ups (low camera angle with sky behind the character), fish eye, strong visual composition for every shot, etc.
A good example of style over substance is the beginning with the kid walking on the rocks. Visually it is looking like L'Avventura by Antonioni but Besson took only the visual and removed any meaning from the settings, it's just extremely well shot. It's like Calvin Klein ads taking the aesthetics from Last Year in Marienbad. I'm not super versed in french cinema of the 70s but from what I gather this kind of visual aesthetic was new in the 80s in France.
There's a donkey in one shot at the beginning and in the context of french cinema it's almost impossible not to see that as a kind of reference to Au hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson, which is completely substance over style. I don't know if it's there on purpose or if Besson didn't think about it, but it's weird.
Anyway, I'll continue watching, if anything interesting comes up I'll do another post.
That's probably where Harmony Korine took his inspiration for the piano scene in Spring Breakers. I think that's a good spot to notice the randomness of settings, it's in there because it looks good but there's not much else to the scene.
Al FlyingWaffle said, this film was a huge success throughout Europe, and one of France’s greatest export (that part still baffles me). It’s also fascinating that the Rotten Tomato score user score is pretty high compared to the critic rating, that doesn’t happen too often.
I don’t think Luc Besson is any good, especially in this film. It feels like a lazy attempt at being artsy. I do agree with Casey though, the core idea is a good one and still comes across decently. I assume that’s why it was successful.
Something else is that even though the pacing was completely off and unpredictable throughout the film, something about that made the relationship between Enzo and Jacques more tangible and real. Relationships and shared experiences don’t have consistent and steady timelines. In some ways it feels that this film fails most of the key aspects of what makes a good film but somehow managed to get a few subtle things right. Very unusual.
I meant to harp on this more in the podcast, but it didn't quite work out in the discussion, but: I did really like the atypical nature of the relationship between the divers. I sort of mentioned this in passing, when I said I liked that it didn't just resort to the formula, but I didn't really give it enough credit. I think the rest of the movie is pretty bad, so it obscures that inner core that is actually not all that bad, and perhaps is even interesting - the relationship between the two men remains interesting the entire time, and their relationship with the sea as well, and I think it's just a shame that the rest of the movie can't support it.
I just read your comment, I like your take on relationship between Enzo and Jacques, that's probably the best part of the movie.
I have heard about Nikita but I've never seen it. I don't know where that would fit into movie club in the future exactly, but I'd like to get to that one at some point. I'd be interested to see another Besson picture to be sure, just to see what I think of him more broadly, rather than just based on this one movie that I didn't like...