Change Your Image
jeremy-giroux
Reviews
Madame Bovary (1991)
Probably the worst collaboration between Chabrol and Huppert...
This movie was really deceptive to me. First, I wanted to watch it as I know that Isabelle Huppert and Claude Chabrol have amazing talents. After watching it, I thought that they both failed. I explain myself : Huppert is too pragmatic and cold to play this role. It seems like she plays every single scene as if she knew what kind of effect she will have on the people around. It's quite borrying. Emma Bovary is not Nana (from Zola's novel), she is someone who is not so interested in success, she is far more interested by passions. She is a woman living in dreams and thinking than life can be passionate as novels. I read the novel just a week before and I think that Flaubert describes well the fact that Emma Bovary is only interested in herself, in her feelings and in a "romanesque" conception of love. Huppert is far too pragmatic and not really romantic. Some scenes look "grotesque" as the one when after dancing with the Baron, she almost faints. It looks like Huppert uses a trick, which makes the scene look false. Moreover, she was probably too old to play the part of Emma Bovary (in the novel, Emma Bovary is twenty or thirty, surely not forty years old). Huppert got the part when she was almost forty and she looks too self-assured to play it well. For example, when she says to Rodolphe that she could have given her life for him, she bugles like mad woman though Emma is a passionate and really weak person. By never showing her weakness, Huppert don't find the good way to play this character.An actress like Anne Brochet or, Irène Jacob would have suited for the part perfectly (these two actresses look young enough). Isabelle Adjani would have probably been too passionate and not enough dreamy to play that part. Jeanne Balibar would have been great too. The other problem is in the way the movie is directed. The beginning of the story is all summed-up by Chabrol who doesn't show the fact that Emma Bovary and her husband Charles are far far different. The voice-over is not a great idea to explain that situation... and the fact that these scenes are so short make probably the actors play their part in a kind of caricature of themselves (which is the main problem of Huppert's interpretation). I think that Huppert and Chabrol were probably too confident to make that movie and that's probably why it can be so deceptive. The cinematography is not so intense and it looks like a movie made for TV. It could have been a quite good adaptation for a movie made for TV and released on a week evening but it's really not enough for a Cinema movie, made by two masters of Cinema.
Fa yeung nin wah (2000)
Incredibly splendid film about melancholy, sadness and love...
The first thing you can say about this film is that it's absolutely splendid. Though "splendid" is a powerful word, it fits perfectly this incredible movie about a love affair between the husband of an always-gone wife, and the wife of an always-gone man. It's about how love born from boredom, from loneliness and in fact, it's all about the beauty of woman (and I can tell you that Maggie Cheung represents that perfectly...) and the tragic of human love. When you see the character played by Maggie Cheung, you can only think about François Truffaut and his way to describe a woman's walk "The legs of women are like compass which draw the surface of Earth" because everything in the film is made to show the splendid aspect of life and to make everything beautiful. It would be a vain exercise if it wasn't to show splendid feelings and the beautiful birth and death of a magnificent love affair. The work on image is really great as the music. It all creates the universe of Wong Kar Wai, probably one of the best Asian director.
Though a lot of people say "2046" is better, I really prefer this movie because it's focused on only one relationship and time takes his part in the fascination you can feel for this film.
The only word you can use for this film is probably "grace", you know, this kind of feeling which make you think that life is more beautiful, more interesting, more intense... like in one of Mrs Bovary's dream...
Lan se da men (2002)
Wonderful image for a great sentimental teenage movie
First of all, if something has to be written about this film, it's about the poetic way the director talks about teenage problem in Asia. The story, about a young man and two young girls is really close to the "2 girls and a boy" type and at the beginning, you can be afraid that the film would be like a boredom teenage movie, but be confident, it's not and so go on watching it... The love story is about teenagers who don't love the right person (the girl who loves her classmate who is also a girl, who loves a young man, who loves the first girl) and the thing which makes it interesting is the fact that the story is not focused on the three people but only on two of them who try to create a false couple (as their love is not mutual and shared). This couple transforms itself in a kind of friendship, born from incomprehension.
How sometimes destiny makes us meet some people by chance, those who will be essential to our lives. That's the real topic of this movie. Little by little, the girl, who's afraid to love girls and the guy, who's afraid to be alone start to know each other and to love each other, even if they'll never be a couple. The movie is good because of that way to treat teenage relationships and also by the quality of the image.
The work on image is really really good. Some sequences are quite splendid (like the first sequence or the one with the two main characters on bicycles) and the music is also really good (a simple piano theme). The actors are really incredible and fit absolutely their characters.
The whole charm of the movie lies in the real fragility of teenage relationships and on how life is taken by these characters : complicated, light and sometimes quite incredibly beautiful.
Made in USA (1966)
A great Godard film with magnificent Anna Karina and young Marianne Faithful
This film is really great and is typical of Godard films. I've seen that someone said on this board that the film wasn't good because another director had to direct it and Godard hadn't the rights but I really think that all this is a matter of justice and doesn't concern Cinema at all (and Godard has to be written with only two "d" and not three...). Anyway, this movie is great. It's full of non-sense, it's very poetic and we follow the beautiful Anna Karina trying to find and kill the people who killed her husband. It's a new experience of Cinema in the way to make movies, to write dialogs... it's a kind of reinvention. And you can see many famous people at the time of their youth like English singer Marianne Faithful, french actor Jean-Pierre Léaud and french writer Philipe Labro. It's a non-conventional film by someone who really experiment Cinema as an Art : Jean-Luc Godard.
Qian xi man bo (2001)
Great movie about emptiness (of story, of goal etc)
I really loved this movie. Many people didn't and I really understand why : it's a very slow movie. Everything takes time, everything is long and you don't really see where the director really wants to go. He follows this girl. She appears to us at the beginning at the film, walking in a very long corridor, in a slow motion and on pop music. As this girl is impersonated by Shu Qi, she is absolutely beautiful. This girl smokes, she seems a little bit sad and you don't really know what is her story. The voice of a girl tells you about the relationships this girl had in the past and this voice says that, when she speaks, it's in 2010 (ten years later after when the action takes place). You never really understand why this voice says that. You never really understand what this girl wants and what is her past (although you have some informations during the film), you just see her live and it's absolutely fascinating and hypnotic. It's hard to say but you see how much Hou Hsia Hsien is fascinated by beauty, time and modern life. His fascination for time is also present in "Three Times". In this movie, everything is normal, nothing is spectacular and incredible (about the plot, the sets or whatever) but everything is poetic, mysterious and hypnotic. It's the kind of feeling you have when you see someone and you don't know why, but this person fascinates you. It's the same kind of feeling. It's fascinating as when you see someone's life and just let this person free to do what she wants, you just look at this person. It's a very good movie although fascination is something very personal.
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation (2005)
Great animated movie about the story between an Italian father and his son
This animated film is absolutely wonderful. The drawings are really simple (it can't be compared to "Cars" or other "big" animated movies) but there's so much emotion and creativity that you go out of this film deeply moved and absolutely fascinated. It's the kind of film which makes you want to make animated films, thinking that it's something great and making you think something you didn't think before : animated films can be sometimes more powerful than any other films. The voice of John Turturro has something to do with it, both melancholic and angry. What really defines this film is "true feeling" and "simple". It's something very creative and new : the story told is a true story. Sometimes, true photos or newspapers are put into the film. It creates a wonderful mix between the reality and the dream, a true person and his image and for the director, between the desire of rediscovering his childhood and the fear about it. It's very sad as the father died before the film was made and it's strange what someone who didn't talk can say to his child and how love can impersonate itself in our lives and stories.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Great film but problems with special effects
I've watched this film when it was broadcast in France. It's a very good movie and I really think that the actors, the sets, the artistic vision of the project are absolutely amazing. I really think that the actors were well cast (especially Elijah Wood who suits perfectly for the main role). The trouble is in the special effects. Sometimes, it's so weird and ugly that it's hard to realize that a film like this can have such bad special effects. I think about the faces of Elijah Wood and Hugo Weaving on a white screen. The limits of their faces are fading. It's very very ugly. I also think about the moment when you see a black horse rider facing a beautiful and peaceful landscape. It looks like the landscape is painted (it's sure that it is, it's so beautiful and impossible to built as a set) and in front of that painted landscape, you see a little grass, which is supposed to show that the rider faces this landscape and that he is on a hill. It's also strange to see that when you have shots from the sky (I don't know what is the name of that in English words) showing the hobbits running through the forests, the color of the trees is not the same as when you see closer shots. It's also the same thing when you see Gandalf, the Grey on the high tower (where he is kept prisoner by Saroumane) and you have an impressing shot which goes directly to Gandalf like a traveling shot (although it's in the air). The camera comes to Gandalf and the shot starts with an ensemble shot, you see that, at one moment, the digital effects come to reality and it's a little bit disturbing.
It really looks, according to me, like Star Wars : in fact, it's sometimes really ridiculous (the fight between Saroumane and Gandalf certainly is) but, you don't why, you like it and you can't prevent yourself from thinking that it's great. It's probably thanks to the actors and to the director who give a respectful and imaginative vision of the book.