Just an awful and unengaging French movie about murderous civil war in a backward African country, about a coffee plantation owner's wife trying to get her coffee crop harvested in the middle of a violent civil war(what!!!) that has severely disrupted everything and put everyone's life in danger, and especially her family. What resulted is a confused mess of a critic's darling film that regular viewers will hate or not see, which is more likely, as always. This film will do no business in America, and surely will do poorly even in France. It is that bad and worse than many amateur's cheap docu-dramas.
Chopped up and haphazard editing("this is art")led to poor story continuity, flashbacks and flash forwards were thrown in without any sense of story progression or sense, and phone-it-in, very bland "acting" by the lead, played by Isabelle Huppert, made this the worst, should-have-been-good movie I have paid to see in ages, and I dearly love French films. The only thing good about it was the cinematography, and that was even much less than it should have been for a film made in wondrously beautiful Africa.
Isabelle Huppert showed an emotional range here of A to B and no more. No matter what was happening, bad to worse to worst, her face showed no emotion and was as relaxed as if she were strolling along the Seine, and her calm voice also reflected no emotion no matter that her world was crumbling around her. Plus, the oblique and foggy acting technique of the entire cast, obviously done at the filmmaker's "creative" insistence, did little to clarify or explain anything before or during the crisis they were in, and as was probably said at the time, "Hey, this is an art film! Anything goes." A good story well told instead would have been far superior and actually meant something.
See this failure of a film if you want to see a clueless French woman constantly wondering around rural Africa with a confused look on her face while making some of the most stupid decisions one could make with her life on the line, and that of her family. And the chopped off, abrupt ending left us smack in the middle of the mess and led nowhere. What a disappointment this film was in every way possible. It could have really said something of interest, instead of boring us to death. We can get that for free.
Chopped up and haphazard editing("this is art")led to poor story continuity, flashbacks and flash forwards were thrown in without any sense of story progression or sense, and phone-it-in, very bland "acting" by the lead, played by Isabelle Huppert, made this the worst, should-have-been-good movie I have paid to see in ages, and I dearly love French films. The only thing good about it was the cinematography, and that was even much less than it should have been for a film made in wondrously beautiful Africa.
Isabelle Huppert showed an emotional range here of A to B and no more. No matter what was happening, bad to worse to worst, her face showed no emotion and was as relaxed as if she were strolling along the Seine, and her calm voice also reflected no emotion no matter that her world was crumbling around her. Plus, the oblique and foggy acting technique of the entire cast, obviously done at the filmmaker's "creative" insistence, did little to clarify or explain anything before or during the crisis they were in, and as was probably said at the time, "Hey, this is an art film! Anything goes." A good story well told instead would have been far superior and actually meant something.
See this failure of a film if you want to see a clueless French woman constantly wondering around rural Africa with a confused look on her face while making some of the most stupid decisions one could make with her life on the line, and that of her family. And the chopped off, abrupt ending left us smack in the middle of the mess and led nowhere. What a disappointment this film was in every way possible. It could have really said something of interest, instead of boring us to death. We can get that for free.