I'm forcing my hand to write something about the two new films I this past weekend. I start this post knowing full well that I don't really have anything much to say about either of them. So let's see how this goes! Whee!
From one frame to the next in a Jeunet film I can swerve violently from ebullience to vitriol. My response to Amelie was so erratic I don't think I could ever watch the film again lest I plan on snapping vertebrae. As for Micmacs à tire-larigot, there were moments of cutesiness that came close to capsizing my enjoyment but he wove in just enough jet-black darkness to keep me from bailing. (And no, Amelie did not have enough countermeasure to counter the enormous measure of the seventeen thousandth close-up of Audrey Tatou's imp grin, I don't care what you say.) Micmacs dragged a little towards the 3/4s mark but there are enough inspired touches to recommend.
As for Agora, once I got over the hump of actors in Roman costume talking like modern people do - even though I ought to be used to that by now for some reason here it hit me up front as terribly silly; there was such attention to making the world look period-authentic that the dialogue felt especially incongruous at first - there was plenty to appreciate. I went to see Rachel Weisz play Hypatia and she was her usual appealing self. The problem was the film didn't seem to know what its focus was. We follow Hypatia for awhile and we follow Max Minghella as the slave-turned-Christian for awhile - and I like to look at Max but he's not a terribly compelling actor - and then we lose the both of them for awhile while the film chases its warring dogmas. Still the film managed to stir the fury of anti-religion in my belly pretty feverishly at times - it may've overplayed its hand in that respect a bit but at least it went for it when so many films fear to even look upon such questions - and slang be damned it does present a pretty convincing picture of what the ancient world must've looked like.
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You are just realizing how silly the vaguely-British-accent-in-place-of-any-foreign-anything dogma of Western cinema is? Well, I guess it didn't really strike me until I saw Les Miserables (da movie) a couple weeks ago. But, man, I wrote a whole thing about it...I mean, do they really think the audience for Agora will be the type to shy away from subtitles? What did ancient Romans speak, anyway?
Wow. That was a rant. Sorry bout such.
I'd def. recognized it as a silly contrivance plenty of times before but mostly it's something I'm willing to give a pass. I don't really understand why British accents became the go-to, why say Jake couldn't just have his American accent in Prince of Persia if they're not gonna go with the ancient dialect (whatever it is; I have no idea), but I get why they don't go the subtitle route most of the time.
Here the film's opening scenes establish this place so far away in time and space so beautifully that when Rachel Weisz gets all loose with a lesson she gives in an early scene that it really stuck out. But I got over it relatively soon after that.
I think they stuck Jake with a British accent because everyone else in the cast was British, and maybe they wanted a little bit of continuity.
Also, British accents, especially in the Les Miz example, sound much more melodramatic.
I'm still picking at it whenever I see it. Like, say what you will about The Passion of the Christ (which I will), but at least Mel Gibson went for authenticity.
This won't effect the quality of the movie, of course...but if you think about it, it really is ridiculous.
I'm not sure authenticity is entirely what Mel Gibson was going for.
I saw Micmacs (I guess they shortened the name here) a couple of months ago. I thought it was basically made up of little things that were really enjoyable, like that one guy's inventions, or the Micmacs posters scattered throughout the movie, or quite a few moments with Calculator, who was my favourite character.
I liked the sweet cutesiness, but I have an extremely high tolerance for it, so.
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