I know it's not fair to judge Claire Denis based on one movie, one incredibly painful Q&A (for reasons that weren't even her fault), and about fifteen minutes of a seperate one of her films, but that appears to be where I am right now. That's what I've got to work with. So be it.
I tried to watch her much-loved 1999 film Beau travail several months ago and found the first 15 minutes insufferable, to the point where I had to turn it off. And now my impression of what was going on there and was getting on my nerves has been mostly cemented by plunking down and watching her latest film White Material, starring the incredible Isabelle Huppert.
Where one person sees elliptical mystery another sees inarticulateness, I guess. Denis just leaves too much to the imagination. Everything is so dialed back and observational that character behavior and interaction becomes vague to the point of indecipherable. I don't need anything spoon-fed to me, I usually appreciate it when it isn't, but Denis (at least with the little I've seen, mind you) seems to have gone off the abstract deep end. It's all very pretty and I like to stare at Isabelle Huppert as much as the next person, but I'm not entirely convinced there's any there there. At least not convinced yet. I have to say White Material did make me want to see something else of hers. The human animal is of course a mysterious beast - in real life we don't always understand our own motivations, and I suppose it's that murkiness that Denis is trying to express. I just found everything so far off the end of inscrutable that I could hardly feel affected by any of it, ultimately. She's obviously a talented film-maker, but it's just in a way I haven't yet found personally engaging, or satisfying.
As for the Q&A cluster-fuck, Denis and Huppert and Isaach De Bankolé were all there at IFC last night and Denis' English was a little rusty, so of course everyone's - including the moderator's - questions were rambling and completely lacking in any point, so it was left to her to fumble with piecing together a through-line in a language she's struggling with, which again, not blaming her at all, but the moderator really needed to pull it together and rein it in. And then these two women who just adored the sounds of their own voices started arguing with each other over complete nonsense - they had no questions for anyone, they just wanted their rambling pointless opinions to be known to us all, so we had to listen to them back and forth for pretty much entirely fifty percent of the entire Q&A. And the moderator sat there and allowed this to happen.
Isabelle Huppert sat in the center of the stage with the microphone on her lap and her arms crossed and basically grimaced the entire time. Which is EXACTLY what I want from Isabelle Huppert, so that much at least was awesome.
.
I tried to watch her much-loved 1999 film Beau travail several months ago and found the first 15 minutes insufferable, to the point where I had to turn it off. And now my impression of what was going on there and was getting on my nerves has been mostly cemented by plunking down and watching her latest film White Material, starring the incredible Isabelle Huppert.
Where one person sees elliptical mystery another sees inarticulateness, I guess. Denis just leaves too much to the imagination. Everything is so dialed back and observational that character behavior and interaction becomes vague to the point of indecipherable. I don't need anything spoon-fed to me, I usually appreciate it when it isn't, but Denis (at least with the little I've seen, mind you) seems to have gone off the abstract deep end. It's all very pretty and I like to stare at Isabelle Huppert as much as the next person, but I'm not entirely convinced there's any there there. At least not convinced yet. I have to say White Material did make me want to see something else of hers. The human animal is of course a mysterious beast - in real life we don't always understand our own motivations, and I suppose it's that murkiness that Denis is trying to express. I just found everything so far off the end of inscrutable that I could hardly feel affected by any of it, ultimately. She's obviously a talented film-maker, but it's just in a way I haven't yet found personally engaging, or satisfying.
As for the Q&A cluster-fuck, Denis and Huppert and Isaach De Bankolé were all there at IFC last night and Denis' English was a little rusty, so of course everyone's - including the moderator's - questions were rambling and completely lacking in any point, so it was left to her to fumble with piecing together a through-line in a language she's struggling with, which again, not blaming her at all, but the moderator really needed to pull it together and rein it in. And then these two women who just adored the sounds of their own voices started arguing with each other over complete nonsense - they had no questions for anyone, they just wanted their rambling pointless opinions to be known to us all, so we had to listen to them back and forth for pretty much entirely fifty percent of the entire Q&A. And the moderator sat there and allowed this to happen.
Isabelle Huppert sat in the center of the stage with the microphone on her lap and her arms crossed and basically grimaced the entire time. Which is EXACTLY what I want from Isabelle Huppert, so that much at least was awesome.
.
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1 comment:
Oh, I saw this at NYFF last year and I was not a huge fan either, basically for the same reasons as you. It was my first Denis film as well. Hm, I kind of want to see it again though...Isabelle Huppert is just...awesome.
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