Annette (Leos Carax)

Started by wrongright, April 19, 2021, 04:41:18 PM

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Drenk

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on August 28, 2021, 04:13:38 PM

I think there are two good scenes in the movie: Adam Driver acting out the tickling episode on stage, and the orbital shot around the conductor. Outside of those precious few minutes of vitality, this film is a dull, motionless slog.

Pretty much. I was happy, at least, to see Adam Driver acting with all his body: that's when he shines, in my opinion, and what Girls exploited perfectly. In Marriage Story, he's just standing there. Tall as hell. I don't get it. That guy can be great. (That said, I love him in Paterson where he barely moves. Maybe Driver is just a mystery.)

I like the Brechtian introduction. There's a lovely post-credit outro, too.

Ascension.

WorldForgot

Finished watching this just like fifteen minutes ago so it's still fresh on my mind and first impressions. Its libretto sometimes irked me with the repetitive scheme - but as it's part of the structure of basically every track it settled into a rhythm for me by the midpoint. To me it's an ambitious reach of tone, all of it hinging on an interior immersion; to want to have that comedic layer that's attached to the character's interior be voiced as plainly as opera while creating representative spaces on the soundstage, spaces that are sad and at odds with its humor.

For that to work you'd definitely have to be invested in its synthesis of forms. That stadium scene, for example.
Spoiler: ShowHide
begins with the announcer hamming it up only to end on a mortal gavel
. Worked for me as a mythic musical. Not EVERY track but more than like I can stomach Andrew Lloyd Weber. It's not Sondheim but it's endearing; is what it is. Very whistle-able. 

Annette's design reminds me of Jan Švankmajer.

Jeremy Blackman


This deleted scene has more life in it than the rest of the movie combined. Poor choice to leave it out.

Jeremy Blackman

My review was unnecessarily mean, so I went back to soften and edit and clarify a few things. It's still mean, but hopefully less vitriolic. I think my reaction to the first half (which is MUCH worse) carried through a bit too strongly.

Drenk

For a movie called Annette, the puppet appears ninety minutes into the movie, after a painful slog, yeah. Nobody gives a shit about that "love story". Not even the actors. I don't get it. Even the fall and rise of Driver is artificial. They wrote "rise and fall" in a piece of paper and went with it without writing scenes or songs. And it lasts forever. The moody guy writing his motorcycle: it looks like a Carax ad. If I had spent years finding a way to design a puppet, I would introduce it earlier in the movie.

But Carax has never been great at narratives: Holy Motors is my favorite of his movies—one that I genuinely love—because it constantly jumps from one fun idea to the other. All the other movies are more or less of a narrative slog, the story is always a pretext. He isn't willing to get rid of it completely, and therefore the result is worse than no story at all: a dumb and weak narrative. The Sparks are just worse than Carax.
Ascension.