Lucas Belvaux's Trilogy: On The Run, An Amazing Couple, After Life
The first entry in Lucas Belvaux’s clever multi-genre trilogy is a thriller, but with the exception of some self-aware genre styling Belvaux smartly directs
On The Run in a minimalist vein. Suggestive of Melville’s
more threadbare narratives,
On The Run follows an escaped radical terrorist, Bruno (played by writer/director Belvaux), while he travels to home to his old haunts, slyly switches disguises, hits various safe houses (including one in a long-term storage locker), gathers and assembles weaponry, and begins to plan new left-wing terror actions. Old “friends” continually offer Bruno safe passage to Italy but he denies an easy escape and attempts to find gather long time allies for the old cause. But Bruno has been in prison too long and his old friends have either forgotten him or are ready to betray the escapee. The most prominent among them is Jeanne (Catherine Frot), who speaks to Bruno with the intense intimacy of either an ex-lover or as someone who used to believe in his cause with all her soul. Unfortunately for Bruno the years have altered Jeanne’s outlook and she is married and has a son; as time goes on Bruno’s meticulous evasion of the law and preparation for action seems more the actions of a desperate man finding himself alone in a new landscape than those of a fire-filled radical.
Belvaux, who bears a striking resembles to Clive Owen in his knowing, stern-faced professionalism, keeps
On The Run as thin as possible both in terms of plot and general dynamics and only two moral quandaries pop up throughout the film. The first is Jeanne’s conflict with Bruno where Frot’s face reflects the taut, painful situation she is
in when her past begins to seep in on her ordinary marriage. One of the film’s most dramatic moments is its least violent, when Bruno comes to pickup Jeanne against her will for a dangerous mission and Belvaux patiently builds a horrendous suspense as we wonder how Jeanne will deal resolve Bruno’s power over her new life. The second dilemma is a bit of a surprise. This being the “thriller” entry in Belvaux’s trilogy the themes and narrative are nearly devoid of melodramatics, and the curious introduction of a policeman’s drug-addicted wife at first appears contrived and overblown in a film so low-key and meticulously simple, and it seems that elements from one of the other films in the trilogy is unnaturally leaking into this film. But when Bruno stands by watching as she gets beaten and then later freely gives her drugs to keep her quiet Belvaux at least provides brief, interesting moral characterization for his stoic protagonist. As Bruno’s situation becomes more desperate we learn a little bit more about his left-wing aims and even the audience begins to drift away from his camp; by the film’s end Bruno is left utterly alone, forced to abandon his politics for survival and Belvaux tops his enjoyable thriller off with a deliciously appropriate anti-climax.
An Amazing Couple, surprisingly,
does not alter the visual look of the trilogy thus far. This is a shame, as, even more surprisingly,
An Amazing Couple's comedy of error’s plot-heavy whirlwind of misunderstanding often feels like a funnier, more complicated thriller than
On the Run's archetypal minimalism. Still, the second film of the trilogy is nearly as effective as the first, and other than the unambitious look of the trilogy is just as enjoyable, though obviously for different reasons. This one’s a comedy, and tells of a wealthy lawyer, Alain (Francois Morel) who decides to hide from his wife the fact he needs an operation. Cecile (Ornella Muti) misconstrues her husband’s secrecy for infidelity and hires Pascal (Gilbert Melki), the cop nemesis of
On the Run, to tail him.
Pascall’s melodrama from
After Life, the third film, leaks into this comedy just as his drug addicted wife did in the first, and he quickly falls for the gorgeous Cecile and begins to elaborate and falsify his reports, encouraging Cecile’s suspicions. When Alain finds out his wife is keeping an eye on him he in turn becomes wary of her, fakes a trip to Paris and attempts to expose her infidelity, thinking perhaps Pascal is her lover.
As comedies of misunderstandings often become weary under their thick deception and the characters’ complacent density Belvaux keeps
An Amazing Couple moving at a rapid pace
and cleverly interlocks scenes from
On The Run into the narrative to keep narrative-fatigue down and interests high. For example, when the chalet in which the cop’s wife hides Bruno in the first film turns out to belong to Cecile and Alain, both eventually think that all the commotion at the “safe-house” it the other one shacking up there with his or her lover. The police blockades incited by Bruno’s escapades encourages Alain’s light-hearted paranoia and mental breakdown. With an amusing script and pleasurable performers (aside from the dark and creepy Melki)
An Amazing Couple is fun as long as the deception continues to run. The ending, which is resolved with unsatisfying abruption, not only fails to live up to the carefully plotted twists of the comedy misadventure but also suggests that Cecile and Alain learned nothing. Belvaux crucially miscalculates his themes and implies that the whole affair was simply a misunderstanding and the problems that sparked the initial misunderstading remain between them. As cute as the film it, it lacks the growth required for such a strain on a couple’s fidelity.
Sadly the last entry in the trilogy,
After Life, is mainly of interest in the way the other two films intrude into its story and manipulate its characters. Because of this it is the only film that could not stand alone without the others; multiple scenes from
An Amazing Couple and
On The Run replay themselves
in
After Life, which would give the film a fragmented and confusing quality if played alone. In a way this could work with the film’s subject-the disjointed relationship between the cop Pascal (Gilbert Melki) and his morphine addicted wife Agnès (Dominique Blanc)-making it feel confused and schizophrenic. Still,
After Life's strength is less invested in its genre “melodrama” than in the way the terrorist’s actions of
On The Run and the infidelity hunt of An Amazing Couple manipulate the easy-strained relationship between Agnès and Pascal. As is revealed in
On The Run, Pascal uses his position in the police to procure morphine for Agnès, keeping her away from dangerous street drugs. But when Bruno kills Pascal’s supplier in
On The Run the cop is forced to make a deal with the local mobster-no morphine until Bruno is killed. Thus Agnès thinks her husband is making her cut the habit cold turkey, which drives her into the streets and into Bruno’s arms. After Bruno takes care of her following an overdoes she becomes protective of him and her allegiance to the terrorist problemizes the couple’s relationship even more- Agnès won’t give up Bruno, but Pascal can’t relieve her pain until Bruno ends up dead. And, as is illustrated in
An Amazing Couple, Pascal develops an infatuation with Cecile while his wife is home sweating and suffering through withdrawal.
The constant intrusion of the other films into
After Life is tiresome, and unlike the comedy and the thriller a generic drama can be dangerously more tedious than
more “entertaining” genres. Belvaux does not treat drug trouble and maritial stress like anything new, though he does use more psycho-dramatic compositions and subjective camera movement-and so as
After Life settles into its mundane drama it becomes fairly fascinating in a formal way, showcasing Belvaux’s cleverness through the way background characters of the two previous films unknowingly twist and turn, manipulate, try and strain this already troubled couple. While the thriller's intrusion in the comedy was cute and amusing, the previous films' intrusion in
After Life are tense and potent; Belvaux's integration is often ingenius.
This last entry in the trilogy finally does what the other two films should have done-look at the different characters from different angles. For instance, the friendly thoughtful doctor of
An Amazing Couple turns out to be a womanizer and a bit of a snitch; Pascal’s asshole behavior is finally explained and so on. If only Belvaux had cleverly done this in the other films, creating a multi-textured Rashomon, looking at each character in a different context in each film. Missed opportunities aside, Belvaux’s cinematic experiment is largely successful as it is both entertaining and formally interesting. That each film (or the trilogy as a whole) never achieves greatness is unfortunate, but Belvaux’s achievement opens the way for more contrived, more artistically complicated work that probably won’t be as fun.
Our Cinematography Nods
Appy polly loggies for the delay, folks... work's been keeping me going, along with trying to catch up with all the important stuff I still haven't seen so I won't look like a total yahoo when it comes time to offer up my other nominations. The delay, however, did allow a late-breaker to steal the fifth spot... so here they are.
Harris Savides for "Gerry"
Eduardo Serra for "Girl with a Pearl Earring"
Robert Richardson for "Kill Bill, Vol. 1"
Lance Acord for "Lost in Translation"
15 separate people for "Winged Migration"
Now you know what you need to have seen by the 27th of March. Go, go!
Love Object
Don’t you hate those people who always insist on reading the manual first? Kenneth (Desmond Harrington) is one of those types; in fact, he actually writes those manuals. Writer/director Robert Parigi’s trashy b-movie indicts such manual-readers to an extreme degree-when Kenneth finds an attractive new temp at work he decides he needs a manual for her before any romance can proceed. When peeping in on his amorous neighbor’s love making and a visit to a porn shop do not seem to unlock the secrets of love, Kenneth springs for a more ambitious manual, a $10,000 life-size, life-like sex doll. But Kenneth has made a crucial mistake, he gets involved with his doll Nikki before going after the temp, Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller). As this mild-mannered manual-scribe attempts to seduce Lisa good old Nikki, left home alone, begins to get jealous. With Kenneth’s success at work flourishing because of the confidence Nikki’s always available love gives him he begins to transfer that affection to a real person, with understandably brutal results-Nikki always has her way.
Parigi has a terrific concept in hand but regrettably his story fails to support it strongly enough. Budget constraints and a minimal scope restrain some of the devilish conceptual fun of
Love Object, which hilariously has Nikki’s immobile non-communicative body coaxing Kenneth into S&M submission. Later, long after the narrative uses up its steam, Parigi drops a bombshell of thematic and thrill-matic dynamite when Nikki prompts Kenneth to drain the soul out of Lisa’s body so that he may embalm it as a beautiful shell for Nikki. To be sure,
Love Object keeps the mood supremely tongue in cheek, which is often a bit disappointing given the possible depth of the material, but then again it would be laughable to see someone sincerely tackle the topic of a killer sex doll controlling an insecure office worker. (And it is, in the handful of conventionally heavy-handed moments, but there is no doubt Parigi knows how silly he is being).
The occasionally delightful b-movie take on relationship dependency and need is helped by its successful, if amateurish cast. Harrington looks so similar to Christian Bale’s serial killer in
American Psycho as to lend his
Office Space-like meekness a tingle of cold-bloodedness, and supporting turns by Rip Torn and Udo Kier (who now seems to be making a new career by appearing in truncated American horror roles) spice up the limited production. If
Love Object is never as funny, as scary, or as thematically explosive as it could be it is probably more the fault of its meager budget than Parigi’s lack of skill. For a film that attempts to punish sexual desire in an anonymous workplace by turning a drone into a psycho isn’t really anything new, but the addition of a manipulating sex doll always turns the fun level up.
Shortlist for Screenplay Droogies:
Final voting for all categories is from March 22-27. Till then, catch these Screenplay-nominated films if you haven't yet seen them:
All The Real Girls (screenplay: David Gordon Green; story: Paul Schneider)
Bad Santa (written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa)
In America (written by Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan, Kirsten Sheridan)
Kill Bill: Vol 1 (written by Quentin Tarantino; writing credits: Uma Thurman, Quentin Tarantino)
Lost in Translation (written by Sofia Coppola)
Whale Rider (novel: Witi Ihimaera; screenplay: Niki Caro)
There are six titles on the shortlist instead of five, as there was a tie for 5th place. Rather than do run-off voting, I've left it at six. Hope that's okay.
Winged Migration
You know who loved this movie? My cats. They are not TV-watchers by nature, but both of them were entranced for at least twenty minutes by the screen when I played this DVD last night. They have short attention spans so they eventually gave up on it, but they both watched it much longer than they've ever sat through anything on Animal Planet.
You know who else loved this movie? I did, despite my somewhat irrational fear of birds. Everyone's got their phobias, I suppose, and this is mine.
For the documentary
Winged Migration (Le Peuple Migrateur), producer Jacques Perrin, three directors, five film crews, and dozens of camera operators followed the migratory patterns of birds on all seven continents for four years, in many cases working with imprinted flocks that allowed the crew to fly ultralight planes right alongside the birds. The result is a breathtaking visual spectacle that is at once thrilling, dramatic, funny, tragic, and at times (for me, at least) a little bit frightening.
Copywright
reviewed this film way back in July and gave it the high praise it deserves. There is little else I can do but agree whole-heartedly with that praise, particularly the descriptions of the photography.
Some highlights for me:
* The poetic ballet of the red-crowned cranes, as they preen and dance in almost perfectly choreographed synchronicity.
* The antics of the Clark's Grebe on a pond in Oregon, as they swim contentedly along and then suddenly rise up and run across the top of the water.
* A flock of Canada Geese, on their way north for the summer, fly alongside some cowboys marshalling a herd of wild horses through the American Southwest.
* A small bird with a broken wing, left behind by its mates, struggles to escape a crowd of hungry crabs alongside a deserted seashore.
* The sky is nearly blotted out by the sudden whoosh of thousands of sandhill cranes taking to the air (by far the most frightening spectacle for the bird-o-phobic).
If I have any criticism of the film at all, it's that the slight storyline applied as framework (a vague theme of "the promise to return") doesn't really work, or at least isn't all that compelling. The closest it comes to working is in bookended scenes of storks migrating through a farmyard. At the beginning of the film, a woman comes out of the farmhouse and tries to get near enough to them to feed them, but they get spooked and fly away. By the end of the film, she literally has them eating out of her hand. It's a nice pair of images, but it feels too staged.
But that's a small nitpick for a film that isn't really supposed to be telling a story in the first place. It is rather a celebration of birds in flight (or in waddle, in the case of the flightless penguins), as close to their majestic surroundings as possible. Wild Kingdom it ain't.
My only regret is that I didn't see it on the big screen when I had the chance. The DVD includes a making-of featurette, but I kind of wish I hadn't watched it. It's like having a magician reveal his secrets -- sometimes it's better to keep the magic intact and wonder.
Droogies Nominations:
Hear ye, hear ye: call for nominations for
Best Actress in a Leading Role. Nominations are open to Milk Plus members only. Post your nominees for Best Actress (up to five) in the comments section below. Nominations will close at 11:59 PM on Saturday, February 21.
Droogies Awards: nominations for
Best Actress in a Supporting Role are now open. Nominations are open to Milkplus members. Please nominate up to five names in order of ranking (first choice will get five points; second choice, four points, etc..) . Don't forget to sign your post!
Annotations and comments on your choices are optional, but welcome.
Updated: Nominations for this category are now closed. (prob. 2:00)
