#95
Post
by therewillbeblus » Sun Jan 08, 2023 1:22 am
I've been able to acclimate pretty well to each Menzel I've seen, but this is a strange one. For much of the time, I found myself thinking that the material would be better served as a series of short films rather than a feature comprising a set of ideas externalized in narrative strands under its satirically experimental central conceit. Instead we get a curious kind of not-quite omnibus anti-narrative, which -while obviously containing the sociopolitical lampooning of satire- never quite manages to locate a coherent tone. There are moments presented as clear vehicles and they have a decent-enough batting average of landing, but I admittedly couldn't place the intention of many bits, even some that worked for me. For example, my favorite part of the film is in an early scene with the newlyweds in their apartment. I was moved by the detail where the wife lights and plays with the stove fire before they go into the bathroom and chase each other around the apartment, but I also felt slightly alienated by the composite scene in its entirety. I self-consciously wondered: Did I miss a gag? Was the intimacy felt in that oven-lighting (reminiscent of the spiritual experience Desplechin's brother has watching Marion Cotillard dance naked in Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle)) purposeful, or was that just how I experienced it? I suppose it doesn't really matter if it's my experience, but in general the meditative instants of drama, or not-comedy, just didn't gel with the rest of what we get- and that comes to feel exhausting by the last act, especially as narrative throughlines seem to expect to carry some weight when the uneven-by-design playfulness rendered them numb. It's a semi-interesting film, but also a mystery of temperament.