DUMONT FANS NEEDED

You won't find one with me, as Twentynine Palms said absolutely nothing to me about my life. It is as empty as the desert landscape those rotten, wholly unlikable, unsympathetic characters wander through. The movie made me uncomfortable indeed, as I fidgeted and stretched, wishing I'd sat on the aisle so my egress was clear. If it hadn't been a film festival with oodles of potential discussion afterwards I would have crawled over rows to get out.

And it's a shame, as Humanity was at least compelling, though probably not deserving of the fame garnered by David Cronenberg's special award for audacity. This one... Perhaps you shouldn't see it, keep your claim to be a "huge Dumont fan" (after only two pictures?). Then again, not everyone hates everything, so perhaps this is your movie. I say check it out, don't believe all the hoo-hah you hear from anonymous mutts posting on this board.

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This is an incredible movie. I just came back from a second viewing. I saw it for the first time a few months ago and found it impossible to shake off. A second viewing has left me even more impressed. When I saw it for the first time I deliberately had not read a thing about it. If you haven't seen the film yet, don't read anything about it, even the barest description of what it is about. Experience it for yourself. For me, it is a unique film that captures certain aspects of human behavior in a way that no other film has ever done before. The audience I saw it with tonight was terrible -- why do people have to laugh and mock something just because it makes them uncomfortable? I for one will be looking forward to getting the DVD (the French DVD is out I hear) and seeing it in an *beep*-less environment. One of the producers is Wellspring, who have released many DVDs in the U.S., so hopefully the U.S. DVD is forthcoming in the not too distant future.

This movie has been released, this week, in selected Dutch theatres , very few "of course". (Some Art Houses). I have not yet seen it. However I must tell the few Dumont- fans that it got really serious comments in our weekly news paper's film reviews. (Which are quite good generally).
Although this will take some strength off the pre-viewing surprise, on the other hand it makes one curious to go and see it...What the critics stressed, from a European point of view, was the aim of mr. Dumont, to break with and divert himself from American ways to make movies, and cliché's in "movie language". In short: he went to the US, filmed in an archetypical American landscape (how many scenes have not been done in the Calif. desert, not including Wild West films), and ended with the objective: a film "made in U.S.A.
"totally different from anything we ever saw. That 's the message! Now let's go and see it...if it has not been replaced next week, by lack of viewers.....
(ain't got much time this Pentecostal weekend...) (another French masterpiece,
Temps du Loup / Time of the Wolf disappeared from the theatres after 3 weeks already...)

slant magazine had the balls to list it as one of the top 100 essential films outside of AFI's list.
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/features/100essentialfilms.asp

side note, wat's the music being played in the background when the couple's in the Vietnamese restaurant?

It's the first time I watched a Dumont film and it was a mindblowing experience. I loved his symbolism at the Joshua Tree desert, at the dogs scene and, obviously, his homage to A Clockwork Orange (just without Singing in the rain) in the last sequence. I think it's a hard film to watch 'cause the rough sex depictions between the protagonists and the violence beneath the storyline. It's impressive and well constructed.

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