Can't figure out the disparities in this brutal piece of miserabilist art. Two distinguished actors giving brave performances every interview they give hereafter will ask them to account for-- a remarkable score of well-used rock art-songs-- a script that shifts from mumbled throwaways to eloquence without stumble. Still, even if the numbing grey-greenness of the images is intended, the dinginess goes past aesthetic overstatement-- cannot imagine Chereau intended to induce headaches, though that is the effect. Timothy Spall playing a cuckold is akin to Dennis Hopper as a psycho-- a good actor in a role he should not have taken. But the children are wonders of natural charm-- what is it about French film-makers that equips them to make juveniles seem casually superhuman? In a film that mixes-up visual ugliness and spiritual torment, the three radiant boys are especially cherishable.
Review of Intimacy
