If the particular genius of the British is to take
exploitative film elements and make them genteel (see my
recent review of The
Plague of the Zombies), then the genius of the
French is to take similar elements and make them...
distinctly underwhelming.
Part of the problem is
that, as you probably know, France is one of those
countries where movies are made with government money as
part of a cultural arts program, as opposed to private
funds from investors who might like a return on their
francs. (Or their euros now, I suppose.) Suddenly, you
have cinematic expression entirely freed from the
necessity of attracting and satisfying a paying
audience. It's not entertainment any more, you know --
it's art! And art need not stoop to such petty things as
"communication"; that's for that debased mass media, you
know. And all those Frenchmen (and Canadians, and
whoever else lives in a country where the film industry
is a government-run welfare program) who line up to see
imported American product, instead of home-grown
artistry? Philistines, one and all.
All
of which a long way to say that Ms. Denis stopped well
short of making me want to watch her movie. I have no
problem with "difficult" movies, or movies that ask the
audience to meet them halfway and connect the dots
instead of having things all spelled out. But first, you
have to give the audience a reason to want to put
for that effort, and "I made a movie so you should watch
it" doesn't qualify.
After a credits
sequence over the top of two people kissing, we see what
appears to be a woman (Beatrice Dalle) seducing a man by
standing around, and then eating and killing him. At
least, that's what you get when you connect the dots;
what you actually see is long static shots of the woman
(her name turns out to be Coré, so I'll call her that,
even though we don't find out until somewhere around the
midway point) on the sidewalk, watching as a man in a
big red truck drives by. We all know how big red trucks
drive the ladies wild, right? He gets out of the truck
and walks toward her. Next thing we know, it's night,
and a black man on a motorcycle (Alex Descas) examines
the still-open door of the truck and then walks into a
nearby field. He finds what is apparently the driver's
bloody body (hey, it's night, you know -- it could have
been someone else entirely), and then Coré, hiding in
the bushes with a bloody face. All of this takes
approximately twelve minutes (or twenty-three days -- I
wasn't watching too closely), with no dialogue and no
music.
We
then meet what must be our protagonist, since everyone
else is even less protagonisty: American Shane Brown
(Vincent Gallo) with his bride June (Tricia Vessey), on
a plane over to Paris for their honeymoon. I don't know
what exactly prompted the casting here, but Vincent
Gallo -- with his thin face, aquiline nose, sallow skin,
moustache that extends past the corners of his mouth,
sideburns, week's worth of stubble, and messy greasy
hair -- is the most stereotypically French-looking
person in the entire cast. Compared to him, everyone
else needs to wear berets and juggle baguets to even
look remotely Gallic. Is this maybe what qualifies as
humor in an arthouse flick? Seriously, it was only after
ten minutes that I realized that he was supposed to be
an American, not a Frenchman with his accent dubbed
away.
Anyway, Shane's got
problems. He's sick, for one thing (I mean, Vincent
Gallo looks sick to begin with, but this is for real),
taking unspecified pills. He also has disturbing
daydreams of people lying around covered in blood.
Again, no music, static shots for minutes on end...
leave it to the French to make bloody corpses boring.
It
could be worse, though. What's worse than exciting
things made boring, you ask? Why, things that are
naturally boring, made more boring! We get to experience
the cinematic thrills of watching the Browns lengthily
check in, then follow the maid (Florence Loiret-Caille)
walk their bags aaaaaaall the way to their room, and
then make the bed since the room didn't get made up
before they got there... Then we get to follow the maid
back to the locker room at the end of her shift where
she changes her clothes (leave it to the French to make
breasts uninteresting) and washes her feet in the sink.
Boy, that's some good cinema there, ain't it?
But if that isn't
enough, we also get to watch Shane have a nap, and June
check the water in the jacuzzi! Boy, I'm glad they find
a reason to break pace soon, or I'd just have
hyperventilated to death from all of the excitement.
It turns out that Shane
had an ulterior motive for choosing Paris as their
honeymoon locale, and it wasn't the cheese selection:
Shane works for a pharmaceutical company, and he's been
trying to get ahold of Dr. Leo Semenau, who use to work
at a neurological lab there, but left suddenly a few
months ago. Would it surprise you to learn that Dr. Leo
is Coré's husband who brought her back home from eating
her trystmate, and who habitually locks her in their
home while he goes out and does doctorly things? She
escapes again -- it looks like this is a daily routine,
bordering on the ridiculous. (I'm tickled by visions of
Dr. Leo coming home to a bloody-chinned Coré gnawing on
her latest seductee, doing his best Ricky Ricardo:
"Coré, you got some 'splainin' to do!")
In
many ways, that's basically the whole movie. But
naturally, that's not all we sit through. Apparently,
static mundane shots and silent emotional distance are
what qualify as "subtlety" in Denis' book. So we get
plenty of looooong slooooow scenes of Shane trying to
find Dr. Leo, of Vincent pawing his forehead and rubbing
his eyes, of June soaking in the tub, of Shane staring
at June in the tub (dear lord, leave it to the French to
make pubic hair uninteresting), of the maid
staring at the Do Not Disturb sign on their door (I'm
sure you've seen one of those before, Toots). We do
eventually get some exposition, but not nearly enough
for things really to make sense (hey, we've got to make
room for those long scenes in which nothing happens;
some things just have to be sacrificed). In a scene in
which Shane explains all of this to someone we've never
met before (nor do we ever get an incling why he's
telling her this), Shane had recruited the brilliant Dr.
Leo for his company, then stolen his research. Oh, and
Shane also thought Coré was hot. That's it. No,
seriously, that's all the exposition. All delivered (you
guessed it) in a loooong sloooow scene.
So what was this
research? We never honestly find out, but apparently
it's what is causing Coré to be an oversexed cannibal
(and we get a graphic rendition of that late in the game
when a neighbor teen breaks into the locked house for no
apparent reason except to be seduced by a woman who was
going to eat him during sex). And Shane's got "it" too,
whatever it is, which explains why he gets paranoid when
snuggling with June and runs into the bathroom to
"finish" (Vincent Gallo in a money shot -- MY EYES!!!!).
All
of which leads up to the most tasteless moment in a
movie which has, a few episodes aside, been fairly
reserved and standoffish (not to mention loooong and
sloooow). After all that, it's a jarring, completely
unenjoyable moment when Shane trails the maid to the
locker room, wordlessly seduces her (it seems she's been
taken with him all along -- although why you'd go after
an ersatz Frenchman in Paris is beyond me), and then
eats her. Yes, I'm sure it seemed like a witty double
entendre at some point to someone, but watching her
scream endlessly (even here, we've got to hold to type
and make it loooooong and sloooow) while Shane forces
his bloody face between her legs is NO reward for having
sat through as much as I've sat through.
I'm trying to find a
level at which this movie works for me. I'm not having
any luck. I think I just may have to swear off Gallic
cinema for the time being. Which probably won't offend
anyone in the French film industry -- after all, it's
not like they're counting on an audience, right?
From
Cold
Fusion Video Reviews
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