Not all French films are great
And not all foreign movies are great either. Only the best 1-5% that makes it to the US are great movies. Just like American movies, most foreign movies are un-watchable.
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MovieChat Forums > Le Hérisson (2009) Discussion > Not all French films are great
Are we limited to two choices: "great" and "unwatchable"?
I want to shake every limb in the Garden of Eden
and make every lover the love of my life
yes I agree. I think there are more good American movies & shows than there are great French movies - but the French used to make excellent movies in the 60s. One redeeming thing about French films... the acting tends to be pretty good.
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can't outrun your own shadow
France produced many great films in the 1930s, by directors such as Vigo, Renoir, Carne, Cocteau, Clair, etc. After the war, the film industry reorganized along the lines of the US, and while there were certainly many great films from the 1950s, from Clouzot, Melville, Tati, and others, there was a reaction against what many perceived to be the "soul-less" element, as opposed to personal and adventurous. This produced the "new wave", and the "excellent movies of the 60s" mentioned in the last post.
The "redeeming" factor is not only the acting, but the emphasis that's put on character, rather than pure plot.
I want to shake every limb in the Garden of Eden
and make every lover the love of my life
I agree about the 1930s French movies. Actually back then people really cared about story telling. I love black & white movies from the past both American, British, French and Russian. Even when the acting was sometimes very theatrical it worked perfectly with the mood, language and setting of the movie.
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can't outrun your own shadow
So what?
Or do you have a problem with this movie?
Here is my problem with this movie.
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For one thing, it's snobbish. Has the auteur actually read "Anna Karenina"? I think not. Otherwise, I fail to see the parallels here with Tolstoy's morose novel about an upper-class housewife who creates a scandal by leaving her husband and child, and going to live with her lover. Is Renée supposed to be Anna Karenina? Because even if we make the stretch that both these women transgress social rules, they do so in completely different ways.
The incongruity is especially striking in the death scene. Anna Karenina committed suicide -- an act which Tolstoy treated as the epitome of selfishness. There is a chilling scene in the novel describing the heroine's deliberation, the act, and her desperate, last-ditch attempt to back out. Not only was Anna Karenina's death deliberate, it was clearly the consequence of her abandoning reason for the sake of passion, her departure from the principle of moderation and being a good person. Renée, by contrast, dies in an accident -- and moreover, she dies while saving a mentally disturbed person. It's an act of self-sacrifice, and thus the polar opposite of the nature of Anna Karenina's death.
Even giving the auteur here the benefit of the doubt and assuming she read the novel to which she refers so copiously, the film displays a certain intellectual laziness that I find quite distasteful. It's as if she is saying, "Okay, both Anna Karenina and Renée are tragic women shunned by society, and that's deep enough for the usual arthouse crowd." Sorry, but for me, this is snobbery distilled.
And then there is Paloma. In the abstract, it's indescribably tragic if a child becomes suicidal, but in Paloma's case, I just couldn't bring myself to care. That's because Paloma is utterly devoid of humanity. Oh, she's a smart little girl, for sure -- but she is not a child you can love, or be loved by. I can't help but feel sympathy for her much-maligned mother; if I had a kid like that, I'd probably be on drugs, too. And what is humanity, you might ask? It is vulnerability, and the need for others, even imperfect others, that makes people human. Paloma is invulnerable, self-sufficient, and unforgiving. And besides, for her, suicide makes sense. If you are that perfect at the age of freakin' 12, there is little to aspire to in your future. If you can create such magnificent art, film a perfect documentary without ever having to retape, speak multiple languages, and understand the world and the people in it completely, what's there to look forward to? What is she to do with her life for the next 70 years? Nothing, I think -- so suicide seems like a rational decision. A horrible thing to say, I realize, but remember, we are talking about someone who isn't really human anyway.
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http://thisruthlessworld.wordpress.com
@Redisca: Why did you think this is supposed to be a re-telling of Anna Karenina? I'm sorry, but just because the book and its first line are mentioned a couple of times (hardly "copiously" and it could easily have been War and Peace or any other book, or a film) doesn't mean the film is a re-telling of the book, and I see no other grounds for thinking it is. Your criticism on this is therefore besides the point; it's not a re-telling of Anna Karenina, and it wasn't meant to be. Besides, Renee is supposed to be well-read, not a fan solely of this book (we have no reason to think she identifies with Ana Karenina in particular), and likewise the Japanese neighbour.
"And what is humanity, you might ask? It is vulnerability, and the need for others, even imperfect others, that makes people human. Paloma is invulnerable, self-sufficient, and unforgiving."
Huh? Just because she wasn't crying in the corner all day about it (in her mother's self-pitying style - no doubt Paloma's stoicism comes from a rejection of her mother's sentimentalism and self-pity) doesn't mean Paloma isn't lonely. As a rule, the suicidal are not usually happy with their lives. She has nothing in common with her family at all (her mother is far more interested in talking to her plants than to her daughter - nobody in the family seems to love Paloma, is it any wonder she is withdrawn has had to become unusually self-sufficient?), and seemingly has no friends her own age, but that doesn't mean she's lonely by choice; her desire for friendship seems pretty genuine (and Renee was definitely imperfect). You generally need some common ground to connect to others, and in Paloma's case with the two adults she befriends it was being an outsider. She likely also felt, as children sometimes do, a need to be taken seriously by someone - no wonder she befriends the neighbour who, instead of giving her over-the-top, false praise for her Japanese (which would've been treating her like an idiot who cannot tell the praise is false and can't handle criticism), offers to correct her pronunciation (giving her a choice and implying she can be treated as someone capable of receiving constructive criticism).
Paloma is unforgiving, yes, but put yourself in her shoes - she's more mature and, esp., talented than many adults, yet she has no control over her own life - don't you think it's natural she'd be unforgiving of adults who in her view are wasting their lives and, compared to a 12-year-old, are in charge of their own lives?
This is indeed one of the most hilarious mis-readings of a film that I've seen on these boards. Anna Karenina is a a McGuffin that stands foe Renee and Ozu's intellectual compatibility: they both love the same book, to the extent that she has named her cat after the author and he has named his after some of its characters.
There is a bit of irony in that Renee is the opposite of Anna in many ways. And her unexpected death is in ways also the opposite of Anna's.
So, there's no deep parallel intended, but they were in fact intended to be opposites, but as a very minor theme.
That you didn't get this shows an incredible rigidity of thinking: you leap to the assumption that Renee stands for Anna, and it keeps on not only working, but working backwards, and it never occurs to you that to the extent that we are supposed to compare them, they are supposed to be opposites.
I wonder is that has some common origin with your inability to empathize with Paloma, which seems partly inherent but mostly a function of your inability to read the social cues about her situation. The other poster replying laid out the argument for why most people respond to her very sympathetically, but you seemed to miss all of that information.
Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.share
Why so chauvinist silly little American?
shareWell, your first couple statements are true, but I don't see what it has to do with this lovely little film.
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