Category: Movies

Les chansons d’amour

They are right. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a good french film. I have liked “8 femmes” and I think that “Va Savoir” is great (even though it took me ages to finally see it), but recently? There was nothing. Is it because I am not such a rabid movie watcher anymore as I was 2-3 months ago? Or is it just that modern french films are bad objectively? (I remember having read some article on the Süddeutsche Zeitung awhile ago where somebody complained about this.)

How should I put it – normally I dislike musicals and like love stories. In this case, I have liked the songs of the musical but thoroughly disliked the love story, I wonder why. Considering how much I like “Jules et Jim” and other ménage à trois stories, it’s unusual for me to have disliked this one. Perhaps it’s because it didn’t touch me emotionally at all (despite the good music!) and because I didn’t find the main characters. I’m not a big fan of Jeanne Moreau either, but I found her great in “Jules et Jim”, so this cannot be the reason. I know at least that I have disliked parts of the cinematography – I really see absolutely no point to use those stills randomly.
Instead, I guess I’ll continue by comment on the songs of interest by going through them chronologically (which is also the order in which they are provided on the soundtrack).

First of all, the songs contribute to the storyline just like every good musical. However, despite the very clear voices it was not easy to always understand the french singing. So I had to read the horribly translated english subtitles and that probably dampened my viewing pleasure a lot. Ah, the world needs better translators! (But I am a horrible one myself.)

Another interesting thing about the songs is that every song that I ended up liking is featured in the official trailer that we have seen a few days in the Cinema Paris before. This reminded me a lot of “Good Bye Lenin” where the trailer was a summary of all the great scenes in the film, heh.

Before moving on, a little warning: These are sappy pop songs. I know that you guys all hate them =P

De bonnes raisons
At the very beginning of the film, La Sagnier and Louis Garrell start singing this while “dancing” through the night of Paris. It all looks very stylish and I must say that I find this song thoroughly charming. “Why do you love me?” is probably the most complex, dangerous and awkward question of all time, and the answers given in the song are just as beautiful as they are superficial. It was a great start into the film, I think. This also was one of the scenes I have found particularily nice in the trailer.

Inventaire
This is another one of those relationship songs, but this time, I don’t quite remember much of it. Don’t let yourself be fooled by my bad memory though, it’s still a nice song.

Je n’aime que toi
This is the only one that features the trio, I think, and thus also is the only one that touches the topic of the threesome. Actually, this is one of my favourites, the changes between the voices is nice. The only thing that I am not sure whether I should like it or not is that this “Mm-mm” makes me think of Annett Louisan, eek.

As-tu déjà aimé?
It’s the apple song, hohoho. Actually I think it was very clearly shown how the love between the boys feels purer and much more natural than the somewhat questionable threesome with the girls in which it was clear that they actually just hated each other and were unhappy. On top of that, the family comes into the picture all the time, ugh. Especially that sister! *dies* Louis Garrel is such a gay actor, hoho.
Back to the song, I think this was a sweet discourse about lasting vs. passionate and short love. The comparison with the apple is simple, but again, I find it very charming. In french, the lyrics sound really nice to me.

Les yeux au ciel
The trailer starts with this song, and I’d say it’s my absolute favourite although I probably listen to “Je n’aime que toi” more often. It has a nice dynamic and the accompagnement feels great.

J’ai cru entendre
Another relationship song to some degree. I never really paid attention to it, but it ends the film well in my opinion. After quite a number of uninteresting songs (even one involving the dreadful sister), this one has the charm of french chansons again. (I know that I keep using “charming”, but honestly there just is no better word to describe it. It’s the “interesting”-disease.)

Finally, the film will most likely stay in my memory because of the nice songs – and only because of the songs.

Amadeus

It’s not like I’m complaining though ;) Let me tell you a bit about my background of watching this film first: For ages, Shii has been telling me that I should watch this film and since Prog likes it as well, I felt I definitely should do so myself. However, I never came around to watch it until now that we have watched it together. Funnily, while watching it, I realized that I have seen it before. Many of its scenes looked very familiar to me, mostly the It was so much fun to pretend not to like it, making Shii to rave about its greatness even more, hahaha. Fact is, I do. Even though the film did not have a great ending, even though we watched the long director’s cut, even though it has many aspects of a clichéd Hollywood film (Wolfy! Stanzy!), I have liked it a lot. And here is why:

More than anything, I think that Amadeus is a lot like “Ed Wood” and “La Belle Noiseuse”, both films that are considered somewhat boring and are centered around something else than the story. In the case of “Ed Wood”, it’s the biography of an extraordinary man (not in the sense of greatness, but in the sense of uniqueness). The film serves this amazing life and brings it out in a splendid way – Amadeus also portrays a very lively, albeit historically unreal story Mozart’s and Salieri’s life. Even though I find the way Salieri describes Mozart’s music somewhat silly (as I don’t see Mozart’s music as that emotional and great), I have appreciated greatly how the nature of Mozart’s music was woven into the story. To me, the long opera scenes in the film were just like the long drawing procedure in “La Belle Noiseuse” – it’s centered around the art and music, not the story or the film itself. The film made me want to see Mozart’s operas (I have only seen the Serail and the Magic Flute until today).
The only thing I will never understand is the english singing. I love you, Shakespeare, but english in an opera that was originally concipated for another language (especially when translated from italian) just makes me want to die. English is the language of pop music and nu metal, but not for operas.
What we enjoyed about the film a lot were also the comedic elements, adorably presented by the actors – hahahahaha. Right?

Another thing I find a little sad, but expected, is the portrait of Constanze as a loving and worrying, but also somewhat stupid wife. Not only is this a cliché, but it’s probably untrue on most accounts. Oh well. Compared to that, I don’t mind Salieri’s bad image all that much, since I expect most people to know that he probably didn’t hate Mozart as much as the movie suggests. I actually also think that the movie made Salieri more famous in the world too. It wouldn’t surprise me if many people knew his name without ever having heard any of his music.

Mozart’s biography is the only composer’s I have actually known from when I was really small and into classical music. With full awareness of the historical incorrectness, I am really glad to have watched the film and would definitely recommend it.

Un baiser s’il vous plaît

By far, this is the worst french love comedy I have ever seen. It’s ranked even lower than “Belle de Jour” which was a huge disappointment for me as well. How should I put it – the dialogues were dumb, the characters horrible, Virginie Ledoyen is utterly boring as bourgeois housewife who keeps wearing these horribly conservative outfits and this damn pearl necklace. Of course I kind of liked the film considering that I actually like all films in which the relationship between the characters plays an important role, but I can’t help but sigh out of annoyance every single time these characters another stupid thing. Oh. My.

Luckily, I have anticipated that this film could turn out like this a bit. I was intrigued because it’s been ages since I’ve seen La Ledoyen who I actually find rather pretty, and I wanted to go to the Cinema Paris again and show its lovely interior to Shii. With the choice between “Paris” and this film, I thought that this is the lesser of two evils. Despite my bad review, I don’t actually regret having seen this film, but I would only recommend this film to show what I do NOT want to see in a french movie ever again. A few years ago, I saw a silly softporn-like film with her in which she played a young girl playing around with some rich guy and making him all crazy about her. That one at least looked good, but I have no idea what the film was called.

Get Shorty 2008

The blog killed my blog post. Firefox is evil, WordPress is evil, the world is bad. Just as bad as the film was good though, hrr.

Now, let me get over it quickly again: Get Shorty is the name of the short film program in the Fantasy Filmfest in Germany. A selection of short films is being shown every year during the festival in an ~2 hours session. The tickets were quite expensive (8 euro after all), so Pixelmatsch, Shii and I only went to this short film thing as I am a big short film fan as you might have noticed by now. We are the Naruhodou trio!
On a side note, there were quite a few other films I have found interesting, like “The Chaser”. Perhaps one day, I’ll watch those too.

What I find particularily interesting about the Fantasy Filmfest is that the majority simply are horror flicks. When I read a forum thread about people complaining about laughters in suspenseful bloody scenes, I suddenly realized that people really watch this to get afraid. Personally I don’t enjoy that at all. Horror really is the type of film you will rarely find here on About Chocolate Parfait. A film has to be more than just scary if I should watch or even like it. Of course, the short film program had quite a few horror stories too – and I have tend to dislike them. But, the Fantasy Filmfest has also shown this live-action Death Note spin-off with L and the Neon Genesis Evangelion movie.

Another interesting point about these short films was that the viewers were expected to be proficient both in english and german. Many of the short films had english subtitles, and one was in german without subtitles at all. I didn’t even realize it because I’m so used to english subtitles, but it’s an interesting indication that most of the viewers are probably rather young (<30 years).

Since we went to the cinema theater, I can’t provide any screenshots as always, here’s my ranking of the films:

1. Arbeit für Alle (Germany 2008, 12 min)
In Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, the government installs the “Agentur für Arbeitsbetreuung”, where young people support elder people with their work so they can continue working until they get really old. After some funny action scenes, the protagonist, an old demon hunter in a wheelchair, finally explains why he is still working: His pension is not enough because his son is a voluntary worker and his grandchildren unpaid interns.
I think I could die of laughter if this film has been double as long and so dense of funny moments. This film directly speaks to the 20-25 year old rather qualified college student or recent graduate who are stuck in unpaid internships because they can’t find a job. I could rant on and on about this, explain the situation and why it is funny for me, but I am directly involved in the “Generation Praktikum”, I had no other choice than really enjoying this. Happy economy.
On a side note, this film was the point where I thought it would be really nice to make films myself. I want to make other people laugh like this too.

2. Occupations (Denmark 2007, 3 min)
A man is bored while watching the premiere of “Manderlay” by Lars von Trier, so he starts a stupid conversation with his neighbour. What he doesn’t know is that this neighbour is said Lars von Trier…
This film is actually directed by Lars von Trier, oh my gosh. I love Emolars, I really love him. I knew beforehand what this film would be about, but I didn’t expect it to turn out like *that*. Surely this film plays with the fact that people have to know that this guy actually is Lars von Trier which shows quite a bit of arrogance based on his popularity, but I don’t care. I was shocked (as this was the very first film) and two seconds later thoroughly amused. And I can’t get Lars von Trier’s smile out of my face, hehehe.
“I kill.”

3. Tile M for Murder (Lägg M För Mord, Sweden 2008, 8 min)
Adaptation of Death by Scrabble by Charlie Fish. Man hates his wife and feels so horribly bored during a Scrabble game that he wants to kill her.
Perhaps you might want to read the short story and take a look at the immensely crappy fan adaptations on Youtube. After seeing this great swedish film, I realized how incredibly bad all those Youtube attempts are. It was very interesting to see the same story, the same characters and the same dialogue in these different versions: “Tile M for Murder” aces all of them easily. Why? Well, it’s not because the film obviously had a higher budget or anything. It was because the hatred of the two characters for each other were brilliantly acted and the cinematography added a bunch to the creepy and dense atmosphere. The difference is astonishing. Seeing the difference between the bad amateur videos and this amazing short film made me realize how much impact directing and cinematography have on a film. It makes me want to learn how to make films even more now.
The original story is in english, but interestingly I have found the adaptation in swedish to be even better than the english original. “Choke” at the end has a much greater impact than “Death” in my opinion. I’m so glad we went to the Fantasy Filmfest.

4. The Saddest Boy in the World (Canada 2006, 14 min)
Young boy wants to kill himself on his birthday during his american-suburb-style birthday party, because he hates everyone and everyone hates him. Simply put, he’s the saddest boy in the world.
The colours of the film were so pinky and colourful as the humour was black. Arrrr. This film is just so incredibly evil and good! However, it didn’t make it into the top three for me because ultimately, I find a little bit *too* evil for my taste. I felt like watching “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, another childish looking evil-evil-evil film.
My favourite scene was the one in which the other students chose the guy in the wheelchair over him during sport class. That was SO evil and reminded me of myself (I was unpopular, small and weak, so what can I say?)

5. Even Pigeons go to Paradise (Même les oiseaux von au paradis, France 2007, 9 min)
Animated film. A priest visits an old french villager, trying to sell him a new machine that’ll forgive his sins. Then, Death appears.
This film is lovely, really. It’s absolutely greatly animated and the story is cute, funny and so… french! I don’t know what else to say about it, it’s so nice that it got nominated for the Oscar in 2007. So why don’t you watch it yourself?

6. Shuteye Hotel (USA 2007, 7 min)
Animated film. In the top room of a hotel in the middle of nowhere, people get killed in their sleep. Two policemen try to solve the mystery.
I have found the animation to be really stylish. I like this type of animation which makes me think of the list of artsy anime I have compiled. At the same time, the story wasn’t spectacular, but actually not bad. Surely this is a film where style goes over substance, but I have enjoyed this little film.

7. Because There Are Things You Never Forget (Por que hay cosas que nunca se olvidan, Spain 2008, 13 min)
A young italian boy got a new soccer ball. While he plays with his friends, the soccer ball falls into the garden of an old lady who picks it up and destroys it. The children are planning revenge.
First of all, this story was really funny and it was a good last film of the program. In that respect, this is better than Shuteye which is ranked higher simply because Shuteye Hotel has my “animation bonus”, heh. I didn’t like the end all that much, but the comedic aspects of this film were brilliantly done and made me laugh a few times. So it was a great time to watch this.
The very first thing that made me interested however was the fact that this is a spanish film, but is set in Italy. So the whole film is in italian with spanish and english subtitles. How unusual.

8. Killing Time (Las horas muertas, Spain 2007, 14 min)
Four young people, two guys and two girls, are hiding in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. A sniper is slowly shooting them off.
In general, I have found this film to be mediocre. I have found the ones ranked below this pretty bad and the ones over this really great, but it’s difficult to say anything else about “Killing Time” than that it was average. The atmosphere was good, the characters were good, it even was a bit suspenseful despite or maybe because of the slow-paced, atmosphere-building cinematography. I just completely failed to actually like this story.
PS. It’s interesting that the longest films (18 and 14 minutes) are also the ones I disliked the most.

9. Eater (USA 2007, 18 min)
Policeman tries to find the “Eater” who eats people’s insides and enters their bodies. Creepy as the Eater has taken his colleagues’s bodies.
It’s nicely executed really. I found it a little suspenseful, the effects were rather nicely done and the actors were actually okay. Now if only this weren’t another horror film with nothing behind it at all – not even anything psychological – I might have enjoyed it, but mindless stories always leave me a bit bored. Also, the film was pretty long.

10. Bitten (Morsure, Frankreich 2007, 14 min)
French woman runs through the forest and is chased by her husband. It turns out she caught a virus and kills everybody around her.
Nobody clapped. Really that’s what happened. While all the other films, especially the ones we have liked got quite a lot of applause, this was the only one where it was completely silent. Outspoken as I am, I whispered this observation to Pixelmatsch and Shii – and then we heard some more whisper and a few people clapping. It was pretty awkward but also subtly funny. I think that says everything about this pointless, not even scary horror flick which nearly made me fall asleep.

Bringing Up Baby

I can’t believe myself, I actually finished watching this film. Basically it took ages for this to download and after I started watching 15 minutes of it, I must admit that I felt like I was dying of fury against this incredibly impertinent person. Sure, she’s not doing that on purpose and it’s really, really hilarious, but oh my, it took me quite a while to accept that side of her, and I kept telling myself that she actually is a genuinely honest, interesting and witty woman who actually just wanted to help (at least at the beginning). It’s just that whatever she does ends up completely disastrous and she seems to have absolutely no idea what’s going on, which adds to the film’s hilarity of course.
Another horrible drawback of this film was (and in my opinion contributed to the film’s bad performance at the box office at that time) Katharine Hepburn’s role that was simply too, erm, loud for my tastes. She had such a squeaking annoying voice throughout the whole film, and although I know it’s supposed to be funny, sometimes the fast talking of several people plus dog barking is just too much for my ears. Surely I partially blame society’s intolerance towards strong-willed women who are actually smarter and more interesting than the guy, but I think these aesthetcal aspects have had their influence the flop as well.

Similarly, I actually like Katharine Hepburn as an actress, and I really find her to be brilliant from a technical standpoint. From her biography, she also seems to be the same kind of smart and capable woman as she plays in her roles. But I really am not a big fan of her looks (oh my goodness, that hair! It looks like they copied the 80s *cough*) and especially not of her voice, haha.

How should I put it, I think this is a fabulous example of a great screwball comedy and reminded me a lot of “Ninotchka”, Wilder’s “The Apartment” and especially “Avanti”. Now this really makes me want to get more films from the SZ screwball comedy series. “Bringing Up Baby” made me discover the genre and realize that I really, really like it. Screwball comedies are full of hilarious sexual innuendo and defy the society of those days by making men and women fight on equal grounds (unlike certain other love stories *cough*Casablanca*cough*). I also really like how these comedies make it so plausible that such different people with such subtly working chemistry get together by putting them into unusual situations. After all, I really think that David and Susan in this film are made for each other, it’s just that he had to realize it – despite her annoying character, she opens him to get out of his boring life, does crazy things with him (which he ultimately enjoyed) and shows him the world. How can one not fall in love with such an oddity of a woman? Ah, I just love it <3
I definitely want to watch “It happened one night” and “Holiday”. What else would be recommendable, I wonder?

PS. What, Bela Lugosi was in “Ninotchka”? I never realized that. Also, I should add “Queen Christina” to my soon-to-watch list.

Va Savoir

I have started watching the first 15 minutes and didn’t enjoy this film at all. But now that I have nothing else to watch, I have continued watching this film, and honestly, it has turned out quite good. The characters have the certain something that I find intriguing, even the rabidly emo main character has an interesting profile in the development of the story and the italian touch of the whole film is somewhat intriguing. In fact, the italian of the stage is lovely, it makes me want to see a theatre play in Italy, simply for hearing the language. Perhaps I should choose a classical piece and then I’ll read the piece beforehand and take a copy in a language I know into the theatre, haha. But to be exact, I have understood surprisingly much of the italian. There were a lot of very simple and clearly pronounced sentences after all.

It’s quite a love comedy, my my. So it’s more or less like this: Dominique and this guy whose name I’ve forgotten meet and are somewhat hooking up. The said guy has a difficult and questionable relationship with Camille. Camille can’t get over her ex-boyfriend Pierre, and vice versa. And finally Pierre has some silly wife who keeps wearing the engagement ring of another man. Wow XD By one third of the film, I am totally drawn into the film and its characters.

I now know what is so great about the film: the scene in which Camille steps out of the house through the ceiling. It’s so utterly hilarious in its own way, and it makes perfect sense that they put this scene on the poster. This scene is to “Va Savoir” what the dancing scene in the café is to “Bande à part”. It’s also beautiful, and so parisian. I wish I had lived in such a parisian house as well, being able to see over other houses. I think I would be spending all day on these ceilings *__*
Although I obviously did not enjoy the entirety of the movie, and although it never made me laugh out loud, I must admit that there are bits in this film that are simple masterpieces: The “duel” between the two men leaves me speechless. If there were two guys who’d duel for me, I’d want them to do it exactly this way XD Heidegger!

Oh, and the interior of this Arthur guy’s apartment is very interesting too, by the way. For some reason french movies really succeed in having two people having a short conversation and then make out one minute later in a completely natural, tasteful way.

Finally, I actually think I should mention how incredibly great the theme of theater appears in the film, and how the whole film actually follow certain rules of classic plays (the story-structure, limited characters, rather limited time frame, a few places it plays at). In many ways, I think this film is an absolute masterpiece and incredibly witty, although it was not entirely enjoyable for me and did not make me laugh. But, I really think that this film is way too underappreciated. I have never seen this film anywhere besides on my own to-watch list *hrr*

PS. This is what I got when I google searched for pictures for “Va Savoir”.

This is the last part of the Cinema 16 European Shortfilms series. Considering the high price of the Cinema 16 DVDs, I suppose it’s rather unlikely that I will ever watch any of the other short film collections. However, if I ever decide to buy some DVDs, these short films will likely be one of the first I would buy.

After a dreadfully long search for the right screenshots, I managed to edit my older reviews to avoid them to look like a wall of text. Now, I only need pictures for this post, ahaha. Actually I’m really happy at how the screenshots turned out so far, please feel free to take a look! :3 Here’s a little rundown on the reviewed short films:
Part 1: Bara Prata Lite.
Part 2: Le Batteur du Bolero, Charlotte et Veronique ou Tous les garcons s’appellent Patrick, Copy Shop.
Part 3: Fridge, Il Giorno della Prima di Close-up, Gisèle Kérozène, Härlig är jorden, Koncert zyczen, L’Homme sans Tête, Nocturne.
Part 4: Jabberwocky, My Wrongs #8245-8249 and 117, El Secdleto de la Tlompeta, Election Night.
Part 5: Doodlebug, Fierrot le Pou, Wasp, Je t’aime John Wayne.
Part 6: Before Dawn, Rabbit, Boy and Bicycle, Gasman, Six Shooter.

Before Dawn by Balint Kenyeres
Something about this short film is intriguing. In fact, it looks like a Kieslowski at first, with its pace and atmosphere. I like the dark colours and the way how nobody speaks in this film a lot. Also, something about this film makes you find it suspenseful despite its slow pace. Of course, the constant worry about these people is there too since we have no idea what happens to them. But unfortunately, I was unable to understand the story until the end ^^;;;

Rabbit by Run Wrake
Err, what should I say. This is quite original and extremely weird, I suppose. It gave me a little bit the same feeling as Jabberwocky somehow, even though this is comparably less disgusting. It’s still full of pseudo-childish perversions though, especially the music.

Boy and Bicycle by Ridley Scott
Okay, I really did not understand a bit of the dialogue, or rather the monologue I should say. On a side note, I think now I understand why “Control” looked so incredibly good – it was because it’s shot in black & white, and this film looks so good too, somehow O.o I should watch this with subtitles one day. Maybe then I really can fully appreciate this film, as its atmosphere feels quite great already.

Gasman by Lynne Ramsay
This sounds like austrian to me, for real. I’m a horrible person, I know, and this is just a lame excuse for my crappy english, but really, I’m glad there was not all that much dialogue in this. However, I didn’t understand anything of the story, just like for “Boy and Bicycle”.

Six Shooter Martin McDonagh
This story is intriguing, really. I also am glad that I’m able to understand this dialogue, haha. Anyways, this young man reminds me a lot of quite many people in the anime blogosphere somehow – which means that his characterization is pretty good in my opinion.
Uh, but honestly… how the heck is this film supposed to be a comedy? Sure, the end is great and the whole story is so incredibly full of wit. Also, the music at the end hints that we are supposed to take this as a comedy, but it did not feel like that for me. Basically it felt too real. Nevertheless, this is a great film.

And here we have my final ranking of all the 25 films. * means that the film is on both versions, # means that the film is US version only, therefore no mark means that the film is european version only.

1. Charlotte, Véronique ou Tous les garcons s’appelent Patrick
2. Fridge
3. Bara Prada Lite
4. * Härlig är jorden
5. * L’Homme sans tête
6. Koncert zyczen
7. * Copy Shop
8. # Je t’aime John Wayne
9. * Election Night
10. # Six Shooter
11. # Doodlebug
12. Le Batteur du Bolero
13. # Wasp
14. # Boy and Bicycle
15. # Before Dawn
16. * Il giorno della prima di close-up
17. * Nocturne
18. Epilog
19. * Rabbit
20. My Wrongs#8245-8249 and 117
21. * Jabberwocky
22. * Gasman
23. # Fierrot le Pou
24. El Secdleto de la Tlompeta
25. Gisèle Kérozène

I suppose I prefer the european version over the US version overall. Basically, the US version lacks the early pearls of Godard and Kieslowski, and the great “Fridge”. However, the US version also doesn’t have all that much bullshit like Gisèle Kérozène. In the “middle field” and in average, both are somewhat similar to me. It’s just that the european version has more ‘bullshit’, but also more absolute highlights.