Showing posts with label french. Show all posts
Showing posts with label french. Show all posts

Enter The Void (2009)


This is the strangest movie I've ever seen. Even the opening credits blew me away because of how strange and how amazingly good they are. The whole movie is depicted from the point of view of the main character. By this I don't mean that the cinematography represents the main characters viewpoint I mean it's as if the camera is exactly what he is seeing and the sound, what he is hearing. This might sound like it could get boring but it doesn't, trust me. I went into this movie experience knowing absolutely nothing about the film except that I had heard it was weird. I think that was a good way to see it so I don't want to elaborate a whole lot on the film because not being informed definitely impacted my viewing of it in a good way. That being said I'm going to apologize for any vagueness.

The main character is an unorthodox protagonist for a film. He's not really a hero but neither is he an anti-hero, if you met him in real life you might not want to be his friend but I don't think you'd find him particularly appalling either. If this film had been done much differently it would have been as boring as that sounds, but it's not. At times I wanted to stop the film and put on Jersey Shore just so I had something else to watch, but I couldn't. It pulls you in and leaves you in a stupor for the rest of the day. The script is sparse and light but the story is heavy and dark. The characters intertwine in ways neither you nor they are aware of or expect. A large amount of the film is psychedelic video art that reminds me of an exhibit I saw by Nam June Paik last year which made me rethink the boundaries of art. At times the movie does such a good job of this that it almost feels as if you are on copious amounts of hallucinogenic drugs wandering through Tokyo (something I've never done but I can only imagine it's something like this film). The rest of Enter The Void tells the life story of one person, from their point of view, in a completely non-linear fashion. I'm going to repeat myself, there is no succinct timeline for the film... at all, and the psychedelic scenes are mixed in with these already mixed up bits of life.

There are numerous reasons for why I shouldn't have liked this film but I did. The images and sounds are incredible, graphic, and vibrant; the story is unique, heartfelt, and disturbing as are the characters. The whole thing is incredibly sexual, violent, and surreal all at the same time. It leaves you wanting more and needing to shut down your brain at the same time. To conclude, you should see this, but do so knowing that it is going to take something out of you, you will be disturbed, and I can only hope you like it as much as I did, though I understand any body disliking it. It's not a movie that can described in any accuracy but must be seen to be understood.

WARNING: This movie contains a great deal of bright flashing lights and other visual effects that may induce an epileptic seizure.

A Prophet (Un prophete) - 2009


A French film, A Prophet follows Malik, an Frenchman of Arabic decent. At 19, Malik is sentenced to six years in a prison divided between Arabs and Corsicans. Through a twist of fate, Malik becomes involved with the powerful Corsicans, and through the film rises through their ranks, before eventually taking control of his own fate.



A Prophet is a gritty prison film, but at it's heart it is also a coming of age movie. Malik enters the prison and the film as a nervous, naive boy; as the years pass prison transforms him into a hardened criminal and survivor, loyal only to himself. It is his personal development, rather than his upward advancement through the French underworld, that is the driving force of the movie. Tahar Rahim is convincing as Malik, but Niels Arestrup is outstanding as the frightening, then deteriorating Corsican leader Cesar Luciani. Shaky-cam, so often obnoxious, is used subtlety enough to create a personal, visceral feeling. A Prophet is a long movie, and at times loses momentum in the middle, but it picks up speed again towards the end. The movie, alongside Malik, creeps up on you slowly. It's well worth the watch.

La Femme Nikita (1990)

One of my favorite films of all time, Nikita is a sexy French action-thriller about an intolerable and violent junkie turned deadly secret government assassin. After Nikita survives a gun fight in a pharmacy she and her friends were robbing, she is put on death row for killing a police officer. No one is sympathetic towards her, especially because while in prison she goes completely psycho, biting people's ears off and so on. But the French government, and one handsome secret agent in particular, thinks Nikita can be trained to be their very own Black Ops beauty.

There's a lot of things about this movie that make it stand out. The most obvious I think are its feminist themes: what happens when men try to reinvent the women they love, can a young and beautiful woman realistically be able to handle a life of secrecy and murder, does Anne Parillaud look so fine holding that gun (absolutely). The soundtrack really dates the movie, lots 80's synth, but it works, and in fact after seeing this movie a few times, I really love the music. Some cleverly suspenseful battle scenes, and probably one of the best endings to an action movie ever.