Cmon....all they do is argue..its annoying and boring..the pace is slow and the acting..although tried to be realistic by doin impro..just didnt work..they werent good enough to handle impro... can someone help me see cleary?
shareAlas it is a great deal a question of ear and very difficult to appreciate unless you are French-speaking. The boring arguing works wonderfully in French because of the urban patois (which has its own stange music) and the contrast this makes with the other forms of French that one hears in the film - the Marivaux obviously but also the classroom French, the French talked to parents (as opposed to mates) or (whn there is a chance to speak) to the police. I think it is a good film in many respects and I dd not find the pace at all slow but it is the language that is its real glory.
shareSo the good thing about it is the use of slang? I saw it in French (subtitled English since my French is no where near good enough to keep up with them) and all of the slang just annoyed me. Slang annoys me in general, though. I didn't like The Departed either because of the slang and accents. Anyway, I'm going on a tangent, back to the point. So why is using slang so special? It just seemed like an awful lot of bickering to me in a movie where the main characters get arrested and never speak of it again and doesn't really end. Why is it so special?
sharethe juxtaposition between the kids slang and the dialogue of the Marivaux play is brilliant, considering the language from the play was considered slang of sorts in the 18th century, the wordplay even being named after him - marivaudage.
By the way.... there is almost no impro in this movie, it is all written.
And they sound like real people speaking slang and verlan (reverse speech) and what is interesting is how they switch levels of language and are limited in their language and thus in the expression of their feelings and turn to verbal violence.
I agree wholeheartedly with you. I live near Paris, in a suburb and when I play basketball I have to bear this kind of "racaille" as we say in french (you would call them scum in english). Frankly, I'm not interested in seeing a whole movie which only interest is seeing these people as they are! They're annoying enough in real life! I guess the french movie industry which gave a lot of "césar" to this movie are grateful they only have to see a 2 hour movie like this instead of living near them...
shareYou missed the point, and that point was expressed very clearly by their teacher first when she explains the social bondage people carry even if they try and escape by changing their image and again when she yells at Krimo for not being able to escape himself even while trying to act. If anything, you just proved her point.
shareYeah I agree with you. I speak fluent French but I watched it with English subtitles because I had been warned the movie would be hard to understand with all the street slang. It seems like a lot of people seem to think the language is what makes the movie brilliant. And maybe it is... but that is only one part of the whole movie. The pace of the movie was slow and a lot of the scenes were long and never seemed to end. I mean I understand it's all about teenage angst in the Paris suburbs so all the bickering goes to show they are young and don't know yet who they are blahblahblah... but it got really annoying.
So yes the language is important but for me, it's not enough to make the movie great.
I have the same problem...
I liked the contrast between the fact that young adolescents from the suburbia are trying to act a play from Marivaux but it was badly handled: by the end I felt the film was as empty and silly as the characters. For example the part with the cops was good but nothing happened after that (or did I miss something?)
The story was more like a soap opera; it was just a silly infatuation of a boy for the blonde girl. The social pressure commentary felt flat.
It was also supposed to have a documentary feeling but it seemed FORCED and even fake.
Some parts were too long -when Lydia goes to the rehearsal after buying her dress, she had an ENDLESS fight with the other girl. Enough is enough, but they didn't seem to understand that it was too much.
Finally it was rather pointless: I didn't learn anything and unlike the excellent Entre les murs (realistic and thought-provoking) it will be easily forgotten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KCg_QEHtkY
I am French and agree with the original post, this movie's message is heavy handed and poorly served by a lack of talent from the directing and acting.
shareEntre Les Murs?! Now I can't take your opinion seriously if you're speaking of that film favorably. The moral of that film was that the children were poor students, the end. It was terrible and unrealistic, since social dynamics are much more complicated, and the movie didn't acknowledge that at all other than maybe a parent meeting. The producers didn't have a real understanding of the factors that lead to students' failure or success in academia. Ridiculous.
share