Highly Overrated - most people will be bored silly - Deux jours, une nuit (2014) Discussion

[–] dogleg 9 years ago

It's a Belgian film...Not a French film.

reply

Who cares what most think? She's amazing in this. Most people are bored with anything that doesn't have gun fights, CGI, explosions, plot twists or characters yelling or whipping out witty one liners.

reply

[–] paper-pagan 9 years ago

I was going to say just that. Thank you.

reply

[–] Chocolegz 9 years ago

right

Erik Lehnsherr: You want society to accept you, but you can't even accept yourself.

reply

[–] kvc2 9 years ago

A work of art like 2D1N will never be loved by those who are not open-hearted. That's the whole point of the Dardennes' work -- to emphasize the people who surround us every day, when we are not looking or purposefully looking away. This movie, and Cotillard's work in it, are a continuation of these artists' work to focus on the struggles of people to decide for their better nature. When deciding to help someone keep her job so she can keep her house for her family, and prioritize building an extension on your house or doing what your husband wants, the issues don't seem to give much of a real choice to me. I'd have given up the bonus, and I'll bet you would not.

You probably missed the machine gun fire, the car crashes, buildings blowing up and criminals running the streets selling drugs. That's what all American movies seem to be like these days. Comic book superheroes are so boring and overdone, and many people fall asleep in those movies. Sorry there wasn't enough excitement to keep you awake on this film, so you can just turn away and forget about those who battle every day to survive the economics over which they have no control.

reply

[–] Chocolegz 9 years ago

I think you're confused by what Enigma said. Enigma is actually agreeing with you. So am I.

Erik Lehnsherr: You want society to accept you, but you can't even accept yourself.

reply

[–] BB-15 9 years ago

by kvc2;

"A work of art like 2D1N will never be loved by those who are not open-hearted. That's the whole point of the Dardennes' work -- to emphasize the people who surround us every day, when we are not looking or purposefully looking away. This movie, and Cotillard's work in it, are a continuation of these artists' work to focus on the struggles of people to decide for their better nature."

I agree. This was a key to the movie for me.
These workers were under financial pressure. Some really needed the money and still gave it up to help Cotillard's character. Others wanted to help her but needed the money more. And a few didn't care about her and wanted her to lose her job.

The film presents an uncomfortable situation to the audience; what would we do in that kind of situation?
- I could understand that some would find the movie boring because it is simple for them; just think for yourself and don't help others who are in trouble.

For me, I thought Cotillard's performance was excellent and I enjoyed that the movie had a sense of realism to it in terms of touching on the lives of average people.

BB ;-)

it is just in my opinion - imo - 🌈

reply

[–] Joeyjag_97 7 years ago

^This guy gets it.

"A man chooses. A slave obeys."

reply

[–] weaveofkev-119-712475 7 years ago

Agreed.

reply

[–] wildtalesvolver 9 years ago

Marion's acting is fine and even if this film sucked it was definitely not her fault. I strongly doubt anyone can stay focus to the film when they watch this snooze fest. I expected she pulled out some powerful arguments to change how her colleagues decide. And it turned out that all she did was begging for sympathy. The plot is lazy and people need to stop finding excuses for this film.

reply

[–] subotica500 9 years ago

To me it was an actor's film. I love Marion but the premise of the film just did nothing for me. It's just a job after all.

I lost a decent job eighteen months ago and it made me knuckle down and concentrate on more important things than being just a wage slave.

http://www.last.fm/user/Nearco

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

I think you didn't understand the film at all. It is not about the job, after all, she walks away from it with a smile on her face.

It is about depression, human dignity, courage and alienation.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

Americans...what can you do?

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

You never know with such a forum. The nick name subotica... refers to a small town in Serbia, unlikely choice for an American.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

Well, I'm an American myself but it just sounded like a typical thing an American would say. You know, missing the larger point to concentrate on the materialistic aspects.

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

Maybe so, but no-one has monopoly on materialism. In many less developed countries, people react in such a way, as they are demoralized and living in survival mode, so they become cynics.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

I guess you are right.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

However I will make one more point that the US has brought these kinds of values to the world by, in this case, bombing Serbia's previous socialist government out of existence.

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

Well, considering it was a government that advocated war, based on their idea that "Serbia always won in war and lost in diplomacy", I guess they deserved it. However, there are civilian casualties in every war, and this is the real tragedy, all these people who did not make the policies.

Ex-Yugoslavia was a country where various ethnic groups and religions lived in considerable harmony and especially young people had grown together and were mixing freely ... The Serbian authorities decided this was not in their best political interests and set out to systematically destroy this harmony. It was not easy, they worked on it relentlessly for 10 years, before they managed to ignite the war. After that, events went where wars always go - endless suffering and injustices. That is why their leaders were shipped off to the war tribunal in the Hague. There are some other people I would like to see there ...

But, I am completely off-topic now.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

That's really not what happened at all. I suggest you read this article by Michael Parenti - http://www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

What I wrote is first-hand knowledge, not derived. I am completely disgusted by the twisted logic in the link you provided.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

Can you give an example of what you found disgusting? Where are you from?

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

What is disgusting is that he has summarized all the Serb self-justification propaganda and is presenting that as fact. He claims that the Bosnian Muslims bombed themselves in Sarajevo, he tries to relativize Serb rape campaigns in Bosnia, which is really an evil thing to do. He responds to what he sees as demonizing Serbs with demonizing the US. Serbs caused that war, but they are trying to remake themselves as the victims. Just as the Russians attacked Ukraine, but are trying to present themselves as victims of US aggression in the region.

He even seems to accept the theories launched by Serbs that the US was trying to break up Yugoslavia, which is completely wrong. The US were scared *beep* of a Yugoslavia breakup, because the US had an eye on the Soviet region and were afraid that a breakup of that could cause a nuclear catastrophe, Yugoslavia itself was not that important in the grand scheme of things, the problem just had to be contained. When Slovenia decided to declare independence, George Bush Sr. went there and tried to persuade them to desist ... because of the fear of a domino effect to Russia that would leave nuclear weapons in the hands of God knows who.

When Yugoslavia started breaking apart, Macedonians, Bosnian, Croatians were all extremely afraid of war, but not so the Serbs, they had most of the army and where confident of a victory. They threatened, gave ultimatums and did a lot of warmongering. In Belgrade, it was about political power, but the Serb forces in Bosnia and Croatia operated just as ISIS in Syria - Iraq, it was mostly about pillage and rape.

War is always horrible, for this reason it is difficult to support the NATO attack on Serbia. The civilians always suffer. But, there was no other way to stop them and allow the region to return to peace. As an American, you may well be ashamed of what was done in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I do not think you should be ashamed that the US stopped the Serb aggression against the other Yugoslav nations. Especially as there was no invasion, and the region is now slowly integrating with the rest of Europe, even Serbia is on that road.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

He even seems to accept the theories launched by Serbs that the US was trying to break up Yugoslavia, which is completely wrong. The US were scared *beep* of a Yugoslavia breakup

Then why did they bomb them? You do realize the US controls NATO? Are you aware the the US is the self-professed "unipolar hegemon" with military deployments in at least 153 countries (75% of them) according to the Pentagon? Do you think that Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria (and dozens more) also deserved to be bombed into the stone-age with massive chaos and human suffering for years to come? I'm sorry, you are really out to lunch. What you are spouting is straight out of Langley (CIA headquarters). There's just not a lick of truth to it. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

Why? Because Yugoslavia had already fallen apart, the whole region was moving on, wanting to become EU members ... but Serbia was stuck in a political rut, with politicians who were made by the war, tied to criminal gangs that participated in the looting and just would not move on. Serbia was destabilizing the region, preventing the aspirations of all the others and just refusing to move on.

Does this justify bombing? Can anything justify bombing, I am not sure. But, I am quite sure there was no other way to do it ... other than just going along with Serbia and sacrificing everyone else.

reply

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

Everybody was afraid of war. The JNA (Jugoslav National Army) was made up of members of all the republics and when war broke out various detachments went their separate ways. I dont think anyone in their right mind could have predicted or envisioned how tragic and extreme some of the events in the war happened.

As an Ex-Yugo I will always be sad that it broke up. But no one wanted war and everyone was afraid of it. ex-Yugo in the diaspora watching from the outside could not believe their eyes that they were all going to war with each other. You had two types of people back then -- the ones that believed in a united country and the ones that believed in their peoples. Various nationalist political groups were causing problems for a long time before the break up started. Many people myself included could not believe that some national groups (I wont point fingers as whats the point now) were publicly riding on the wave of tragic events from WWII that had haunted and tainted those particular people.

"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of mobile
with the memphis blues again"

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

The times were changing, but the central forces did not accept this change. Looking back, you can see that it was time for EU integration, open markets, democracy ... In Belgrade, they did not want this at all and this is what caused others to rebel and gave force to nationalist sentiment everywhere. In Belgrade they wanted to keep Yugoslavia, but under primitive Serb control, just as Russia is now trying to keep Ukraine and other countries under their strong control. This was and is an anachronism, it could not have worked. It is difficult not to point fingers, because only in Serbia were they prepared to use violence against other nationalities, the others just wanted to be left alone. The reason was this crazy idea that Serbs win wars and lose in diplomacy.

The fight against change started long before the war. It started within the Communist Party as a fight against the slightly reformist Slovenian Communists in the late 1980s and just escalated from there. After Serbia started printing Yugoslav currency and distributing it only to Serbian enterprises, there was no longer any choice. It would be like Greece starting to print Euros to pay back their debt. Would the EU react? You bet your ass they would have to.

I remember reading an analysis by a British expert, and he said that Milosevic is the most brilliant political tactician he had ever analyzed ... but that he had absolutely no idea where he was going. This was in the early 1990s, very prophetic. And today, Putin is the same sort of fish, he is making brilliant moves and destroying the fundaments of Russia. Inevitably, what he will leave behind him is just pain and misery.

reply

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

Those are theories put forth by people that did not want to take any blame for their actions. The choice to go to war or not was within their control. It does not take a Mother Theresa to just drop a weapon and say "I am just not doing this!".

The Yugo wars, the bottom line was this -- you had a lot of non-Croatians who lived in Croatia. When Croatia separated the people knew they would be relegated to 3rd class status within their own country. Its similar to non-Albanians living in Kosova and Albania. All the police, judges, politicians and government officials are Albanians and they all have connections to each other. If you are wronged you stand no chance whatever of getting any justice or being treated fair under the law. Should someone try to take your property. Should someone build a structure on your land. Should someone beat you or a family member up. And if you mouth off things get a lot worse. This is what drove non-Croatian population to chose federation over nation. Thats all there is to it. Its all about land and security. People knew because they had already experienced it before. The mythic fairy tales of Paritzans protecting the future Yugoslavs omitted the part where Partizans were being shot at by farmers who were scared *beep* of them all over the lands. They were scared of them because bad things had happened. Feel free to dig up stories of Croatian police breaking peasant faces on trains and Serbian officers breaking faces all over the streets of Belgrade in the times of the Balkan wars and WWI. It was never a one people against the central forces -- at the time Hungary, Austria -- and then later on Germany and Italy.

The history of Yugo could be broken down into 2 stages of dictatorship. Stage one was the center of power in the North. During that time Tito moved anything of value and resources and industry from all other republics to the north to Croatia and Slovenia. During that time he also killed off and imprisoned anyone who opposed his views. After his death the power slowly shifted to Belgrade and Serbia tried to do the same thing. And from there things got worse.

"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of mobile
with the memphis blues again"

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

You almost got it right.

It is not that Serbs were to be relegated to 3rd class citizens, it is that Belgrade convinced them so and got them to rise pre-emptively to prevent this. Fears were present, and Belgrade stoked them, armed them, encouraged them and organized them. This exactly the same thing that the Russians have done in Ukraine. Same technique, same mentality, same KGB schools.

Croatia was on the road to EU membership and the first step in this process is adopting democratic and human rights standards of the Council of Europe. There is no way Serbs were to become 3rd rate citizens. But they got lost in these myths and started the war before anything happened to them.

Anyway, we are really embarrassingly off-topic, let's finish it off quickly.

reply

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

It is my experience that there is no point discussing and debating these matters on the Internet. No one agrees to see anyones views and it never goes anywhere meaningful.

For the record, 1/2 of my family are descended from the Osijek area in present day Croatia. From everything I have been told by the family, its a small Serbian village that had been in existence for at least 200 or 250 years more or less. Long time ago when I had visited to rediscover my "roots" and spoke to people in the village, they identified themselves as Slavonians; neither Croatians nor Serbians.

"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of mobile
with the memphis blues again"

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

This is true, even people who lived through it cannot agree as to what was happening. Everyone has been subjected with merciless political propaganda from all sides and it is virtually impossible to unravel. Even families, who love and respect each other are split when it comes to these questions.

So, I agree we will never reach consensus on the net.

There are lessons to be taken from this catastrophe and they are that war is always terrible for everyone involved. There are no winners in war, some lose more, others lose less, but they all lose in the end. All Yugoslav peoples lost in that war. Had Yugoslavia, at the time, tried to join the EU, vast funds what have been made available and the country would prosper instead of getting bogged down in war. The other lesson is that once war starts, the worst people emerge on the top on both sides and atrocities happen everywhere. That is why I think it important to debunk myths, such as the famous Serb myth of "we win in wars and then lose it all in diplomacy", especially as this myth was launched by the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the intellectual Mecca of the time. Such evil thinking causes people to become reckless and forget that war destroys everyone. Another important lesson is that there are no religious wars, wars are fought for power, fame and especially plunder, even rape (which is just power). This was so in Bosnia, and it is so with ISIS. These criminals justify themselves on religious grounds, as that is the only possible justification for pillage and rape, what human society would otherwise condone pillage and rape?

reply

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

no point analyzing it or dwelling on it. it has passed and everyone is moving. yugoslavia was a very small part of the history of the peoples that live in that region and is very closely attached to the now defunct ideology of communism. everyone moved on and everyone moved to capitalism. it only existed for 50 or so years. it really means nothing in the long history of the peoples that live there.

the only thing I see of relevance in reading up on Yugo is that it points to the notion that multi-culturalism maybe is not that good an idea. when things go sour people arm themselves to protect their interests and they align themselves into their own ethnic groups.

there is lots of info out there that indicates that the communist government intentionally tried to mix up the population and offered various incentives in various forms to people to move their families into other republics. its very interesting to see the change in population mix of some of the republics after the WWII and into the 80s. i try to look up on as positively and try to believe that Tito and this clan didnt do it to intentionally cause problems but did it to try to prevent in the future the ethnic problems that they fought with and clearly existed before WWII and WWI. Perhaps they thought if Croatia didn't just have Croatians and Serbia didn't just have Serbians and so on.. it would create the brotherhood in which they so much believed in. (It still doesn't explain why hardly anyone moved or was allowed to move to Slovenia, which seems counter intuitive as Slovenia was always the most well off and richest and everyone from the poorer parts of the Federation would have naturally flocked up there to have a better life). Anyways, in retrospect, the communists were clearly wrong in their decisions if they intentionally mixed up the republics.

"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of mobile
with the memphis blues again"

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

Actually, quite a few people moved to Slovenia. One of the reasons for not going was the necessity of learning a new language, the other was the perception that Slovenians were hard working but selfish people, who did not know how to enjoy life. It makes no difference whether this is true, such was the perspective.

reply

[–] roell29 9 years ago

But you know, at the same time the Serbs were exclusively being blamed for "ethnic cleansing" in the Western media, Serbia was the only country involved who was desperately trying to hold together a multi-ethnic Republic. It was a top priority for the "Mighty Wurlitzer" (global US/UK propaganda machine) to demonize Serbs mercilessly since the country was scheduled to be knocked over and removed as an ally of Russia. This was just the Empire getting rid of some minor competition and having it assimilated by the Borg. Germany assisted by instantly recognizing it's old ally Croatia as an independent country.

reply

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

The northern republics have always been a lot like the northern neighbors. A little less willing to accept minorities. You can't blame Croatians because if you look you will see the same and similar attitudes in Poland and Hungary and Slovenia. Its sort of rooted in the deep attitudes of the past. Believe it or not -- Tito the Commie opened the flood gates to a lot of minorities. Gypsies flocked to former Yugo because Yugo were a lot more tolerant towards them than other neighboring countries. You can blame Tito for the fact that half of Nis is a gypsy gettos.

"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of mobile
with the memphis blues again"

reply

[–] mlenriquez24 9 years ago

"I" meaning not the character Marion Cotillard playing.. obviously and more importantly, not all the people out there are the same as you, so you can't really speak for her or them.

reply

[–] Sundance-A-Kid 9 years ago

The plot is lazy and people need to stop finding excuses for this film.

There are no excuses needed when it has 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and has won 40 awards all around the world. It's annoying when people who don't like these types of critically acclaimed films - regardless of what it would be - make remarks that elevate themselves above a plethora of creditable, reputable sources. Even the Oscars were unable to overlook it. Everyone has the right to an opinion, obviously. But if you disagree with such an overwhelming amount of people who know their stuff then shouldn't you rather think, 'am I missing something?' 'Why don't I like this?' Your annoyance seems to be that you wanted her to have lots of pithy arguments - like you wanted there to be a team of Sopranos writers giving her a wealth of snappy bits of dialogue when that is not at all what this film is about.

The Dardennes (Directors) make films that look at humanity on the small scale to tell large scale stories. It's a particular style and not easy to get into if you're not used to it. Like Jazz or Classical music, it's harder to follow, but deeply moving if you can be bothered. It's not lazy at all - it's realistic, nuanced, meticulous and raw. If you want to like these types of films then I reckon it takes time, exploring European and South American and Asian(the dramas) cinema as well as the more nuanced American stuff. Start with the greats - Truffaut, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Fellini, Cassavetes, Altman and so on and then move on to more modern fare like Arnaud, Sorrentino, Wong Kar Wai, PT Anderson, Innaritu etc.. It's a long journey but films like this will become so much more satisfying with context. It's like trying to read Ulysses without understanding what came before - you'd be totally lost. Hope you do decide to explore though. There are so many wonderful little journeys out there that require knowing a little Coltrane before getting there.

reply

[–] trisul 9 years ago

Interesting how you see the film exclusively from the point of view of the physical action, you did not register any of the emotional happenings that are presented in it. I am sure you would vote for the bonus, totally clueless, like the robots that game theory thinks we are: calculating how to squeeze the most cash out of the least amount of effort.

reply

[–] testinator 9 years ago

This movie was absolutely boring.

Before the "I'm superrrr artistic, you just don't GET IT" arrogant self-aggrandizing retards start responding with "go watch Transformers", I like movies where plot or action aren't important, and it's all about the characters' emotions and experiences against a backdrop of difficulty (in this case, it was depression). Lost in Translation, Company Men and In the Pursuit of Happyness (this one especially) are in that genre, and they were miles more interesting than this movie imo.

The trouble with this movie was that next to nothing got resolved (e.g. is she still depressed and suicidal? Probably. Will her marriage still fail? Probably), the character barely got over any hurdles (she's still a scared weakling who can't fully argue her case with the big bosses, she only managed to mutter a sentence or two before running away), and only ended up doing what she would have done anyway had she not bothered chasing people down (i.e. look for jobs). Essentially, the movie was utterly pointless and I don't think her character grew much at all, certainly nowhere near as much as in other movies in that genre.

The emotional high you'd expect from this type of movie just wasn't there.

Also I found Cotillard's acting to be quite average.

reply

[–] yan-trussart 9 years ago

Amazing how you managed to miss the entire point of the movie.
The utilitarianist mindset with wich you seem to approach art will do that to you.

reply

[–] mlenriquez24 9 years ago

But the film isn't about getting things resolved? It's about finding optimism in a world lacking of it. If you thought her character, in a matter of Two days and one night, didn't at all grow then I'm afraid your right, you just didn't get it haha like mentioned before, your'e missing the larger point of the film and focusing on plot details, it's not how it works.. like Lost in Translation, a choice which bothered me because it's just as obscure as this one, nothing is resolved, nothing was made clear, but again like in Two days, everything is hinted you just have to look for it. I understand subjectivity, but your argument is pointing out the wrong things that honestly needn't much attention, these are deliberately left out details that inspires discussion and argument and the question you should be asking instead is why were they left out.

PS Pursuit was highly manipulative drama, strange you even think there is comparison besides genre.

reply

[–] alejandrotien 9 years ago

I have depression and this movie is one of the movies about depression that I can relate to the most. Funny how some people just miss the point of movies like this one.

reply

[–] robbystoner 9 years ago

I really like her work and really like this genre -- but I fell asleep on this one. The drama is just a little too stationary...

"Oh, Mama, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of mobile
with the memphis blues again"

reply

[–] mlenriquez24 9 years ago

"This is one of those movies that you wonder what the academy saw when they nominated this" This is the kind of comment that makes me wonder how people can hate something they didn't even get in the first place, you mean you only saw this film because your'e one of those people who put way too much importance on what "the academy" nominated? So typical. I can't talk about this film enough, read the reviews I don't care but for but for me the strength of the film comes from its subtlety and not from melodramatic cliches that french cinema used to do so well, your'e right, today? It's just as bad as american films.. enter Two days and One night something rarely seen in cinema nowadays, why rarely? As perfectly summarized by you, it is stripped down to a "synopsis" lacking any sort of depth and simplified to just what the story is about instead of focusing on what it is truly about, it's sad to see films like this get dumbed down with such simplistic analysis. The last thing you want to do when you come across anything from the independent circuit is to look for a "plot". Finally I just wanted to share a basic knowledge in cinema in the hopes that one day it might help your film-going experience, there are two types of audiences, one who judges a film based on surface level elements, "acting" and "story", the other sees how it was shot, edited, lit, written, structured, conceptualized and directed. One night and Two days is undoubtedly a great film and it's purpose is lost when you keep yakking about story and performances.

reply

[–] rahaei 9 years ago

Most people are idiots.

reply