The Frame » Juliette Binoche

Blue

Jandy — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 03:13:26 +0000

This is the first of a trilogy, and I watched all the trilogy in the same week (though not sequentially), so my comments may range across multiple entries here. Blue is the first and probably the best known of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors films, but I’m not sure it’s the best introduction to Kieslowski’s work (I might suggest The Double Life of Veronique, which I watched yesterday). Blue is paced more slowly than pretty much any American film could get away with, and it’s unclear at the end if the heroine (who is struggling with the death of her husband and child in a car accident) has been able to move into or past her grief–her reactions are difficult to get a grip on, because they aren’t typical of grieving widows. Yet, Blue is like a placid pool of water–it’s far deeper than it initially looks. I’m not sure I can explicate or prove that statement any more than that without seeing the film again. It’s a feeling more than anything else, that there are vast amounts of things going on under the surface, behind Juliette Binoche’s eyes, underneath her enigmatic expressions. It’s a gorgeous-looking film, as are all of Kieslowski’s, and honestly, I appreciated it a lot more after having seen the rest of the trilogy.
Well Above Average

Paris, je t’aime

Jandy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:28:47 +0000

I love Paris! And the title of this film is Paris, I Love You! And it’s composed of short films from eighteen directors, many of whom I love! It’s almost a given that I would love this film. And I did. Is it really even and coherent as a whole? Well, no, probably not–but how could a film by eighteen very individual directors be anything but idiosyncratic? For what it is–a glimpse into Paris from eighteen different perspectives–it’s lovely. Particular highlights are Gurinder Chadha’s cross-cultural French-Muslim not-quite love-story, Isabelle Coixet’s bittersweet glimpse into the broken marriage of an aging couple, Wes Craven’s surprisingly endearing tale of an Oscar Wilde haunting, Tom Tykwer’s time-collapsing blind Frenchman-and-Natalie Portman romance, and Alexander Payne’s closing short depicting an American woman writing an essay for her French class about how she fell in love with Paris. In between are gothic vampires, Gus van Sant being less pretentious than usual, Alfonso Cuarón being a bit disappointing for once (though a disappointing Cuarón film is still better than most normal films), the Coen brothers with a quirky tourist tale, and a truly bizarre episode (the only one I actively disliked) involving an elderly gentlemen and an Asian hair salon. There’s something here for everyone, and if you don’t at least want to visit (or revisit) Paris by the end, I give you up as a lost cause. Word on the street is that the same producers are working on New York, I Love You.
Well Above Average

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Jandy — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:12:12 +0000

Milan Kundera’s novel was one of my favorite reads last year, and I knew any film version was going to have a lot to live up to, especially given the self-conscious, postmodern, meandering narrative technique (which was one of my favorite things about the book). The film doesn’t quite make it, though it gives it a fighting try. It does a great job with the segment about the Czech uprising, and Lena Olin is an absolute revelation. But the beauty of the book is its expression of internalization, and as much as I love film, that’s one thing it can’t match. I did love the characters as I watched the film, but I honestly don’t think I would have if I didn’t already love them from the book. I sort of wish I had watched it before reading the book to see what my reaction would have been coming in blind. Because it is a beautiful film at times, mysterious and entrancing. Just not as much as the book.
Well Above Average

The English Patient

Jandy — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:06:34 +0000

It’s many films in one, which is probably why I enjoyed it. If it had been just the overwrought love story between Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas it would have been nothing special. If it had been just the story of Juliette Binoche nursing a burned-beyond-all-recognition Fiennes it would’ve been dull. If it had been just Binoche and Naveen Andrews in a cross-cultural relationship, awaiting the end of the war, it would’ve been meh. But throw all three of these together, along with gorgeous cinematography (I’ve always been partial the terrible beauty of the desert), an especially effective (and Oscar-winning) turn by Binoche, and the well-structured multiple-flashback narrative, and you’ve suddenly got a very beautiful and affecting film.
Well Above Average

Cache

Jandy — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 04:36:30 +0000

Can I first say that this was worth seeing in theatres just to hear people’s reactions at the end? “What the hell?” “I was gypped!” Hee. And really, it’s not difficult to understand such reactions. Caché is very odd little film. The story, such as it is, is that Daniel Autiuel and Juliette Binoche start receiving mysterious videotapes of the exterior of their apartment, taken from across the street. The shot of their apartment from across the street is returned to time and time again, and often for minutes at a time. The pace is often excruciatingly slow, obviously on purpose, as the shot usually turns out to be the video itself as the couple play it over in their apartment, agonizing over who has sent it to them and why. Many other things come into play, as well. From stuff I’ve read since seeing it, it is apparently helpful to have some knowledge of French/Algerian relations (Algeria used to be a French colony, there were some riots in the 1950s or something, I don’t really know much about it myself), but the fact that I still overall enjoyed the film, despite getting rather stiff while sitting through it, merely points out that Caché works on a number of different levels.
Above Average