VIFF: Comedy of Power

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Filed in VIFF 2006
October 10, 2006

20061010 Comedyofpowers

This sort of film is the sort of thing that makes people hate the French.

Technorati Tags: festival, film, international, movies, vancouver, viff

Don't be fooled by the name; this is no comedy.

Time Of The Wolf and Demented are slow French films where things unfold slowly over time, building characters and slowly filling in plot elements as a story develops.

In this case, an investigator slowly reveals elements in a conspiracy; very very slowly. There are a dozen or so sub-plots here as the judge's marriage falls apart, as those around here become targets of her suspicions, and many more. Too much going on for there to be nothing happening.

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What, you can't gaze at Isabelle Huppert for an hour or so?! It's a Claude Chabrol film, what did you expect? Car chases? x

Posted by: A at October 11, 2006 4:34 AM | Quote Comment

I neglected to mention that I'm typically a fan French cinema in my rush to say how much I disliked this film.

It's just that this one included so much random detritus that it ends up feeling like a pile of trivia rather than a movie. The husband she ignores, the break-ins, the odd relationship with the nephew, and the flashes into the conspiracy...

'Demented' is more along the lines of what I like about French cinema.

Posted by: Richard Murray

at October 11, 2006 7:31 AM | Quote Comment

Please, what (or who) is Demented?

Posted by: derigueur at October 11, 2006 2:34 PM | Quote Comment

Demented was originally titled 'Le Dernier des fous'...

I haven't written anything about it yet, but the VIFF guide says;

"The story focuses on 11-year-old Martin (Julien Cochelin), a gauche, unprepossessing loner who lives with his family on a run-down farm… Martin's mother lives behind locked doors, the ebb and flow of her mental condition keeping her husband in a state of nervous anxiety. The boy has an uncertain ally in his big brother, a mercurial arty type in a volatile state of psychic and sexual meltdown…"

Posted by: Richard Murray

at October 11, 2006 2:56 PM | Quote Comment

Hey, so, you didn't like the movies. Why hate on the French?

If I find a Bollywood movie too cheesy (no way!) I don't jump to, "Man, this is what makes people (a thinly veiled I?) hate Indians!"

Lame. This is a good blog, but this has to be the crappiest posts I've ever seen on it (and one of the crappiest movie reviews I've ever read.) Way to suck! 0/4 stars.

Posted by: Ali at October 15, 2006 3:41 PM | Quote Comment