France/Tunisia/Belgium/Spain
directed by: Abdellatif Kechiche
written by: Abdellatif Kechiche, Ghalia Lacroix + Julie Maroh (comic book)
starring: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche, Jeremie Laheurte
seen: 24th June, 2015
This film made me feel like there was somebody standing behind me the whole time, grabbing my neck and pushing my head closer to the screen. The pressure was so (sur)real I felt like I couldn't breathe properly at times. I don't like it when authors choose to show character's emotions through making them do nothing but smoke - smoking does not have any meaning, it just creates an illusion that the viewer should feel like there is something happening.
And I've been saying that a lot lately, but I was once not connecting with the story at all. The characters speak about love, but when I put their words together with what I see them do during their film existence, I have no idea what they mean by love. When somebody says "night life" I'd rather imagine graveyards, coffins and werewolves than clubs where no one can hear me speak. And when it comes to visualizing a relationship, I would like to see more fundamental details than who has what shaved.
Yeah, and one last thing that surprised me when I was reading articles about this film: It certainly doesn't look like a work of a director who lets actors repeat one scene a hundred times to get what he really wanted. All the action is cut up into million shaky partial shots and nothing flows in longer takes - that does not look like a clear vision to me.
