Process (I) (2004) User Reviews

Give him some credit

[companio2000 · 6/10 · 24 February 2007]

At least I would give the director credit for trying to do something different from all the predictable films coming out every week. I saw it on TV (DVD), but I think the movies like this need the big screen because it brings the characters even closer to you. Dalle is good, with hardly dialogue, its not comfortable to watch the long clumsy sex scene which is the intention of the film, to make you feel a bit sick sometimes. So the director is doing something right. The problem is that I am not convinced that he knows what people feel when they have a life threatening illness or want to die for some reason. Why talk about it in a movie when you don't have anything knew to say about it. But for all movie nerds it is worth seeing.

What A Trial

[writers_reign · 2/10 · 17 July 2005]

Were I not so lion-hearted dross like this could turn me against French cinema completely. Somehow Christian Leigh has contrived to shoot something that is WORSE than Jean-Luc Godard or Peter Greenaway which is quite a trick. Leigh's idea of film-making is to let his camera linger on a given scene til it runs out of film. Take the scene in the hotel room. Beatrice Dalle is sitting and contriving to brood whilst remaining expressionless. Outside the window traffic passes. A chambermaid - played by Isabelle Huppert's daughter, Lolita Chammah - enters and proceeds to make the bed. From time to time she throws a glance at Dalle. Riveting. Or take the scene in (presumably) Dalle's apartment. This is all ultra-modern where even the curves seem angular and metallic. The style is IKEA 22nd century where bookcases are red metal blocks. Dalle begins packing about 3,000 books into, what else, large plastic containers. This is accompanied by what sounds like Michael Nyman aged five and just discovering dissonance. Elsewhere Leos Carax, Dominique Reymonde and Daniel Duval make cameo appearances. Watching this merde is a new way to grow old.