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 Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:28 pm |
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Guest
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My affinity for Techine must have something to do with the fact
that we both grew up by the sea. (I don't know for sure in his
case, but I'd bet the house on that.) _Hotel America_, one
of the earliest of his films I've seen opens with black and white
footage of beaches. Not the hot, crowded playful sort but just
a bit desolate, cold, windswept Autumn type up north. Seaside
places that breed brooding, isolated people, who nevertheless have
not given up on love. The sea plays a huge role; it is where
Catherine Deneuve's anathesist's lover drowned. She lives in
the same seaside town (Cherbourg? there was a scene which
would almost be a tribute to Demy's film with Deneuve.) This
film could be an close kin of _Alice and Martin_, and is about
two troubled, mismatched people who fell in love with each other.
The colors of the film are amazing. The warm hue and shock
of primary colors especially during the neon-lit night scenes
reminds one of so many great films of the 80s (_Paris, Texas_,
_Querelle_). Deneueve wears a green jacket almost the entire
film, except during the antiseptic hospital scenes; she first
seems out of place, aloof, except in a stunning scene, lying
in the verdent grass field at her ex-lover's decaying grand
mansion. Later she positively glows from love; unfortunately
her bliss seems to have sucked the life out of her insecure, far less
professionally successful lover (Patrick Dewaere), who gets
by as a tour guide. The story is rich in characters and metaphor;
there is Bernand, Dewaere's dominant jerk of a friend before
meeting Deneuve; his bookish sister; Deneuve's doctor friend
who loves her; the titular hotel; the scenes at airports and train
stations; the key to the mansion hiding beneath rocks like wild
grass; the accident that almost kills Dewaere before figratively
resurrecting him. It is very satisfying, laid out like a map when
you think about it but completely unobtrusive otherwise. The
sensuality of those car-mounted sequences though, they are
meant to stand out; how I wish I've seen this on the big screen.
The film ends in a cliff-hanger, much like _Rendezvous_. I have
seen few of Techine's early work-, but this feels so much more
mature and assured than _Barocco_ made just a couple years
earlier.
Now if only someone can finally release _Alice and Martin_ and
_Thieves_
on U.S. DVD too ... |
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