Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Film Love streams
Posted by Pat Graham on 11.13.07 at 08:05 PM
There hasn't been a new Bertrand Blier film in town for almost a decade—the largely forgotten Mon Homme (1996), released here in '98, was apparently the last to play commercially—so How Much Do You Love Me? (2005), at the Gene Siskel Film Center through Thursday (11/15), comes as a welcome (or maybe quasi-welcome, at least for some people) provocation. Since if not for Blier's audience-baiting example, we'd never have had Gaspar Noé to kick around with impunity ... or for that matter Catherine Breillat.
Not that Blier's any more warm and cuddly now than he was a generation ago, and if anything How Much showcases the old antinomian at full misanthropic throttle. Though maybe it's just a matter of the devil seeing things more clearly—the "delusional" fantasies of homo economicus parading under the obfuscating rubric of beauty, love, romance. Since for Blier, everything comes down to a kind of free-market free-for-all—or "Love in the Time of Capital," to borrow from Garcia Marquez—and what's usually subliminal in negotiations of "the heart," as we familiarly describe it, necessarily becomes more literal and overt, an ideological stripping of masks, of emotional bad faith. Too beautiful for you? Not if you can afford it.
The avatar of that mind-set here is Gerard Depardieu's rapacious, calculating thug, so menacingly outsize the screen goes into eclipse (nice touch!) when the camera pans across his back. Take away my "beauty," he warns—indicating Monica Bellucci, his all-too-available belle dame sans merci—and be prepared to compensate my loss. Except Bellucci's hardly more than an illusion herself—compare her iconic frozen presence to the competition's more exuberant flexibility: "not corrupted yet," she says of the call girl in question, but it's about authentic responses too. Which Blier does seem to recognize, that even these perennial stereotypes of seduction need to be deconstructed. But not refuted, which is arguably a saving strength. Since beyond the calculation and cynicism (always "unsentimental," except when it isn't), everyone's still just unpredictably wacko!
All of which seems perfectly hilarious to me ... but then I think Catherine Breillat's a gas too.
Comments (11)
Showing 1-11 of 11
Mee-YOW! Pat has declined to cite my capsule review of the movie, though he alludes to it in his post. For the benefit of readers, here's what I wrote: "Monica Bellucci's breasts star in this dismal French sex comedy (2005) about a homely lottery winner (Bernard Campan) who offers a high-priced hooker (Bellucci) 100,000 euros a month to move in with him. Aside from the orgasms, there aren't many credible human responses on display here, and director Bertrand Blier heightens the brittle tone with a score of cocktail jazz and Verdi arias. In one of the more baffling attempts at humor, a physician suffers a stroke after catching a glimpse of Bellucci's naked bod, and as he twitches on the floor she starts projectile vomiting--it's like Gaspar Noé remaking The Girl Can't Help It." Pat's got about 20 years on me, so I'll defer to his superior knowledge of Blier. But like his earlier disquisitions on comedy, his post points up the fact that intellect doesn't guarantee you a sense of humor, any more than it guarantees you a sense of rhythm. President Reagan had a great sense of humor, but President Carter clearly doesn't. Ouch! As far as the movie goes, trust me: it's not funny, or particularly provocative for that matter, unless you feel there's a dire need for deconstructing perennial stereotypes of seduction. To quote the noted film theorist Matt Groening: "Don't forget cinema's greatest paradox: The French are funny. Sex is funny. And comedies are funny. Yet no French sex comedies are funny."
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J.R.--not mee-YOW! ... your capsule wasn't available from database file, else i'd've chosen it first * linking from the NOW SHOWING page loses the reference when the week's issue is taken down ... which happens regularly by the way, it's not something i can control but i'm glad you're our authority on humor ...
I wonder why no one else is commenting on this? Two obscure critics spatting over a bilious French pseudocomedy...I thought for sure this would knock Musharraf and Bhutto off the front page.
we can only hope ... actually, if it helps unruffle feathers (except it probably won't), i originally thought of the post as a kind of colloquy between us * logistically i didn't see how it could work, but i probably shoulda asked ...
I can see where both sides are coming from. I'm a big fan of early Blier -- and even some later stuff, like "Un Deux Trois Soleil" (an interesting dream/nightmare about French concerns about immigration). But I think he's lost his edge in recent years. I caught up with this new one last night and was at best only mildly amused. Blier still has a gift for mobile camerawork and he has a dream logic that's distinctly his own, but these qualities probably count for very little to someone who isn't predisposed to his work. For a real provocation about temptation and its price, I'd recommend "Beau Pere" or "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" in a second. "How Much Do You Love Me" is nice the way a recent Stevie Wonder album is nice: to know that a former talent is still working. All the same, some of its moments are going to stay with me. Like the scene about half-way in when Francois almost runs off with a second prostitute and the film almost dares to start again from scratch. I don't see this sort of thing every day.
Obviously I should sample some of that stuff, because I'm mystified by Pat's conception of Blier as some sort of confrontationalist along the lines of Breillat. To me the movie's sexual attitudes just seemed unbearably trite, like an old Tony Curtis movie or reruns of Playboy After Dark. And weirdly, it seemed to be lifting part of its plot from an American movie--Mad Dog and Glory--just as Jean-Claude Brisseau's Secret Things riffed on In the Company of Men. But all this may be generational, because for me, all these guys--Blier, Breillat, Brisseau, Noe--are fighting a gender war that's already over. (Or maybe, like Barack Obama, I just can't wait for it to be over.)
J.R.--the difference is that for blier, it's how he thinks and where he's personally invested, not a case of "well, what kind of movie am i going to make this time?," a consideration that, in the promiscuously flexible, corporate-product sense, probably doesn't come up * ergo: swipe from MAD DOG AND GLORY?--not likely, since it's the THEMES, however coarse or tawdry (only they're more than surface tics, keep worming their way in ...), that define blier's work, that perennially recur, and literal "plot"'s obviously the least of it * or to force an analogy, it's a bit like slagging chaplin for being out of fashion in LIMELIGHT: well yes, all that edwardian dance-hall shtick ... but here's what it MEANS to the guy, as a "creative" option--and maybe now to you too BEN--part of the fall-off may simply be a matter of production budget: the film DOES look cheaper than blier's slick 80s work ... though i think he's a more invested now in what his female characters connote * but you're exactly on target about the second prostitute: like night and day, a distinction of mentalities (unless it's only generational) that "old" blier wouldn't (or couldn't) have come near * a lot of the movie's impact hangs in this, the difference between bellucci's manicured stiffness (fully intended in my op) and the other girl's emotional fluidity, implying a (belated?) recognition that "authenticity" does matter, that role-playing fantasy can only extend so far but our friend J.R. probably thinks it's part of a war that's "over" ... i do wonder about that
I wonder if it's still considered a "personal" opinion if every other thought is an academic idea or allusion. The new trend in film circles: the constant deferral of meaning until we only have a nullity before our eyes. Noe, Breillat, antinomianism, economic man, Garcia Marquez, John Keats, Derrida? Any insights coming from the critic himself? Something like: "...the difference between bellucci's manicured stiffness (fully intended in my op) and the other girl's emotional fluidity, implying a (belated?) recognition that "authenticity" does matter, that role-playing fantasy can only extend so far" Oh, if only there were more of these nuggets!
DOTTIE--something about "standing on the shoulders of giants" occurs to me right now, except it's not really from me but ol' isaac newton ... though if i didn't know any better i could claim it as my own * but what if those giants are actually only midgets?--back to square one again! in any case, the idea of "allusion" is to embed the film (or book or whatever) in a wider culture context, not treat it as some kind of isolani (a term that derives from chess, ergo another "unoriginal" thought) * the "personal" aspect of this hangs on which allusions you decide to string together: this one rather than that one, etc * though sometimes the whole system crumples and you say something totally stupid--obviously, that always comes from us ...
I never much cared for Blier. Kael kept going on and on and on about how radical and transgressive he was supposed to be, but all I've ever found is sexual conformity. That aside I quite likes "Tenue de Soiree" (released stateside for some reason as "menage") and I like this one too. On thes basis of this and Zabou Beritman's infinitely superior "The Man of His Life" he's a real find. Monica Bellucci is appropriately luscious, especially in the scene where she takes off her coat.
