Presque rien
Aug. 22nd, 2005 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Last night I watched this French film, whose English title is COME UNDONE. (I had met my friend Luis for tea and he loaned me a few DVDs to break up my reading with some visual narratives for a change.)
What a lousy film! The two protanogists, Jeremie Elkaim and Stephane Rideau, are both cute, but that is the film's only redeeming value. And even then, it's not quite enough. Plenty of beach scenes, some nighttime skinny-dipping, a bit of sex on the beach... But the plot (hah!) if very poorly elaborated, and doesn't really amount to anything. It's like a 98 minute slice of life with no point. Feh.
The film jumps around in time without any indicators of when or where we are, and none of the potentially powerful emotional moments of the film are ever realized. The major conflict is not even shown in the film, you have to deduce that it happened (and what it was).
Sebastian Lifshitz obviously disagrees with that famous Chekov line about how if you have a gun on stage in act one of a play it must go off by the end of act 3.
(I haven't seen the other gay teen flick, WILD REEDS, which also stars Stephane Rideau, but if the plot is as non-existant as this, I think I won't waste my time. Different director, so perhaps there is hope...)
The poster image/DVD cover shows a Pierre et Gilles photo of the two cute protagonists, but there is a full-frontal version of this same image in P&G's new book from Taschen which is more rewarding--and perhaps more interesting and dynamic than the film itself.
Not recommended for anyone seeking something more than soft-porn twink titillation.
What a lousy film! The two protanogists, Jeremie Elkaim and Stephane Rideau, are both cute, but that is the film's only redeeming value. And even then, it's not quite enough. Plenty of beach scenes, some nighttime skinny-dipping, a bit of sex on the beach... But the plot (hah!) if very poorly elaborated, and doesn't really amount to anything. It's like a 98 minute slice of life with no point. Feh.
The film jumps around in time without any indicators of when or where we are, and none of the potentially powerful emotional moments of the film are ever realized. The major conflict is not even shown in the film, you have to deduce that it happened (and what it was).
Sebastian Lifshitz obviously disagrees with that famous Chekov line about how if you have a gun on stage in act one of a play it must go off by the end of act 3.
(I haven't seen the other gay teen flick, WILD REEDS, which also stars Stephane Rideau, but if the plot is as non-existant as this, I think I won't waste my time. Different director, so perhaps there is hope...)
The poster image/DVD cover shows a Pierre et Gilles photo of the two cute protagonists, but there is a full-frontal version of this same image in P&G's new book from Taschen which is more rewarding--and perhaps more interesting and dynamic than the film itself.
Not recommended for anyone seeking something more than soft-porn twink titillation.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-23 10:39 am (UTC)Again it is such a subjective area....we all have our own reasons for liking or disliking films.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-23 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-23 07:42 pm (UTC)Next up are HAPPY TOGETHER and MONSIEUR IBRAHIM ET LES FLEURS DU CORAN, that my friend Luis loaned to me at the same time.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-23 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-23 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-24 08:50 am (UTC)It just dawned on me why your name seems so familiar to me. I was in the States for a few years, teaching at a university in Oregon. When romance went south, I decided to follow suit.
!¿Qué más podría hacer cuando el amor terminó con tal velocidad asombrosa - excepto toma un viaje a México?! I spent that summer in Cuernavaca, Mexico and attended a special language program at CETLALIC. http://www.cetlalic.org.mx/
Our first fieldtrip was to D.F. In the morning, we went to the Frida Kahlo House, la Casa Azul. In the afternoon, we joined in the Mexican capital's Pride march (Mexico at its most colorful!).
CETLALIC doesn't use a textbook per se. Instead, we discussed issues that we were passionate about and teachers would suggest readings. One of my instructors, Sandra, xeroxed one of your stories for me. Another teacher, having seen what I was reading, made some connection between you and vampires, and made me a gift of "El Vampiro De La Colonia Roma" a book by Cuernavaca's own Luis Zapata. ¡Pues, gracias, Lawerence por toda la ayuda con mi español!
Itai
Tel Aviv
no subject
Date: 2005-08-24 04:36 pm (UTC)I'm amazed at how many languages and countries you crossed to make this cibernetic connection. :-)
Me alegro que mis cuentos te ayudaron a aprender el castellano.
No sé si le conociste, pero el dueño de la librería gay en D.F. es también el coordinador de Shalom Amigos (el grupo de gays judios).
What were you teaching in OR?
no subject
Date: 2005-08-24 08:14 pm (UTC)In Portland, I taught Hebrew at the university, and a slough of subjects at a Jewish day school (Torah w/Rashi, ESL, Hebrew, Arabic, History, Dance and Music). I also played harpsichord with the Portland Chamber Orchestra, taught music theory and piano and did some translation work. It was never boring and sometimes I even remembered to breathe!
For the year just after 9/11, I also taught English in Jordan in a boys' school. Down on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea where the land juts into the sea, the village is the lowest inhabited place in the world and the presumed site of Sodom. As a secondary project and with a nod to my location, I did some Aids education (in Arabic and pantomime). Although it was unintentional, I found that a little humor softens the heart to hear...
no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 10:37 pm (UTC)