A shallow movie which main focus is set on a dull love story with too long and irrelevant scenes between the lovers instead of telling us about all the challenges met by Eiffel, his background, childhood, social origins, his education, his aspirations and dreams, his past architectural realisations only furtively mentioned - bridges and the structure of the statue of Liberty among others, the urban context of Paris, a bit of history about Paris, the district choice, the sociology, the technological advances that made it possible... So many interesting topics completely overseen to focus on the irrelevant melodrama. Was it the marketing studies that convinced the producers to make it 60% a love story and oversimplify all about the process, instead of making an architectural and historical epic film? I am french and I am disappointed. Another missed opportunity to make a great film.
Reviews
4 Reviews
The Adam Project
(2022)
Disappointing mix of readymade recipes
13 March 2022
Take a bunch of recipes from what some algorithms returned from analyzing commercially (not artistically) successful features in Hollywood movies, shake it and there you got the new remix. Cheap entertainment with some gross humour, some cheesy romantic scenes, caricatural characters without depth, glossy droids that die from a single bullet, everything smooth and without much originality or personality. I saw craft without the art and soul. A disappointing experience. Good films are rare. The establishment likes consumers, they consume and forget and consume again and forget again... to do their revolution. Such superficial movies without profound reason to be won't surely teach a viewer something new, something useful, something worth their precious time. I don't need a plethora of special effects to be told an interesting and touching story about characters I care about. The economy of means, the unseen can be even more powerful.
CODA
(2021)
A good remake, but just a remake.
20 February 2022
Just an american remake, a good and well-played copy of the nice and original french comedy 'La Famille Bélier' (2014), which gets more points for being the original one. It's a bit easy to take a European or Asian commercial success and make an american version of it. There is a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to american remakes of films of foreign films. Check out the originals with subtitles, they are often the best !
Anton Corbijn Inside Out
(2012)
Slow and dull documentary about a great photographer
21 July 2019
Maybe due to Anton Corbijn modesty and paradoxically introvert character, while working so successfully as a photographer portraying so many famous artists, a very social job, this documentary left me very hungry for answers : how did he decide to become a photographer, did he attend an art school, how did he meet the guys from Joy Division, U2, Depeche Mode, Tom Waits, and many more ? How did he build trust with the musicians ? Did he move to London or did he manage to start off his career from the Netherlands ? Did he have a mentor or an agent who helped him develop his professional network and business ? How did he make the transition from the still to the moving image and direct his first music videos ? How does one describe his style ? In my opinion, most of these questions remain unanswered. The greatest scenes are the moments when we see Anton Corbijn at work, shooting portraits of musicians or review them with them. And still I was surprised how little the photographer speaks or directs his models, at least in the sequences composing this documentary. The exhibition opening shots are rather boring. It is interesting to have some information about his childhood, family background and have included words by his sister. The documentary's cinematography is not quite excellent and the pace of the editing is very slow. As a fan of his works, I watched the whole film, but after only 15-20 minutes, I started getting bored. The main feeling emanating from the documentary is the immense solitude of the dedicated artist, a man without children, having maybe his musical friends as his main family, while traveling the world for his work. I am disappointed because I wanted to watch a much more complete and lively biographical film about the talented dutch photographer. An artist him/herself is rarely the best person to speak about one's own works.
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