kinoouf Reviews

Faut que ça danse! (2007)

Endearing and funny, but something is missing

[6/10 · 18 December 2007]

I really liked the lightness and deepness of this story about a weird french family. The characters, especially Simon (astounding Jean-Pierre Marielle) are all endearing. It's a very rich subject, a very personal and yet entertaining movie. The birth scene in the end is funny and moving. The problem of that movie is that not much of it remains after the end. I feel sympathy for it but not as much as for another Noemy Lvosky movie witch I loved, that's called "La vie ne me fait pas peur". Maybe youth was more attractive for me than old age and maturity, may be Noemie wanted to make a popular movie, and that's a tricky thing to attempt, because when you want to enlarge your audience, you sometimes lose something. But all in all, a good film.

Cow-Boy (2007)

A good subject, a poor film

[3/10 · 18 December 2007]

First, I was very excited and could'nt wait to go and see that film. Mainly because I found "Les convoyeurs attendent" an unexpectedly poetic and funny film, , and there was also some kind of despair in it, and I loved it. But in Cow-Boy, despite some honest moments, and good actors, some incredible faces, the film fakes to bring me along into the story. I think that the subject (a man realises that his life is dramatically different from his dreamed life, that he turned his back to what he believed in) is to big for the means of the director. You have to be very subtle to deal with ideology in cinema. It's a total failure on that matter. What I liked a bit more is the film maker attempt to portrait the nervous breakdown of the main character. But everything is to cliché, especially the wife. At the end of the film, you have the feeling that it should begin where it's ending. I hope Benoit Marriage will do better next time.

Mirror (1975)

wandering in a frame, a peace of music, a poem

[10/10 · 18 December 2007]

I saw that film for the first time when I was an adolescent. I was then struck by the beauty of every single moment. I felt I was wandering in a poem that would have become real. Like in a dream. The fact that I did not understand the story the first time I saw that film was not a problem, because it was so beautiful. I could feel the deepness and the honesty of this work of art. The first scene, filmed in black and white, in video (already in 1975) where a Young disabled man is able to talk normally for the first time in his live, is striking. I have seen "The mirror" in DVD last week, and the magic is still there. It's an experience to do, to slip in that film, like you slip in a dream. Some films are beautifully made but empty, this one is filled with poetry, sensibility, art. This is still my favorite Tarkovsky film, may be with "The sacrifice". My favorite Russian film, with some of Alexei Guerman movies.

Je me fais rare (2006)

A film like no other, about art and humanity, with a lot of humor.

[10/10 · 13 December 2007]

"Je me fais rare" is an excellent movie. I haven't seen any of that kind before. It's hilarious, and yet deep and also bitter. As if Woody Allen and Nanni Moretti had lunch together, and Godard came for desert. What I appreciated the most is the fact that the main character, Daniel Danite, is very infatuated, almost preposterous, but we learn to like him little by little, as the movie goes on, mainly because he is kind and accurate. A lot is told about cinema, art, humanity, love, friendship in a film that is supposed to be an underground comedy. (great scenes with Michel, the assistant director, and Penelope, the woman editor, great scene with a false porno actor) This film proves that it is hard to kill cinema as an art-form, and that without millions , you can do a very witty and intelligent movie that is also entertaining and above all, funny. A must see for all cinema lovers.