Post by Capo on Jan 7, 2008 18:23:49 GMT
If you haven't seen this film, do. Don't read on until you have.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
I've tried desperately hard all day not to post this; I have L'humanité ready to go, and wanted to see that before posting any sort of rating and ranking in the director thread. But fuck me, has this stirred me. I watched it this morning, and I'm still pretty shaken by it.
I can't, these days, watch films without some sort of constant, active critical engagement going on. Essentially, I'm thinking up and re-thinking up my Proview for whatever film I'm watching as I watch it. And if ever a film has caused me to change my opinion so severely and unexpectedly, it must be this. (The change, in simple terms, went from "meh" to "wow", and in retrospect it's not even a surprising change. All of this IMDb rubbish about a boring film with a shocking climax is just that: rubbish.)
I was 'writing' stuff along the lines of "Dumont settles for the repetitive and mildly effective narrative pattern of alternating scenes; sex scenes follow conversational scenes, and both are scripted and acted so as to be always ill-at-ease, edgy in tone. Like 9 Songs, it's a bit numbing after a while, but the lingering possibility of explosiveness maintains interest."
Then boom, suddenly I feel like crying but I'm too horrified to even breathe: a vicious rape scene and an absolutely heart-wrenching spiral into embarrassed, humiliated (and even more vicious) rage, it's the best film I've seen in a while. Or maybe it isn't; maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and this feeling will be gone.
But I doubt it: I can't get its sounds out of my head - Katia's orgasmic groaning in the pool, David screaming with fright when he looks over his shoulder at the white jeep ramming his own, the sounds of the baseball bat against his skull, the subdued, gut-wrenching mumbling as he lies there having just been raped, and, worst of all, his horrific moan/scream when he suddenly exits the bathroom.
Jesus. I can't even describe the feeling I got from the very notion of his shaven head. It's clearly a reference to the earlier scene in the café when he asks Katia if she thinks Marines are handsome, and what she would do if he himself shaved his head like that ("I'd leave you", she says, moments before saying, "Je t'aime"). I haven't winced like that since the fire extinguisher scene in Irreversible.
Even the silences are unforgettable - that scene where David hurts Katia by forcing her to give him head in the swimming pool is so fucking haunting, when she treads water in the foreground of the frame and he 'creeps' up behind her in the tranquil aftermath.
UGH.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
I've tried desperately hard all day not to post this; I have L'humanité ready to go, and wanted to see that before posting any sort of rating and ranking in the director thread. But fuck me, has this stirred me. I watched it this morning, and I'm still pretty shaken by it.
I can't, these days, watch films without some sort of constant, active critical engagement going on. Essentially, I'm thinking up and re-thinking up my Proview for whatever film I'm watching as I watch it. And if ever a film has caused me to change my opinion so severely and unexpectedly, it must be this. (The change, in simple terms, went from "meh" to "wow", and in retrospect it's not even a surprising change. All of this IMDb rubbish about a boring film with a shocking climax is just that: rubbish.)
I was 'writing' stuff along the lines of "Dumont settles for the repetitive and mildly effective narrative pattern of alternating scenes; sex scenes follow conversational scenes, and both are scripted and acted so as to be always ill-at-ease, edgy in tone. Like 9 Songs, it's a bit numbing after a while, but the lingering possibility of explosiveness maintains interest."
Then boom, suddenly I feel like crying but I'm too horrified to even breathe: a vicious rape scene and an absolutely heart-wrenching spiral into embarrassed, humiliated (and even more vicious) rage, it's the best film I've seen in a while. Or maybe it isn't; maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and this feeling will be gone.
But I doubt it: I can't get its sounds out of my head - Katia's orgasmic groaning in the pool, David screaming with fright when he looks over his shoulder at the white jeep ramming his own, the sounds of the baseball bat against his skull, the subdued, gut-wrenching mumbling as he lies there having just been raped, and, worst of all, his horrific moan/scream when he suddenly exits the bathroom.
Jesus. I can't even describe the feeling I got from the very notion of his shaven head. It's clearly a reference to the earlier scene in the café when he asks Katia if she thinks Marines are handsome, and what she would do if he himself shaved his head like that ("I'd leave you", she says, moments before saying, "Je t'aime"). I haven't winced like that since the fire extinguisher scene in Irreversible.
Even the silences are unforgettable - that scene where David hurts Katia by forcing her to give him head in the swimming pool is so fucking haunting, when she treads water in the foreground of the frame and he 'creeps' up behind her in the tranquil aftermath.
UGH.