“It seems to me that the human race is the only species who have forgotten the whole purpose of life, the whole meaning of existence is to have fun, to have pleasure. And here is someone who’s found their own way to do it. We shouldn’t judge them for it. If they’re happy and enjoying life, we should congratulate tchem, not criticize them. ” – James
Number of Times Seen – 1 (8 Jun 2016)
Brief Synopsis – A British writer and a French woman spend the day together in a small Italian village
My Take on it – It’s no secret that I’m usually not the biggest fan if foreign language films, but I saw an interesting review of this film over at Keith & the Movies and eventually decided to check it out.
I really liked how this film started off and I believed the interactions between the characters and was curious to uncover whatever secrets they may want to reveal during their day long conversations.
The cinematography is done especially well that we believe that the characters are talking directly to us which makes it feel even more real.
The dialogue is superbly written and jumps around three languages with such ease.
Unfortunately, this movie loses all of it credibility about half way through when it makes things too ambiguous and never gives us clear clarity as to what is really happening.
This ‘ploy’ leaves things too confusing and the story loses so much by it.
This is all quite unfortunate because it seemed to be going in the right direction before getting derailed.
Richard Linklater did this much better with his Sunrise trilogy because it kept things clear throughout.
Bottom Line – Starts off really well and then tapers off midway through when it becomes too ambiguous. Dialogue is amazingly done that we believe the conversations are real between the characters. Great cinematography helps capture the realism because we do believe that the characters are interacting perfectly off one another. Unfortunately, the ambiguity takes so much away from what we are suppose to understand and the lack of clarity actually hurts this film in the end. Linklater does this much better in his Sunrise trilogy.
MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Abbas Kiarostami on why Juliette Binoche and William Shimell speak directly to the camera: “My aim was to have Juliette speak directly to the male spectators in the audience – it was as if I wanted them seated just in front of William – and to do the same with him and the women in the audience. (From IMDB)
Rating – BAFTA Worthy
_______________________________________
Check out my *updated* movie stats here
To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link
To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)
Here is a link to my movie index A-Z
MovieRob 
Pingback: Movies Reviewed Index A-Z |
Pingback: Temporal Top Ten – 2010 |