Watched this recent French film last night; the winner of this year's Palme d'Or, which says something about the level of competition in the world of film today.
It's an excellently acted and well-shot story of a wife on trial for the possible murder of her husband, who is found fallen from the highest window of their alpine home, but at 2½ hours, it's a good 40 or 50 minutes too long for such a small and relatively simple tale. There are endless courtroom scenes that don't progress the narrative or lead to any shocking twists, which could have easily been compressed or pared down in more competent hands.
It's an extremely - and frustratingly - female film, in its wallowing in subjectivity and its repeated assertion that what one feels is actual reality, rather than the facts of the matter, and as a result, there is no clear ending to the film, the message being that you can choose to believe whatever the hell you like. But of course this is silly nonsense: either one human being pushed another human being out of a window or they didn't, and in a murder trial, that should be all that matters.
So yes, it's a strange thing to rate: on a moment-by-moment basis, it's well-observed and often engrossing, but the substance of the story itself is flimsy and, in the final analysis, almost non-existent, so the most I can generously give it is 6/10.
It's an excellently acted and well-shot story of a wife on trial for the possible murder of her husband, who is found fallen from the highest window of their alpine home, but at 2½ hours, it's a good 40 or 50 minutes too long for such a small and relatively simple tale. There are endless courtroom scenes that don't progress the narrative or lead to any shocking twists, which could have easily been compressed or pared down in more competent hands.
It's an extremely - and frustratingly - female film, in its wallowing in subjectivity and its repeated assertion that what one feels is actual reality, rather than the facts of the matter, and as a result, there is no clear ending to the film, the message being that you can choose to believe whatever the hell you like. But of course this is silly nonsense: either one human being pushed another human being out of a window or they didn't, and in a murder trial, that should be all that matters.
So yes, it's a strange thing to rate: on a moment-by-moment basis, it's well-observed and often engrossing, but the substance of the story itself is flimsy and, in the final analysis, almost non-existent, so the most I can generously give it is 6/10.