So, I do like to pop critically darling balloons, though seldom solely for the sake of popping them. Though I will assure you that I have not built up enough animosity to lash out against the Dardenne brothers (au contraire, I have no feeling one way or the other for them), neither do I write this luke-warm review of their new critically heralded L'Enfant (which I'll allow you to translate on your own) as an act of critic rebellion. The film, which I saw on a little trek through New York city (allow this to serve as explanation for my lax blogging), is a quietly deadly one. Though I'm none too certain that the Dardennes are not more than a tad too exploitational. The situation for our anti-hero Bruno and his girlfriend Sonia is "heart-breakingly" rugged. When Sonia gives birth and brings the infant home at the beginning of the film to find her flat subletted, the typical (though somewhat less stark) fluorescent glare of the neon lights illuminates the tenement flat that she must (of course) trudge up innumberable flights of stairs, again, child in tote. When she finally finds Bruno hustling on the street for change, it is (as many liken it) reminiscent of Bresson, but also Fassbinder's little seen TV Melodrama I Only Want you To Love Me, only here, the source for our protagonist's poverty-denial spending sprees proves more to be himself than his girlfriend, and especially not the child (note I do not say "his" child as - do not fret, I am not giving away anything - he would show more pride to a leather cap than his own flesh and blood). When he finally sells the child into the black market - a particularly frank and harrowing scene - your want of a more diverse and complex figure of Peter Pan-dom comes to its apex.

Not to fully discredit the film. There are many fantastic elements to the film. The acting is at times stellar, at times minute - with a real focus on Déborah François' Sonia, who is really given the short end of the acting stick here. The shots are remarkably composed, with a spunk and vitality that lifts the down-and-out morality play to a more relatable space (not that we must relate to everything we see!). But plot pits and moral judgement are the film's mains flaws. Imagine the Fem-y bald girl in art class who paints a picture of her Vagina. When Bruno sells little Jimmy, the "Oh my god!" anti is just entirely to manipulative and vibrant for such a muted world. It's too easy to woo you with the child factor (which is where the film's greatest emotional moments lie). And though the final scene plays itself out rather well, the events leading up to it are just a tad too manipulative to make someone like Bresson smile at his tutelage.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Claire Denis' new film, L'Itrus (The Intruder) has been getting a lot of talk, and understandably. Though many people outside of her native France do not quite realize, she is perhaps the biggest auteur, certainly the biggest female auteur working in France at the present. Just look at the credit sequences for her films - Avec le particiption de Pusan Films Commission, arte France Cinema, Conseil Regional De Franche-Comte... You get the idea. Denis' worlds stand astride the meridian of the new and provocative "New French Extreme Cinema" (films like Fat Girl, In My Skin, Twenynine Palms and Denis' own Trouble Every Day) and a more traditional French style of visual storytelling. Suffice to say, L'Intrus caters to both parties. Though it is a visually enticing film, L'Intrus certainly has its share of violence. Yet, unlike Denis' Trouble Every Day (whose detractors called it an unmitigated gore fest), L'Intrus' violence is of a more silent, choreographed sort. When our protagonist, Louis (played by Michel Subor, in the wane of his years) slits a man's throat, he does so in a heartbeat, without a second thought, so quickly, in fact, that you find yourself wondering if you have really just witnessed what you believe you have. Of course, the proof comes in shadows - and this goes for the rest of the film. You realize that you are in the mind (and body) of a dying man, our narrator, and are subject to his mental tangents. Yet these sequences are discernible and in keeping with a general structure, not only in the cinema of Denis, but that of no cinema in particular.

Of course, a typical American viewer will have a hard time with L'Intrus. Whole chunks of time pass by without a single line of dialogue. I remember when I tried to see the longer (and limited release) cut of Malick's The New World, the ticket seller informed me that it was being severely re-edited as, "there were whole scenes without dialogue!" Oh NO! And this was the most uptight capital A Art house in Los Angeles. Whole Scenes without DIALOGUE! How does one understand a scene? I'll tell you. One reads a scene. Instead of being told what is going on, what many react to in Denis' work is her allowance of the viewer to interpret her work. Interpretation is certainly on the shadows of American cinema at the moment.

And I do not mean to argue for or against Denis, per se. I am still not convinced of her "mastery." Though I found L'Intrus a compelling (and perplexing - in a good way, mind you) view, its calculated randomness seemed a tad too removed, appreciatively distanced. Denis has never been called exploitational (well... Trouble Every Day, but that's another story). Having grown up in a French occupied African colony, Denis' depiction of colonialism is "as it is," which, of course, is never entirely true. With all of her honed respectfulness, something is inherently lost along the way. Comparing her work with someone like Sebatien Lifshitz (who served as Assistant Director to Denis on various films and most recently made the immaculate Wild Side with Denis right-hand gal, cinematographer, Agnes Godard), who seems imbedded in the community represents, one cannot help but compare Denis' approach to that of someone like Jennifer Livingston, whose subjects of Paris Is Burning are so far removed from her own Ivy League culture that a significant aftertaste is left on the film. Now I do not seek to villify Denis, nor to criticize her, yet there is always an element of P.C. caution which separates me from her work. Whereas a work like Trouble Every Day (which, as I am well illustrating, is a film rather divorced from the other works of her ouvre) demands that you literally, sink your teeth into it.

I have noted that Denis' visual flair is her most prized asset, yet I would venture, Godard placed in different hands yields far greater images. Again, Wild Side holds far more greatly composed singular shots. It is, however, Denis' structure of cinematic "poem" that give all of those capital F Film people such a big boner. In this case, L'Inturs is the best porn out there. Starring all of Denis' regulars with a few to grow on, it is a veritable round up of who's who in French Cinema. And in a way, it works like the seriality in Fassbinder. When, very early on in the film, we see Grégoire Colin (of Denis' Beau Travail, Nanette et Boni, Vendredi soir and Breillat's Sex Is Comedy) we so familiar with him - in this form - even, that he becomes, not only a slight in joke, but a trope of this variety of film. Of course, the appearance of Bad girl Béatrice Dalle only aids in this. Dalle owns a dog refuge. The first time we see her, she is flinging hewed flesh and bone at wild dogs. It is a fitting role for a woman we have previously witnessed hewing flesh from bone herself, using but her signature teeth and pouty lips. The serves as a quite bookend of the film. When she arrives at the end of the film her significance is reemphasized in a strange way.

L'Itrus is the kind of film one watches many times without gleaning from it all which one can. I sat, at the end of the film, one eyebrow cocked, knowing that I was watching the last shot of the film and truly not knowing what to make of it. There are lots of twists in the road of L'Intrus and though I'm none too certain that all of them are necessary, I have no doubt that Denis' as an auteur is, not only necessary, but a force which is direly needed in cinema today.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Out in theaters, I am really looking forward to The Inside Man just so I can watch the most earnest comedically deprived actors in Hollywood stumble around seriously trying to earnestly do whatever it is that they are meant to gravely do with the most determined, somber and sober face as has ever been rendered on screen. Watch this one like a comedy. That's how I went into Flightplan and boy, did I have a good time! Watching a constipated Jody Foster running around unhumorously was one of the funniest things I did last year. This one proves to be Flightplan times three.

Released on DVD this week, Lodge Kerrigan's surprisingly poignant Keane begins rather poorly, but by the end of the film, you discover a lovely, multi-faceted exploration of loss. The film landed at the bottom of my "Best of 2005" list, and is certainly worth the price of the DVD, or at least the price of a rental. Kerrigan shot an entirely different film starring Peter Saarsgard, but when the negative was irreparably damaged, Kerrigan decided to exact a more honed and quiet film (with obviously a more "honed" budget). Keane is the impressive result.

Also, The Squid and the Whale finds its way onto video store shelves. This was one of those films that I deemed unworthy of cinema viewing, i.e. I fork out my money for movies that MUST be seen on the silver screen to get the full gist of it. I figured I wouldn't be missing out much, waiting until video for this seemingly character based film. So now I can finally watch it. Maybe you will, too.

Also on DVD this week, Capote (which I take great joy in dropping the e so it sounds more like compote), the relentlessly limp Derailed, the even limper Chicken Little, Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story starring, as my friend calls her, the foetus, which seeks to legitimize itself with it's atrociously extraneous title, and a few others that I find so bad or am morally opposed to mentioning.

On the gay front, both the good at heart and well cast travestyThe Dying Gaul and the Grecian film that sells itself as a melodramatic black comedy, Blackmail Boy which I have not seen. Perhaps I will. Perhaps not.

There's a fantastic sounding old TV show coming out on DVD called The Flying Nun which sounds at least worth a look.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Wednesday night, I attended a revival screening of Roman Polanski's infamous film adaptation of Shakespearian MacBeth and suppose now is as good a time as any to write about it. In addition, and in keeping, the day prior I rewatched Claire Denis' rather loose adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, the film capital F Film cinefiles wet themselves over (which I found rather bland, but perhaps more because of others' wild devotion), Beau Travail (Good Work). And though you may already know my stance on capital F Films, I will open-mindedly further on my opinion of the film below. But first, MacBeth.

First allow me to state that I am no expert when it comes to Shakespearian adaptation. In my (perhaps youthful) opinion, most "classical" adaptations of his works are clumsy, cardboard and awkward. Having been thoroughly unimpressed by some of the works that are considered the greatest Shakespearian adaptations, it is startling (and proof of Polanski's masterful directorial capabilities) that he creates a world where all of the period garb and iambic pentameter come off casually, naturally even. Though one of the juiciest roles ever written falls rather flat on Francesca Annis' rendition of Lady Macbeth, Polanksi's uncompromising vision of this violent and tormented world is as exhilarating and compelling as it is excruciating. The scene that follows the credit sequence finds a body lying face down on the murky shoreline. Blood pools in a puddle. A man tugs on the body's foot. One might assume he is attempting to find fellow fighters who have survived this catastrophe. Yet our perception of this world is solidly established as the man whom we have presumed is dead rears his head back to be met with the other man's mace, which he beats into the wounded man's back repeatedly, leaving a crater of mangled flesh and protruding bone.

This is our introduction to our eponymous protagonist's world. Watching the film, I found myself yearning for a great volume to be published interpreting the film. I felt only capable of penetrating a thin layer of the film's shell. This was my second viewing of the film, and still, subtleties abound, I found myself barely understanding much of the great flourishes beyond the most intrinsic plot points. It is an immense film in all respects. The dialogue, so wonderfully shifting between voice-over and spoken word, flows poetically and unpretentiously - which, come on, is a feat in Shakespearian adaptation. Ultimately, the film proves most effective because its flawless visual stylizations. It is a rare gem (all the more so on the big screen), so consistent in its representation of this grisly yet enchantingly beautiful world that when one leaves the theater, they are surprised by the (slightly more mundane) world outside.

My rewatching of Denis' film coincides with the release of her new film, L'Intrus (The Intruder), a review of which you will be able to find here on March 21st. Unlike MacBeth, Beau Travail is almost purely a visual film. Intending it to serve more as a visual poem, Denis primarily concerns herself with only the expository details of her adaptive source. It is circumstantial. One gleans a greater sense of conflict from the Legionaires interactions with the native people of the French occupied Djibouti(of Denis' contruct) than between Galoup and Sentain (here the Captain Vere and Billy Budd characters, respectively of Mellvilel's). In fact, the main impeuts of their conflict in Denis' world stems from a more homosocial form of vanity. While Galoup plays flaneur in both the African village and through the streets of Paris (where one most typically may play flaneur) he emits an ostracized glare which takes more menacing tones when affixed on the eroticized mug of Sentain.

Though it may sound slightly conservative of me, I'm not sure whether Denis is the figure deserving of all the credit she receives for the visual potency of her films. Without Agnes Godard, who has served as cinematographer for Denis since her 1990 television short Cinema, de notre temps: Jacques Rivette - Le veilleur and has been employed as cinematographer for a handful of remarkable directors (Wim Wenders, Agnes Varda, Andre Techine and Sebastien Lifshitz to name a few), I am not too certain the films of Denis would glow and resonate in the same rich way that they do with Godard in tote. The visuals are what defines Beau Travail. In tableaus that echo the work of James Benning, Godard captures compelling moments from the most banal settings between Djibouti and Paris (though I find it hard pressed to find a boring setting in the beautiful city of Paris). The first time I watched the film(or at least attempted to, abandoning it halfway through), I found it visually sumptuous, yet substantially slight. Upon second viewing, I found this, in a very roundabout way, is a strength to the film, functioning in a very similar way as Denis' Trouble Every Day . And I'll be damned if the last scene of the film is not one of the better scenes I have seen in a good long while. Set to Corona's hopelessly dated, yet somehow transcendent "The Rhythm of the Night," in a strange, unexpected way, it folds the film in on itself in a very complicated way and speaks far better than any words could. Ultimately, Beau Travail is a film I want not to like, yet prevents me from doing so because of the isolated moments which catch me off guard with their sumptuous images and understated complexity. I suppose would recommend it, but not as fervently as I would Polanski's MacBeth.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, lovin' double features recently. Today, I treated myself to a matinee ($4.50) screening of Johnny Depp's eternally delayed The Libertine, just to see if it really deserved all of the abysmal talk it's been getting. Please allow me to be perhaps the first to inform you that all of the negative cred and disastrous claims that reviewers have been piling up are all very well earned. The Libertine is certainly one of the laugh-out-loud funniest films I have seen in a very, very long time. That it intends to be taken all-too seriously is perhaps what makes it go that extra mile. From the film's very opening moments, when our very G-rated libertine (Depp, of course) informs us of all of the debauchery and scandal that he is capable of (yet nary partakes in on screen), jabbering on and on about cunts and cocks with the silliest stab at seriousness, we smell the characterization quite familiar to Depp. This is the figure whom we have seen time and time again... so many times, even, to require parody. This is certainly why Jack Sparrow was so appealing. Johnny Depp was not taking himself so Edward-Scissorhands-seriously. To think he could return to a dramatic role after parodying his limited dramatic range was a huge mistake.

Yet Depp is not the only one to blame. In what must have been a contractual obligation, John Malkovich yawns his way through as King Charles II, grotesquely bad false nose in tote. At one point, apparently enraged, he picks up a chair to smash. The apathetic force with which the chair taps upon the surface of the table - shattering like the prop in a fifties western - is perhaps a great metaphor for the film, so confused in its intents, yet so intent to fall apart. Samantha Morton is the biggest stinker of all. In her scenes of "Acting," one cannot help but laugh mercilessly, as if this were American Idol: Debuke, Iowa. Even the indecisive production team lacked any originality or vitality, racking the focus on the lens more than all of the masturbating Depp claims (yet never seems) to do. This is the sort of creative crew you imagine thinking things like, "the muddier it is, the more real 17th century London will seem!" And just when you think it can't get any better, believe me, the last line of the film, which, don't worry if you miss it the first time, as it is repeated not once, not twice, but FOUR times - for poetic resonance, one must assume - is so trite, that you will leave the theater roaring with laughter, primarily because the film would have you drying your eyes.

Hot on the heels of The Libertine, I dashed on over to my favorite ghetto moviehouse in downtown LA (endearing ghetto, not scary ghetto) to see Haute Tension director Alexandre Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes which, comparatively felt like Citizen Cane (oh yes, The Libertine was that bad!). Aja, a French director, is well known for his horrifically graphic violence and absolutely crippling, nail-biting tension. And though all are present, Hills drops all of the critical elements that made the original Carter family's attempt at survival so harrowing. Without the twisted bait of the original's climax, nor its wonderful final freeze frame, Aja's film merely becomes another remake, though one of the best in this slew of reiterations. The giddy glee he takes in rendering limbs from their frames or gouging holes where there should not be (all of course resulting in torrents of spattering blood) is a bit of a treat, and rather (but not wholly) absent is the exploitational feel that usually accompanies such extremities. The tense moments are near unbearable, though not as excruciating as the bathroom scene in Haute Tension. He has nothing to really new to say about Americana, though he bashes us over the head (and in one case, through the throat) with it, where more subtle fair like A History of Violence proves more concise. Though the casting of Ted Levine (dubious for his portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs) as the all American father is wonderfully off-putting - all the more so as he fits the mold so frighteningly well.

The film ultimately fails, like all of its predecessors, as it necessitates an explanation as to why these people do what they do. In The Hills' case, it is revenge that the radiation mutated inhabitants of a small mining town seek. But who cares. In our era, Leatherface has facial cancer and the Amityville house is haunted by a crazy Quaker. That's not scary. What is scary is Leatherface careening out of the house with womens' make-up on his flesh mask for no apparent reason. The real fear lies in not knowing, yet in an information driven society, where we have 20,000 songs on our ipods and answers to every question at google.com, it would seem we are unable to suffice with not knowing. The last film that comes to mind that played on that idea was The Blair Witch Project which, however it might hold up now, was scary as hell when it first came out. It was scary because you never saw a goddamn thing. EVERYTHING was left to the imagination. But who needs an imagination when you've got TiVo?

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speaking of TiVo, coming to DVD this week, we have David Cronenberg's Americana masterpiece, A History of Violence that critically gushed over, Oscar ignored(hmmm...) treat about a man who may or may not be the mobster a creepy Ed Harris accuses him of being. Catch Cronenberg's best film since Existenz and a wonderfully hammy performance from William Hurt. It comes with a generous smattering of deleted scenes, commentary and docos...

Also on shelves today is the "Ultimate Edition" (if I had a dime every time I heard that, I'd be dead) of Basic Instinct, just in time for the sequel starring the every ravishing Charlotte Rampling, along side snatch-y-poo of course...

Louis Malle have lots to piss themselves over. Criterion has just put out a lovely boxset which includes Au Revoir Les Enfants, Murmur of the Heart and Lacombe, Lucien.

And god knows there must be another soul out there whose grandma forced them to watch countless reruns of Columbo. If so, take a trip down memory lane with Columbo: The Complete Fourth Season.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 01:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Few have probably heard of Val Lewton, prolific producer of the RKO "horror" pictures of the 40's. Warner, it seems, would very much like to do away with his seeming anonymity by distributing the "Val Lewton Collection," last year - a box set of five DVD's with 9 feature films. I got the set a while back(being a HUGE fan of his production of Tourneur's Cat People - whose '82 remake is also one of my favorite films- and I Walked With A Zombie), but have only watched the doco (which is wonderfully informative, by the way). Last night, I watched his 1943 film, The 7th Victim. It is a wonderfully gothic noir. Perhaps part of Lewton's anonymity can be attributed to the fact that he didn't make horror films, proper. No, Lewton's films were fantastically moody noirs who promised much more sensational horror than they ever truly delivered. Instead, the horror of his films lie in the mind. The 7th Victim follows Mary Gibson as she searches for her missing sister, Jaqueline. The film eventually pits Jaqueline against the group of Satanists that she joined only to abandon months later.

Jaqueline is the real jewel, here, with her more-severe-than-Betty Page bangs and her complacency towards life itself. She keeps a room with a noose and a chair beneathe it merely to appreciate life. It is in her scenes (far too few and far between) where the film shines. As she runs through the chiascuro alleyways of New York, we realize why so many film snobs fetishize noir. These moments are just as fabulous as those set pieces in the German Expressionist films of the 20's like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or the comedically anti-simetic Der Golem. Near the end, there is a completely odd moment of meta-dialogue concerning death that is positively hauntingly compelling and not to be missed. The dying next door neighbor discusses what death is with the suicidal Jaqueline. The outcome of the conversation on both ends is fantastic, cinematically, for what it shows and what it merely alludes to. The boxset is going for something ridiculously low, like 34.99 or something, and boy is it worth it. Even for I Walked With A Zombie alone, which is a somnambulistic masterpiece. How many times have you heard that?

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Surely, anyone reading this will file it under the "no shit" category, yet I feel it is my civil duty to inform you that the new Milla Jovovich vehicle, Ultra Violet is one of the worst, dull and uninspired flicks I have kicked back for in quite some time. Trying to be both Aeon Flux and Underworld: Evolution, the film also has a strange HIV subtext, as the HTV positive Hemophages (which, only about half way through the film start calling themselves Vampires, as if midway through production they got the memo about the second Underworld movie) are a band of outcasts, shunned by the humans whom they once were. The Homo... er, I mean Hemo's want to win back their place in society, I think. Ultra Violet is not a film that knows, at any point, just what the hell is going on. Jovovich uses no cognitive thinking when hopping around her futuristic world. She just goes where her whim takes her. Without any progressional sense, the film is quite a bore. Anything can happen - and not in a fun way as there is no reason to why it might do so. The other largest fault of the film lies in its unwillingness to take sides. The humans are shown as bastards, and eventually the Hemophages also become the baddies. Without a "good" side, we are watching one woman risk her life... for what? The humans are never humanized, so when they die we feel no remorse, and neither are the Hemophages (perhaps in fear that our audience might in some slight way relate to an HIV positive person - a stance that I thought the film might covertly take, and thus my reason for seeing it). Without any consequences, there's no point to the film. There aren't even any good aphorisms. At one point, Jovovich does her best (which, admittedly is not all that much) at the line "You're all going to die." At a more emotional moment, she explains her callous approach to life as "these moments, as wonderful as they are, are evil when they're gone." The line that instigates the final fight sequence: "Bring it on!" I rest my case, your honor.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The first shot of Batalla en el Cielo (Battle In Heaven) is a direct appropriation of the only shot of Andy Warhol's Blowjob, a thirty six minute film in which a man may or may not be receiving a blowjob. We learn quite quickly (a little too, perhaps) that there is no speculation in Battle In Heaven's case. The camera pans down the corpulent front of our grimy protagonist, Marcos, to find Ana, protagonist #2, fellating him. Now, to a post-Nine Songs, or rather (giving credit where it's due) enmeshed in the era of the French auteurs who demand their actors perform real sex (Catherine Breillat being the most prolific of these filmmakers), the only shocker associated with this scene lies in the repugnance of the man paralleled with the beauty of the woman. While I admire Battle In Heaven's consideration of time - the film utilizes s l o w meandering takes, which allows mere spectators a shot at protagonism, and its cinematography is perhaps some of the best non-European influenced work this side of the Atlantic, I find that the dichotomy of ugly/beautiful a tad too trite and shock-for-shock's-sake. Like Gaspard Noé's controversial (and in my mind despicably shallow) Irreversible, again we have a world of polarities, where, if you're not stunningly beautiful, you weigh in at 300 pounds with the naked cellulite proof to match. In one of the films earliest scenes, we watch seemingly random people pass by a blanket of clocks and jello molds sold by our protagonist's wife (who is not given the decency of a name). In the group of "randoms" we first encounter a boy with down syndrome, then a geriatric man toting a piss bag. In the film's logic, you're either perfect or perfectly deformed. This goes for morality, too, as Wife (as we shall call her) lost her conscience somewhere last lifetime. Marcos, too, has a few problematic traits: kidnapping, multiple homicide, but the positively obese woman he calls dear (his real life wife) is given the greatest credit as monster extraorinaire. The film pits a strange stance against Europeanism. Gas stations pump classical music to drown out the religious worshipers that Marcos refers to as sheep. Their son goes by Irving. Though the cinema seems completely unadorned by the trappings of European standards, a feat which deserves great respect considering director Carlos Reygadas' contemporaries (Gus Van Sant, Michael Winterbottom, Claire Denis to name a few) all have their irrefutable dues to Europe's Neo-realism. This is a film I would like to like, but find just a bit too consciously polemic to recommend. Perhaps wait 'til video.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally rented the British love story, My Summer of Love, and found, much to my surprise, that it was not a mere coming of age love song that the previews would have you mistake it for. Instead I was treated to an hour and a half of pure visual bliss. Fields of flowers and mossy brooks, all caught with the same salivating gaze. This is what summer love looks like, and it brought to mind one of my favorite not-coming-of-age, though-we-would-have-you-believe-so-to-market-this film, Presque Rien (distributed in the states as Come Undone but literally, Almost Nothing). The greatness of both films lies in the fact that they are NOT coming age films, nor are they truly love stories.

That My Summer Of Love would initially have you believe so is one of the important deceptions of the film. Because, as we soon discover, both girls are playing with a greater deck of cards than we would have imagined from the get go. Fifteen minutes into the film, the girls are discussing Nietzsche and Freud, albeit with a vibrant and youthful pessimism, and we realize that, what the girls see in one another is not idyllic romance, but a displaced mourning. To each girl, the other is a replacement for a family member who has recently died (For Mona, her mother, who died of Cancer; For Tamsin, her sister, who succumbed to anorexia). This devotion, rooted in projection, swells to a physical relationship, but at no moment does the film allow you to forget the yearning that instigated this bond and the asexual role of each girl's predecessor. Even during the sex scenes, you cannot claim that My Summer of Love is a lesbian film. The girls are emotional replacements, not lovers.

Though it is misleading to have you believe this film is maudlin. Far from it. The visual style of the film glows with the vibrant pulse of summer's scorching sun. The camera cannot sit still, but must close in and retreat from the faces of our protagonists. There's a scene where both girls sit perched on a hill of flowers, as they lean back into the flowers, they disappear from the narrative completely. For a moment, both are gone and we are treated to a pastoral view of the town, yet they refuse their seeming absence by the trace smoke which one exhales, shrouded in the flowers. The film is like that scene. Even when apart, the two are somehow together. In the few shots that include neither, their presence is always near, perhaps in the adjacent room

The boys in Presque Rien have it a bit worse off. Where My Summer of Love is a world drenched in a golden glow, that same sun beats down on the French seaside town of Pornichet. It is a sun that blinds the eyes with its flaxen wash. Likewise, the two boys barely reach the level of vibrant intimacy shared by Mona and Tamsin. Mathieu, who is vacationing with his sick mother and bitchy sister (with papa mysteriously absent), allows the roguish Céderic into his world. Céderic shows him around town, where he (like Mona) resides, not merely vacations (like Tamsin and Mathieu). He drifts from summer job to summer job, leaving a trail of ex-lovers for Mathieu to discover. Told in a very non-linear fashion (I know non-linear is the new linear, but itrulyly works here) the film documents Mathieu's attempted suicide and the preceding summer romance that transpired between the two. For Céderic is the replacement for stability that Mathieu so yearns for, and Mathieu, ambition for the lost Céderic. It is this desperate desire for these missing elements that bring the two together, rather than a want of typical summer love.

The film, directed by Sebastien Lifshitz, who is certainly one of the most underrated directors working today, has a similar mesmeric quality, though I would use the word haunting here, rather than glowing. His visuals shield more than they reveal. Even in a seemingly sober scene like the love scene in the sand dunes which is blanched in throbbing sunlight, the editing rips from the exchange a certain intentionality that these two would seem to share off camera. And here lies the great difference between the two. My Summer of Love is a film that exists solely within its frame. There is no time between scenes, no allusion to the unseen. Like I said, when the girls lean back on the hill, narratively speaking, they cease to exist. Presque Rien forces you to imagine that which is not depicted. A great majority of the narrative is abstracted and absent, leaving you with the results of acts that you have never seen. There is no dramatic scene with a bottle of pills, nor is there one in which the two discuss their love. Yet both, in their own way, are remarkable (and deceptive) depictions of the desperateness of yearning youth. Of course, the venue of Summer love is a fantastic one to locate these quests, and in both cases, you get far more than you ever thought you were asking for.

It is also worthy of note that both have FANTASTIC soundtracks by 2 wonderful bands. My Summer of Love uses languid snippets of Goldfrapp (back when they were good) which fuse perfectly with the film's images. Similarly, the somber(and relatively unknown, outside of France) music of Perry Blake illustrates a perfect marriage of image and soundtrack. If you don't know Blake's work, I highly recommend it.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)