| Author | Message | ||
     John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Lady P & I watched A L’Interieur last night, after it had been recommended to me by Martin Roberts two years ago. It’s certainly an extreme picture, both in terms of the violence on show and its central performances. But did I think it was any good? That’s a more difficult one. The film starts well as a character-driven piece, moves quickly into suspense territory with at least one shot that proves the directors have studied their Carpenter, and then takes a couple of surprising right turns. Unfortunately that’s also when the film switches gears from ‘intense and believable’ to ‘daft’ with characters doing such stupid things that even the almost non-stop ultra-violence can’t distract you from the essential ludicrousness of the proceedings. So what’s wrong with that? I hear you ask. Well to my mind daft and ludicrous are fine provided the material is handled in the right way but here it isn’t – the execution is so po-faced and humourless that in my opinion it isn’t over the top enough for the movie to work. If it was Italian this film would have been a classic but as such it falls flat on its face, which is a shame. What’s interesting is that if there’s one thing the new wave of French horror seems to thrive on it’s its humourlessness. Martyrs was very good but very grim indeed, and Frontiers was a bit like Texas Chainsaw Massacre but kept an admirable straight face when documenting the antics of its family of Nazi nutters. So what do people think of these new French horror pictures in general? And am I missing any good ones? I have yet to get my head around the sub-genre and I know very little about the directors and what films have actually been made so far, but on the basis of the three titles I’ve mentioned I’m not entirely sure I’m going to end up an enthusiast because they are such grim experiences, which can sometimes work well but just as easily have the potential to fall flat. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I thought the movie THEM (not the giant ant one, the French one released a couple of years ago), was a truly chilling experience. Not an original idea, but excellently done. For me, you can't beat a horror movie that has a bad feeling about it from the outset, and this one definitely qualifies as that. A day or so ago, I posted about HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, complaining that, during its slow moments, it didn't work up an adequate atmosphere of impending terror. Well, this one definitely does, and that atmosphere steadily intensifies until it's almost unbearable. If you haven't seen it, John, check it out quick. You won't regret it. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Ah - yes, I DID see THEM (ILS). Kate & I had very different reactions to it & it worked better for her but I agree that it plays the 'unknown horrors come to your house' card very well indeed. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
I liked all of these French films a lot - Ils is one of the scariest things I've seen in years. My favourite, however, is Martyrs. I honestly think that's one of the most disturbing films ever made. Frontiers was good, and I agree that Inside was a bit daft - but incredibly intense, and I like the fact that it's po-faced. I'm getting a bit sick of humour being used in these films to water down the viciousness. I also rather liked Calvaire, but suspect I'm in the minority with this one... | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.142.169.99 |
Martyrs is great; but urgh it wasn't easy watching some of the most brutal scenes. But what an ending! Exactly right. Mark S. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.92.55.128 |
Zed wrote: >I also rather liked Calvaire, but suspect I'm in >the minority with this one... I liked it too, Zed. (Although I suppose we're both technically cheating, since Calviare was Belgian, but still...) I suspect that the current crop of French Horror films are simply modern examples of a longstanding tradition in French Horror, dating back to at least the 19th Century Decadents who felt that providing frisson and sex-and-death purely for aesthetic revelry is a perfectly viable mode of artistic expression. Now, I'm aware that this stance opens the door to a potentially endless debate, and for the record I'm not *necessarily* aligned with the opinion that "Life is dull and pointless, so here's some depravity to spice it up before you head to your grave," but I think this might be part of what's on display in these films. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Richard that's a very interesting point. As you probably know I'm a big fan of Maurice Level but it had never occurred to me before that these movies might be a logical extension of the conte cruele style of literature he became famous for. | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.142.169.99 |
Martyrs stands out from the norm because it incorporates and then transcends that dynamic. N'est pas, mon frere Monsieur Zed? Mark S. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Oui, oui, mon ami. That's exactly what the film does, Mark - and it's rare to have a serious-minded horror film about the themes of faith and transcendence. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.92.55.128 |
***Spoiler*** And let's not forget, Mark & Gary: it's transcendence via agony! Clive Barker's touched on this theme, but there were no cenobites to make Martyrs a "fable." It was u-g-l-y and that's how it should have been. It's refreshing to find others who felt that the conceptual breakthrough at the end of Martyrs distinguished it. I know of several people who viewed it as a cheap, ridiculous ploy to excuse the film's brutality. But I felt that it is *because* of that brutality that the closing moment makes sense and becomes poignant. That said, I sure as hell wouldn't want to transcend that way... John: Yes, I did know of your appreciation of conte cruele. I'm a fan too. Again, I could be wrong about these films. I'm not certain what their directors were intending, but sometimes the image or reaction itself is enough. It's not the only kind of way to approach Horror of course, but I think it's just as valid as using conscious themes of social problems, spirituality, familial tensions, etc. It's the execution of the piece that counts, not the intent. People tend to see their own themes/meanings in these stories anyway, no matter how earnestly the creator tries to get his or her slant in there. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.5.140 |
I liked HIGH TENSION, until that ludicrous reveal... but up to then, it was pretty damn gruesome and horrible.... | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
THE GOOD Them/Ils terrified me. My heart rate was at cardio training levels for the whole running time and I was so shaken afterwards I was afraid to go to the loo by myself - the KLP mark of a Really Good Scare! (Don't worry - I braved it but Lord P did have to check all the doors and windows first.)  THE BAD Inside impressed me right away because the protagonist didn't do the stupid thing of falling for the old "please can I come in and use your phone" routine. Great! I thought. Intelligent character! She even photographed the creepy lady through the window and then called the cops AND her friend. The cops even made a return trip to check on her and when they registered that something was wrong they went back AGAIN. All well done! But oh dear, all this cleverness meant that the film was going to be over very soon. So someone hit the Daft Switch all these done-the-right-thing-so-far people suddenly turned stupid and the film slid into utter silliness. But incongruously EARNEST utter silliness. Which just didn't work. It would have made a brilliant giallo; it just didn't work as a taking-itself-too-seriously nihilistic artsy French psychodrama. The final shot was a real cracker and in the hands of Argento or Cronenberg would have been masterful. Alas, here it just seemed wasted on an undeserving middle hour of incompetence. THE EXTRAORDINARY And Martyrs... Wow. I was haunted for months after seeing it. I had never felt emotionally traumatised by a film before and I wasn't sure if that was a good feeling or not. Effective and properly horrifying and, as others have said, transcendent. Certainly unforgettable; some of the imagery is as fresh in my mind as it was immediately after seeing it. I was masochistic enough to watch it again because I wanted Lord P's take on it. I didn't find it any easier the second time. I don't WANT to see it again, but if it was on I don't think I'd be able NOT to. There's something unnervingly compelling about it. So I'm with Zed - it may be one of the most disturbing films ever made. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.171.253.12 |
I loved Ils, thought it was excellent. I just reviewed a couple of French horrors for VideoVista and one of them, "High Lane", was particularly good. Well worth a watch, I reckon (and not as gruesome as most). | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.176.62.242 |
If you permit me deviating from the thread, I just want to point out a few excellent modern French film noirs, the kind of movie they did so well between the 1950s and mid 70s: - Le Serpent - Ne le dis a personne (Tell No One) - Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien - Swimming Pool - La tourneuse de pages (very subtle, this one) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Tom - does that last one translate as "The Page Turner"? That's a brilliant film. I also agree that Ne le dis a personne (Tell No One) is a belter. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Something I intended to mention yesterday was do people think that grim horror pictures (like Martyrs and like Inside was meant to be) essentially succeed or fail depending on the mistakes they make, or rather don't? For example, the first half of Inside is wonderful and very disturbing, but once one too many silly things happen the disturbed viewer has been given their 'get out clause', if you like - the film has shot itself in the foot because it has allowed the viewer to not be scared / disturbed by it anymore. What a film like Martyrs does so well is that it doesn't make any mistakes, so anyone who desperately needs that 'get out clause' to survive the film unshaken doesn't get it, so you basically get one of two opinions from whoever watches it - it's either a brilliant horror picture or else it's 'torture porn' because the individual who has been severely discomfited by it needs to dismiss it somehow but can't put their finger on any specific fault, because the film doesn't have any. I also think it's why many of the best horrors have such non-specific but very vehement reactions from non-horror fans, because those sorts of people can't cope with something that's properly intense and so they need anything 'horror based' that they watch to have faults to be able to survive them. Is this making any sense? Lady P can attest that I'm not a morning person  | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.185 |
Zed - yes indeed "the page turner" - wonderfully subtle and slow-burning, that one. This and swimming pool have some of that hitchcockian feeling of suspense and unease. Perhaps it's age but hyper-confrontational bleak and grim horror can captivate me less and less these days. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Swimming Pool' is one of the best made and most fascinating psychological thrillers of modern years imo. It works on so many levels I would need to write an essay to examine them all but suffice it to say the film successfully incorporates: subtle character study of the creative impulse suffering a crisis of confidence, slow burning Hitchcockian suspense thriller in the same ballpark as 'Vertigo', loving pastiche of a Patricia Highsmith murder mystery with a knowing dollop of Agatha Christie, ambiguous supernatural thriller with more than a touch of Robert Aickman or 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' about it and riveting portrait of a descent into hallucinatory madness. Add to that arguably the finest performance of Charlotte Rampling's career and the sexiest young woman acting today (Ludivine Sagnier) in the nude for most of the film's length and you'll realise that if you haven't seen this film - you really must!! I've seen it several times now and still only think I know what François Ozon intended by that ending... though I think it had something to do with the egg and the crucifix. Sublime adult cinema! | ||
| Martin Roberts (Martin_roberts) Username: Martin_roberts Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.5.239.91 |
I remember recommending Inside for being intense as I thought it achieved what High Tension was going for but not quite reached in my opinion. I saw Martyrs much later and found it far more disturbing, but have yet to watch Frontiers or Tell No One. I also liked THEM although I gain a lot from watching these kinds of movies with a friend of mine who reacts exactly as the filmmakers hoped an audience would react. What I do find interesting is that High Tension would be a better film if the ending was cut and Martyrs would be far worse if the movie ended without the spiritual revelation. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
Martyrs would be far worse if the movie ended without the spiritual revelation. Martin do you mean in terms of quality or intensity? | ||
| Martin Roberts (Martin_roberts) Username: Martin_roberts Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.5.239.91 |
In terms of quality sorry... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
No that's fine! In terms of what we're discussing here it could easily have meant either. I agree with you by the way. But still, even without that ending, Martyrs would have been an interesting failure, but partly because of that ending it doesn't allow itself to fail which is why it's so upsetting. |