Two recent films: "Peindre ou Faire l’Amour" and "En Soap"
Peindre ou Faire l’Amour
This film opens with a thoroughly unsatisfying scene featuring the film’s protagonist as she paints what should be a breathtaking mountain scene; as it is filmed, the vista is far from earth shattering. Indeed, photography proves to be a constant problem with this film: there are quite a few shots that seem to cry out for a better director of photography and one scene that highlights a set in which the walls are an orangish red and the pillows on the couch are pink. In other words, the film falls visually short.
This said, the inauspicious beginning does lead to a nice film that often allows you to forget photographic shortcomings and focus on pretty good writing and excellent acting. As we have perhaps come to expect from contemporary French cinema, Peindre ou Faire l’Amour ultimately wins the audience over with a healthy combination of quirky characters, light comedy and ensemble acting.
En Soap
Leave it to the Danes to make a soap opera with only two characters. Director Pernile Fischer Christensen creates a quirky post-dogma feature about a woman named Charlotte who leaves her boyfriend after four years in search of something (she doesn’t know what) and Veronica, a male-to-female transsexual who is waiting for authorization for her sexual reassignment surgery. From the very beginning the two seem strangely fascinated with one another; as the film develops, the love-hate relationship that ensues seems to be based more on each woman’s own loneliness than on her fascination with the other.
With a suitable number of soap opera-esque episodes (a suicide attempt, bad sex partners, prostitution, a domestic abuse, etc.), the film is ultimately the story of two women who may or may not fall in love with one another. This film prefers to raise questions rather than give answers; among others is whether or not Charlotte is capable of loving anyone.
The film is purposely ugly and deliberately creates images that are not particularly aesthetically pleasing and yet it does this in such a way as to not get in the way of the film. Indeed, it manages to seem naturalistic more than anything else. That is, it seems naturalistic until a scene that has been several minutes long comes to an end and the camera shakes. I just don’t understand the decision to put in random camera shakes to remind us that they may or may not be using handheld cameras. Worse, I am not a fan of violent zooms during shots. It is an aesthetic that I just can’t embrace—why deliberately make it look like your 5 year-old just walked up and grabbed the camcorder? And why do this only in some shots? It actually breaks the naturalism of the film because no one’s head zooms around that quickly (which is intentional, I know).
Still, it is one of the better films that I have seen in awhile.
This film opens with a thoroughly unsatisfying scene featuring the film’s protagonist as she paints what should be a breathtaking mountain scene; as it is filmed, the vista is far from earth shattering. Indeed, photography proves to be a constant problem with this film: there are quite a few shots that seem to cry out for a better director of photography and one scene that highlights a set in which the walls are an orangish red and the pillows on the couch are pink. In other words, the film falls visually short.
This said, the inauspicious beginning does lead to a nice film that often allows you to forget photographic shortcomings and focus on pretty good writing and excellent acting. As we have perhaps come to expect from contemporary French cinema, Peindre ou Faire l’Amour ultimately wins the audience over with a healthy combination of quirky characters, light comedy and ensemble acting.
En Soap
Leave it to the Danes to make a soap opera with only two characters. Director Pernile Fischer Christensen creates a quirky post-dogma feature about a woman named Charlotte who leaves her boyfriend after four years in search of something (she doesn’t know what) and Veronica, a male-to-female transsexual who is waiting for authorization for her sexual reassignment surgery. From the very beginning the two seem strangely fascinated with one another; as the film develops, the love-hate relationship that ensues seems to be based more on each woman’s own loneliness than on her fascination with the other.
With a suitable number of soap opera-esque episodes (a suicide attempt, bad sex partners, prostitution, a domestic abuse, etc.), the film is ultimately the story of two women who may or may not fall in love with one another. This film prefers to raise questions rather than give answers; among others is whether or not Charlotte is capable of loving anyone.
The film is purposely ugly and deliberately creates images that are not particularly aesthetically pleasing and yet it does this in such a way as to not get in the way of the film. Indeed, it manages to seem naturalistic more than anything else. That is, it seems naturalistic until a scene that has been several minutes long comes to an end and the camera shakes. I just don’t understand the decision to put in random camera shakes to remind us that they may or may not be using handheld cameras. Worse, I am not a fan of violent zooms during shots. It is an aesthetic that I just can’t embrace—why deliberately make it look like your 5 year-old just walked up and grabbed the camcorder? And why do this only in some shots? It actually breaks the naturalism of the film because no one’s head zooms around that quickly (which is intentional, I know).
Still, it is one of the better films that I have seen in awhile.
posted by Ryan at 5:23 AM
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