This is so very frustrating. Here we have a genius at cinematic space, a gentle, quirky imagination and the skill to know how to start a story. He has made one of the most essential films I know. But he just does not know how to actually tell a story. I mean the qualities where we are engaged, suspended. I mean where we are engrossed in transformations of different kinds and we feel something has happened in us. I saw this close to "The Next Tree Days" and the contrast in engagement is startling.
The man also has bad intuitions about the degree of moralizing we will tolerate. Perhaps this works in France; the French are a preachy lot. But Jeunet's films are made for an international audience. The poor storytelling, the out-of-the-story moralizing and the distracting contortionist kept me from liking this.
But the opening is so extraordinary that I will recommend the film based on the first quarter. This is a swift, economical journey, one that is rich and nuanced.
It has all the folding baggage that seems essential today: our man has a childhood that forces him to live in his imagination. We see him as an adult merged with films... he works in a video store and while he enters films, they enter him — literally enter his brain. What follows is a brief wandering through performances without a narrative until he enter's one of Jeunet's by now familiar metaphors for the subconscious. Here, objects, personalities, film devices and it seems even story elements are recycled.
It also has Jeunet's masterful environments and behaviors: including his best framing and lighting tricks. It is just hypnotizing. The actors we meet engage us deeply, at least at first.
See it for this first part.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
The man also has bad intuitions about the degree of moralizing we will tolerate. Perhaps this works in France; the French are a preachy lot. But Jeunet's films are made for an international audience. The poor storytelling, the out-of-the-story moralizing and the distracting contortionist kept me from liking this.
But the opening is so extraordinary that I will recommend the film based on the first quarter. This is a swift, economical journey, one that is rich and nuanced.
It has all the folding baggage that seems essential today: our man has a childhood that forces him to live in his imagination. We see him as an adult merged with films... he works in a video store and while he enters films, they enter him — literally enter his brain. What follows is a brief wandering through performances without a narrative until he enter's one of Jeunet's by now familiar metaphors for the subconscious. Here, objects, personalities, film devices and it seems even story elements are recycled.
It also has Jeunet's masterful environments and behaviors: including his best framing and lighting tricks. It is just hypnotizing. The actors we meet engage us deeply, at least at first.
See it for this first part.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.