Quatre etoiles (2006)

Quatre Etoiles is a spunky little film.  Unknown until yesterday, this international delight proved that candy can be served with a main course.  It demonstrated the sheer power of a strong female lead, coupled with a realistic romance.  This was not you a-typical Hollywood blockbuster.  This was not Reece Witherspoon pining for a man who is rough around the edges, only to discover the inner beauty come shooting out in the final seconds of Act III.  This is a love story.  It is the story of a woman named Franssou who is bored with her life, until she inherits about 50,000 euros and runs to Cannes only to follow, like a disjointed puppy, a man who is the epitome of the two-bit crook (named Stephane).  From their first meeting, there is chemistry.  As he cheats, lies, and steals his way out of every instance, Franssou continues to fall, head-over-feet, for him.  As he hits her, uses her image, and even verbally degrades her, she continues to fight for his intentions.  Again, I must stress.  This is a romantic comedy - but not like the ones were a spoon fed here in the US. 

Christian Vincent's direction was impeccably well for a film whose world exampled several different locates in the French Riviera.  The colors and the visuals literally popped from the screen, allowing the "candy" from each scene to settle in its cinematic cavities.  Isabelle Carr, the woman controlling Franssou, glided between each scene, within each word, on screen.  She felt comfortable with herself, with the material, and with her co-actor that I believed she was the embodiment of this free-spirited woman.  Not only could this woman act, but wear a low cut dress for nearly every occasion.  This was both positive for the average male watching this film, but for the cinephile trying to decipher character, it just throws you full a big loop.  Has cleavage ever been a supporting actor?  None the less, our support actors range from Stephane (a man) who owes money to everyone, and can never quite reach out of the rock that is placed upon him.  He is the "mouse" to Franssou, a rather abusive one, but still the one.  He makes  you nervous, never quite trusting him from the beginning, and questioning his every motive.  Jose Garcia fills the role well, pulling upon many different cliches to support his character.  Not quite as dynamic as Franssou, he does accompany her well.  Like Texas toast to steak, he adds the filler between plot points.  Finally, there is comic relief with the retired Formula 1 racer trying to fit cars into a small garage.

In essence, that is what this film embodies.  Trying to fit too much into a small garage.  While I liked the visuals and was pleasantly surprised by the cast, the overall story is where Quatre Etoiles seemed to suffer.  We were constantly bombarded with more and more without the slightest sense of development.  Who was Franssou?  What was the relationship with the woman who left her money?  Is this an uncut, pure version of serendipity?  Finally, what was subtle (but again, ill developed) was Franssou's reasoning.  She follows her heart, but nothing was handed to us to maintain this character digression.  She isn't happy with her life early, shopping for matresses makes her feel bland, and when 50,000 euros suddenly become part of the picture, she becomes a mistress of the night.  No cares, no inhabitions, no worries about her new found placement, just headfirst into the deep end.  It will confuse viewers - at least it did for me.  I just wanted something early to demonstrate that she was "needing" this in her life.  That she was lacking that excitement only Stephane could bring (which, if you look at it - anyone could have brought that too her - Stephane seemed to be at the right place at the right time).  Small details like that turned the French lunacy of this film into chaotic haphazardness.  Don't get me wrong, this was good - but it should have been better.

Found in my TCM International Film Guide 2008 edited by Ian Haydn Smith, here is what they had to say about Quatre etoiles:

"Quatre etoiles by Christian Vincent, a Lubitsch-like triangular love story set on the French Riviera"

Mark:  Green with blue stars.  I didn't love this film, but it remained in my mind long after I was finished watching it.  Could I watch it again - absolutely!  I hope one day this film finds an American distributor willing to take a risk.  Good, but not great - definitely repeatable.

Que tan Lejos (2006)

A friend of mine recently gave me Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema and within the first several pages, Sarris discusses the idea of "forest and trees" cinema theory.  In this he states, that not all films are bad - as someone writing about cinema must realize that not all full parts make the whole unbearable.  A director may have focused less one one character, the story may have been lacking in detail, or the editing may have failed effortlessly, but the rest did shine greatly.  With my most recent outing, these words seem to fall directly into this film's line-of-sight.  Que tan Lejos (aka How Much Further), directed by first time auteur Tania Hermida, is a genuinely sweet film.  A road movie in every since of the genre, it is the story of two random strangers - one just wanting to tour Ecuador, while the younger on the hunt to stop her semi-boyfriend from marrying a stranger - as they journey, and journey, and journey in what amounts to two to three days, for an unfulfilled ending.

What begins with fast dialogue, characters that are intriguing, and a vast open road, quickly turns into an adventure overload with the quest overpowering the actors.  We, as audience members, want them to see their final destination, and while the Ecuadorian countryside is breathtakingly exciting, we find ourselves wanting more from our central characters vs. just gorgeous scenery.  Then adding to this mix, Hermida adds a third traveler (and a .75 of another) that completely obliterates the chance to further develop an emotional tie with our first two women, Esperenza and Tristeza.  It was this connection that I was hoping to nourish throughout this journey, but instead the lack of focus, perhaps merely just fresh (and still wet) behind the camera hindered this dream.  Instead of character development, we are caught with scenes of our two characters sleeping, staring into space, and honestly, just annoying one another.  That translates off the screen as well.  

I liked Hermida's vision, and this should have been a stronger film than presented.  Our two mains were decent actors (Hermida focusing more on our running wanna-be-bride than traveler), but the inclusion of more actors - Jesus and his ashes - just routed the focus away, when it should have been pointed inward.  I think there were also problems with actual "film-time", like bullet-time, this is when our characters give us a time they need to be at the destination, and unless you pay careful attention, you realize that it takes twice as long, yet destination is arrived just in time.  The ending, ultimately, fails.  A combination of not enough time with our leads and a goal that get muddied early on, the ending just remains bland.  No emotion, no character realization, no "ah-ha" moment that makes us feel happiness/sadness/anger/excitement for the future, Hermida had given up, or was unsure how to end this road movie.  It shows, and hurts the groundwork started.  Again, this was a sweet movie.  There were moments that will make you feel like traveling to Ecuador, but like the Hermida showed in every time, all the streets of major cities, and nearly every location in Ecuador - the film Que tan Lejos just felt empty.  

Where were all the people?

Found in my TCM International Film Guide 2008 edited by Haydn Smith, there wasn't a review for this film.  It was found in the Ecuador section (surprise!), and here is what Smith had to say:

"There was also the 'discovery' of an untapped sector: an audience of Ecuadorian films.  Seen for the most part only in festivals, and mostly unknown outside the country's frontiers, the breakthrough success of Tania Hermida's road movie, How Much Further? (Que tan lejos?), in both Ecuador and Spain brought hope for the development of a national film industry.  The film, seen in a handful of Spanish art-house cities, was a phenomenon.  It premiered in art-house theatres completely unprepared by the thousands of Ecuadorian migrants who turned up with their families to 'see' Ecuador.  According to official statistics there are more than two million Ecuadorians living abroad.

Overall, while "sweet" sometimes changes the feelings of this viewer, ultimately it was just mediocrity that it settled towards.

Mark:  Pink.  Ecuador is beautiful, this film can be forgotten again.

Edvard Munch (1974)

There is no question about the valued impact that Edvard Munch's painting, "The Scream" has had on modern value, and there is no denying him his rightful place in art history, BUT is a 210-minute long made-for-TV movie really the best venue to best express his full, unexciting life?  Director Peter Watkins feels like it does, and with that he fearlessly jumps head-first into this bland bio-pic beginning with the religious upbringing and devoted sexual pleasures.  Yet, before any of you die-hard art students decide to go out and rent this two disc feature, be aware.  Edvard Munch is a strangely developed film that does have heart, and perhaps is winded by the overall "time" of 1974, but fails miserably.  Was it me?  Probably.  But Edvard Munch felt like a blend of a softcore internet pop-up using 1970s colors and grain with an actor who chose to pursue Munch as an emo-esque tween vs. disjointed heartthrob?  Is this a perfect blend?  I will let you decide if you choose to watch, but it doesn't make for easy viewing.  Watkins' style is short jabs of visuals combined with sordid double entendra that doesn't fit within the overall scheme of the film.  His flash-backs are flash-forwards into an unknown time without markings or reason.  It is easy for a viewer to get lost in this film, and I sure did. Using the documentary-style approach (which, in my opinion, is the best and worst decision for this film), we talk directly into the camera to everyone involved in Munch's life, either living, already dead, or about to die.  Again, lacking in the rhyme or reason, we are left to only assume the chaos that surrounded this pained artist.  One of Munch's infamous lines was, "I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies—the heritage of consumption and insanity."  Eerily, that is how I felt when I watched Edvard Munch.

Quickly about the documentary-style element to this film.  Visionary for 1970s, I liked that Watkins wasn't afraid to tackle this endeavour.  Using both Munch's friends speaking directly to us bring us further into his life, I will not argue with that, but when Watkins decides to add an additional layer to this, by inserting an English speaking narrator (suddenly this feels like a program on the discovery channel, not a film) and attempting to stay true to the language by subtitling the rest, Munch just felt too overloaded.  It was a nice technique to begin, but ultimately Watkins' decisions to keep adding and adding and adding muddied the effect of the original.  The voice-over was the worst element, randomly interjected, we are pulled in and out of the world being created by this annoying voice of fact.  It felt as if Watkins could not find a way to sequence all the scenes together into coherancy, so he just decided to have someone speak over it all.  Bad choice.  Like a fever dream, we are left with a disjointed view of Munch's life, without reason or intent, we walk the path of this film only to be continually lost again and again and again.  I was eager to learn about this artist's life, but Peter Watkins' ruined it for me.

Epic failure.

Found in my Videohound's World Cinema: The Adventurer's Guide to Movie Watching by Elliot Wilhelm.  Here is what he had to say about this utter dissapointment:

 "I've never been completely sure why this extraordinary film casts the spell that it does, yet its eerie, documentary-like quality does seem to constantly be on the brink of capturing some cataclysmic, violent eruption, which, of course, perfectly mirrors the temperament of the tortured artist who is its subject.  British director Peter Watkins made a number of acclaimed films prior to Edvard Munch.  The best of them - Culloden and The War Game - were portraits of wars past and future and were filmed in the style of documentaries (his style was so convincing that The War Game, his fictional, 47-minute what-if portrait of nuclear disaster in a British town, won the 1966 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature).  His nearly three-hour, Norwegian production Edvard Munch sticks pretty much to the early years of the life of this seminal, 19th-century giant of the Expressionist movement.  It does what biographies of this sort should never do - analyze the works in relation to specific portions of the artist's life - yet Watkins' film is so assured and convincing that it packs an irresistible psychological punch.  This is an eye-opening, groundbreaking biography, and an entertaining one to boot."

I believe it is ok for me, Cinema AG, to disagree with Mr. Wilhelm and Mr. Watkins.

Mark:  Yellow with a black line.  Never to be watched again.