Three new reviews at Slant this week, none of which are going to put me in the running for a Pulitzer but all of which I feel, at least, moderately pleased with.1) Une Femme Mariée (Jean-Luc Godard) DVD Review
"If Breathless was a cheap comic book of sorts, composed of hard angles with images stepping all over one another's toes in a frenzied rush for superiority, Femme Mariée is a sleek catalog: smooth but opaque, with every edge snugly rounded and beveled, and the price of every object tastefully included as a caption. You could read it, but you'd get more pleasure from absent-mindedly perusing, wetting your lips at the thought of applying Charlotte's romance games to your own love life, and lingering on oddly familiar images that seem plucked from your brain's wardrobe of kinesthetic reveries."
2) Betty Blue: The Director's Cut (Jean-Jacques Beineix)
"Two decades later, the aesthetic divide between Jean-Jacques Beineix's extroverted-noir debut Diva and his bloated, lusty third film Betty Blue seems much less gaping, particularly for viewers intrepid enough to regard his sophomore effort, the faux-pulp kaleidoscope Moon in the Gutter, as a homely missing link. Diva is genre-obsessed, an unwieldy meditation on dystopian thriller tropes and clichés that distracts us from its overwritten plot with shorn scalps and sexy jump cuts; Betty Blue is character-obsessed, an unwieldy meditation on the self-destructing nature of domestic relationships that distracts us from its lack of amorous insight with nipples, dicks, and the occasional fork stabbing."
3) Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)
"One may marvel at the tragically apt synchronicity achieved in releasing Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love roughly one week after President Obama's Koran recitation before a Palestinian audience in Cairo—though the connection between the two events is not immediately limpid. For those unaware: N'Dour is a Senegalese "Sufi-star," quite removed (at least geographically) from the Muslim maelstrom of the Middle East, and best known to the U.S. for warbling in Wolof atop the ending vamp of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes." Furthermore, his music's universally applauded blend of socio-political frustration and preservation (he sings in the all-but-extinct griot style, an African tradition of melodic announcement inherited from his grandmother) seems at a cursory glance rather fecund fodder for a Western-bound documentary; certainly director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi captures something of the resilient passion of world music by recounting N'Dour's ascent from the slum-clubs of Senegal to the multi-track, Daniel Lanois studios of Afro-European pop."
A few observations:
- My reviews tend to be lengthy for Slant, but brief for the blogosphere. No winning that game, I assume.
- It was pretty neat finally reviewing a Godard film, though I have this dreadful feeling that I completely missed the point...I suspect this is par for the Godard course, however.
- I have a tendency to complicate and obfuscate political resonance to the point where all parties involved are damned to perpetuate a hegemonic cycle they inherited from previous generations. In other words, like most political cynics I prefer to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution...though I'm now thinking that this is not terribly expedient posture.
4 comments:
"The "booklet" featured with the U.S. copy is a Koch Lorber catalogue, though admittedly this does fit the film's ethos rather well."
Ah Jon, you are a witty fellow! I just read the review, but needed to back track as it was an intricate read, not easily absorbed on first reading. But it's magisterial and it's what film criticism should be at it's most challenging.
In any case, I do own the magnificent Masters of Cinema DVD here (I am hopelessly addicted to obtaining every single MOC and Criterion release) and i do think UN FEMME MARIEE is considerably stronger than your stunning intellectual treatise would suggest. But it is not a perfect film either as Godard dispenses with the traditional talking head device to have his characters speak to the camera in monogues, and the results ar erather mixed as the ensuing constrictions are obvious. Still, the film is a compelling companion piece to LES MEPRIS, while containing some elements of VIVRE SA VIE. It's breathlessly poetic "social analysis" portends his later (and even greater) TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER. Yet, again, like LES MEPRIS, it examines infidelity and vasillating affections, while in this instance affording the female side a more sympathetic treatment. Godard's use of the city scape, ably aided by Raoul Cotard's vigilant camera, sets up an interesting juxtoposition of Meril and the backrounds, as she invariable blends is. The musical score too is quit eeffective here.
As far as BETTY BLUE (again a masterly piece that rightly dismisses its subject) I can pretty much concur with this:
"an unwieldy meditation on the self-destructing nature of domestic relationships that distracts us from its lack of amorous insight with nipples, dicks, and the occasional fork stabbing..."
I'll admit Jon, however, that I fell for DIVA, hook, line and sinker, as I am hopelessly smitten with "Ebben No Lontana" from Catalani's LA WALLY, one of opera's greatest soprano arias, that was used to spectacular effect in the film. It's no masterwork, but it's a solid, if (as you rightly note) rather over-written.
I certainly will return to your review of YOUSSOU soon enough, as I am planning to see this. I am most intrigued!
One more thing. Even though I didn't yet see YOUSSOU, you did have one classic sentence that's worth re-printing here:
"As much as America enjoys masturbatory daydreams wherein it plays global dues ex machina, I Bring What I Love—as with Obama's uneasy quotes from the other Abrahamic holy book—suggests that the few bridges existing between the secular West and the Muslim East grow flimsier and more precarious to traverse by the day."
Nice! Ha!
Thanks Sam. Actually I enjoyed both the Godard and "Betty Blue" a bit more than your comment would suggest, but it might be that my reviews are too enigmatic at times. The Godard I thought was riveting -- very near to perfect -- but I had to award it only 2 stars due to Slant policy about scoring extras, etc. You're right that it's not quite in the company of LE MEPRIS, however, which is one of the truly towering achievements of Nouvelle Vague cinema.
"Betty Blue" I think is too often panned -- it's actually NOT that bad, it's simply a plodding, difficult film where "Diva" was a breezy, easy-to-enjoy one. No one should make the mistake of assuming that the movie has anything to say about relationships, however -- it does not. Then again, neither does "Une Femme Mariée".
Bonjour! Jon,
After reading your reviews, I guess that I will be throwing these two films in the cart.Messieur(s) Jean-Luc Godard's Une Femme Mariée and Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue: The Director's Cut.
Sacrebleu!
(As I slap my right cheek!)...
...To be honest with you, if it was not for your Blue screen (Screenshot) the "latter" film probably would have "ended up" under my radar screen!
Merci!
DeeDee ;-D
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