I'm sure it's chance rather than fate, but all three of the films I saw
on Wednesday had the same failing--tackling impressively big subjects with
perilously little inspiration. This theme kicked off at the early-morning
press screening, when Jacques Audiard's much-anticipated "A Self-Made
Hero" took on World War II, the Nazi Occupation, and the French Resistance
with a kind of quirky irony that recalled Francois Truffaut without equalling
the wit or grace of his best pictures. This doesn't mean I actually disliked
Audiard's movie; my expectations were less high than those of people who
admired his "See the Men Fall" more than I did, and I enjoyed
watching the audacious protagonist con his way through postwar France as
a bogus Resistance hero who's all too easily believed by his credulous compatriots.
But the picture contains a few egregiously false notes (my expectations
dropped again when a picture of the hero's father came momentarily to life,
inexplicably causing the lad to immerse his face in a bowl of soup) and
in the end Audiard fails to justify the flippancy of his approach to such
a large and serious subject. Back on the plus side, it's one of the rare
movies to bring French-Nazi collaboration into the popular-culture arena,
and that's a gesture worth applauding. Many of my friends think it's terrific,
and while I rate it a lot lower than they do, I'll be pleased if its basic
message finds a widespread audience.
"The Eighth Day" finds Belgian director Jaco van Dormael treading
much the same territory he explored in "Toto the Hero," this time
at greater length and with few cinematic ideas he didn't use more spunkily
in the earlier film. Daniel Auteuil plays a jaded businessman who makes
the unexpected friendship of a person with Down syndrome and learns he'd
rather be a poor but happy bum than a succesful but miserable capitalist.
Von Dormael's lively camera maneuvers and editing tricks make the first
half of the picture less insufferable than you'd expect from that synopsis,
but they eventually wear thin and the movie suffers accordingly. The story
ends with a loving closeup of Georges, the mentally challenged hero, but
this tribute is less than convincing since Van Dormael has conveniently
killed him off in the preceding reel.
Finally catching up with Lars von Trier's lengthy "Breaking
the Waves in a market screening, I found it as lofty in its goals and
uneven in its achievement as the other two films. I've admired Von Trier
ever since "Zentropa" took a prize here several years back, but
"Breaking the Waves" is closer to his TV miniseries "The
Kingdom," in its fascination with medical details and its deliberately
rough-and-ready cinematic style. This style works quite well with the story
being told--jagged, washed-out, discomforting shots of jagged, washed-out,
discomforting people--and there's a lot to think about in the mercilessly
morbid plot about a young wife who starts having reluctant sex with strangers
in the belief that her selflessness is preserving the life of her recently
paralyzed husband. What's the determining factor in this bizarre situation:
the power of love as manifested in the wife's sacrifices? the power of disease
as manifested in the husband's demands? the power of blind happenstance
that bestows and removes happiness with no apparent rhyme or reason? It's
for us to decide, and the movie's inordinate length and rambling storyline
give us plenty of time to ponder the options. The same picture with an hour
trimmed out and a more decisive ending would be a truly major work.
Copyright 1994-2008 Film Scouts LLC
Created, produced, and published by Film Scouts LLC
Film Scouts® is a registered trademark of Film Scouts LLC
All rights reserved.
