French films are shit. Porquoi?

Abel Gance's Napoleon is coming to town (in two parts) later this week. I hope to make the screenings.

French critics really into this film right now: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1314280/

looks awwwful

I just saw Mon Oncle which I enjoyed, except that the subtitling was kind of bad on the version I watched (although it's the type of film that, for the most part, could probably get away without dialogue, and I would guess that a more recent version would have updated the subtitles anyway). Otherwise, good stuff, was a bit surprised it hadn't already been mentioned here.

there's a Tati thread

The Class was great.

dassin retro at film forum right now

Saw Night and the City yesterday. It's my favorite movie ever. I think he only made 2 films in France. Preview for Up Tight! was pretty crazy.

The Gance Napoleon is the shit (especially the first half)

k, I'll persist w/Chabrol whenever I get the chance.

Wish I liked Tati more...Playtime does look pretty good from the bits of it I've seen...

Mid-60's to mid-70's Chabrol are some of my favorites. Definitely give him another chance. "This Man Must Die","The Butcher" and "Unfaithful Wife" are excellent.

On the Chabrol tip, I'd like to put in a good word for Le Beau Serge, A Double Tour, Les Bonnes Femmes, Les Biches, The Story of Women, and Betty (especially that one), all in addition to those Jay mentioned. Have only seen a fraction of his 70 or so films. Haven't met an out and out stinker yet (the closest was a recent one Comedy of Power, which was more underdeveloped than bad).

Just watched A Man Escaped last night and <333 françoise l'awesó, oui! Really liked L'Argent too. Bresson will come hang out in my DVD player all year! (Or at least until I've seen all of his films that the library has)

70?!?! I've seen Le Beau Serge and found it rough going...maybe some of the 1970s films might do something. After all, every film was amazing in the 70s ;-)

Entre Les Murs/The Class is absolutely outstanding. the best new film i've seen in a long time.

70?!?! I've seen Le Beau Serge and found it rough going...maybe some of the 1970s films might do something. After all, every film was amazing in the 70s ;-)

Actually, IMDB sez 71 (the newest of which is due later this year), but that includes TV stuff. So the actual feature count is in the 50s or 60s.

The Class doesn't really say anything, does it? Not that hasn't been said in Up the Down Staircase etc.

way to qualify. i think its a fair bit bleaker and has a lot of different things to say e.g. about gov't/bureaucracy/policy than up the down staircase but who cares if it says anything new??? even if it all it does is make the same points abt the french school system its still a pretty vital film imo

i mean werent u into that steve mcqueen movie dude wtf @ "doesnt really say anything"

http://reelsuave.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/water-lilies.jpg

Did anyone else see this? It's mostly par for the course French coming of age stuff, but the filmmaking itself is really beautiful. Almost every shot looks like a Gregory Crewdson photo or something; it's some of the best cinematography I've seen in a long time. It's all really haunting (and has a great soundtrack, too).

(I think it was released everywhere else as "Water Lilies," incidentally)

The Class isn't anywhere in Hunger's league on any score, DUDE. I like Cantet's shooting style and the actors -- far better than Up the Down Staircase -- but it's still the same old story, whereas Human Resources and Time Out weren't. Heading South and this one are a notch lower.

Do films have to "say something" to be truly great?

This was up on filmbrain the other day. It's an early 70s French tv ad for Schick aftershave directed by Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin starring the late, lovely Juliet Berto.

TH, if a film engages in 'realistic' social observation (like LC did re employment / professional identity in his 2 best films, or education here), then they have to "say something" to be above average.

do they just have to say something or do they have to say something new?

to earn the kinda raves The Class has been getting, new.

jsut fyi doctor in the director's cut it turns out that souleman was actually a bank robber and he and jason stathom get into a car chase through the streets of paris and then the cars explode and they fight their way up the eiffel tower using an explosive laden-soccer ball as a weapon

i thought that was a pretty new visual methaphor for social alienation tbh

lol @ my typing

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518B5i364hL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

watched this again recently btw one of the greatest french movies ever imo

"...It's easier to home now."

'go home"

my girlfriend and several of her friends, all of whom are teachers of one kind or another, said The Class was the only authentic representation of teaching they've ever seen on a screen.

to be fair morbs you don't ever really say anything (here) either other than talk about how films were received by critics or to dismiss other peoples opinions of them (this is easy) rather than saying why you actually liked or disliked them (this is more difficult).

it said quite a lot to me about teaching and about shifting power relations. about the daily extreme difficulty of doing the job and, by extension, of balancing fears and prejudices in everyday life in order to just get along with people. about how we repress our prejudices and how those prejudices come out involuntarily, unexpectedly. i was floored by the final scene in the classroom where that quiet, polite, mid-ability, student points out to the teacher that he hadn't asked her what she learned over the course of the year. it stops stone dead and it suddenly becomes the whole point of the film is that she doesn't speak until that point, she's just forgotten by the teacher and by the audience but her concerns are every bit as important, as crushing, as Souleymane or Esmeralde's which the whole film has been caught up with. i was moved almost to tears by this scene.

TH, if a film engages in 'realistic' social observation, then they have to "say something" to be above average.

Hence the overall shittiness of the overrated Dardennes' films.

Eric, have you seen anything besides The Child? I didn't think you had.

xp: I hope I made it clear I liked The Class Those points were present, jed, but I didn't find em revelatory.

points out to the teacher that he hadn't asked her what she learned over the course of the year.

Wait, doesn't she just say she learned nothing? Didn't believe the scene. Also thought the lead character was almost as annoying a showboat as Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson.

anyway, seen lately: Claire Denis' 35 Rhums, portrait of 5 characters in a not-quite family headed by a Paris train engineer, w/ her usual collaborators (Agnes Godard, Alex Descas, Gregoire Colin, Tindersticks). A-minus, no general US release yet.

I started The Son and turned it off.

Also thought the lead character was almost as annoying a showboat as Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson.

Yahbut at least French guy is taken to task for it a bit more; students call him out on it, anyway.

(Also seen Rosetta in bits and pieces, but nothing hooked me to watching it in full.)

The Son is easily in my top 10 of the '00s.

(also, Belgian)

Eric, you have to watch The Son at least til you find out what the deal is.

Rosetta kinda stinks.

(French-language. Looked like more of the same. If you're going to ape Bresson, at least be seamlessly formal about it.)

Also thought the lead character was almost as annoying a showboat as Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson.

i dont remember half nelson that well but cmon the class movie totally calls him on his bs. and i think its true if that matters the way it made his teaching seem like performing

i saw Naissance etc and was like hmm it's Fucking Amal all over again.
soundtrack had a great Boards of Canada vibe though.

(hmm Half Nelson is great) haven't seen the Class yet.

last French film i saw:
http://www.prixdvd.com/dvd_video/realisateurs/malle_louis/photos/zazie_dans_le_metro_.jpg
http://www.filmtotaal.nl/images/newscontent/f08572e.jpg
awesome and incredibly tiresome at the same time.

I don't find the D-Bros ape Bresson, but it's a kinda rich accusation coming from a Brian dP booster...

Do you really think in terms of "seamlessly formal" when you react to something? No wonder you like dance pop.

xp

ie, that they diverge from Bresson is a strength.

Jesus christ no it is not.

Everything the Dardennes is shallow, arrogant, pretentious shit is how they diverge.

Sorry, "everything the Dardennes DO"

we gotta get our own podcast, dude.

would you rather they xeroxed Bresson like BdP did w/Hitchcock? (sometimes; when he doesn't I often like him, ie Femme Fatale, Blow Out, Carlito)

plus now The Wrestler stands accused of aping the Dardennes

I loved Naissance des Pieuvres/Water Lillies - and foudn teh comparisons ton Fucking Amal a bit superficial. In any case, as said upthread, the photography is amazing and makes the film. The eerie emptiness of French suburban "new towns" is spot on.

at the Subjectivisten we're always looking for "doppelgangers" anyway, in Naissance, the "fat" girl either looks like Angela Merkel or Rita Verdonk (a hopelessly right-wing dutch politician)

as for the Dardennes:
le Fils is awesome. i'd say their best, but haven't seen Rosetta yet. I thought L'enfant was dissapointing, best (and saddest) part in L'enfant is when the poor boy needs to hide in the cold water for the cops. i forgot what the new one was called, ah yes Silence de Lorna, not that good either i thought. Liked some of the haphazard cuts though.