Nocturnal Creatures

J'ai pas sommeil (1994) - Denis







So fluid and graceful. Denis's penchant for sketching out knitty-gritty lives of Parisians, both long time residents and newcomers are present in J'ai pas sommeil. It involves two storylines, slightly brushing each other. One introduces a young Lithuanian girl, Daiga (Katerina Golubeva) in her Soviet made car driving up to Paris all the way from Vilnius. Penniless and with very limited French, Daiga bums around her distant relatives and ends up living in a crummy hotel run by good-hearted Ninon. The other story is of Camille (Richard Courcet), a gay performer, and his partner are involved in series of robbery and murder of old ladies throughout the city. Theo (Alex Descas), Camille's brother, having decided that Paris is not a place for him and his little son, is planning to go back to Martinique and that doesn't bode well with Mona (Béatrice Dalle), the son's mother.

Unlike Wenders and Jarmusch (both of whom Denis worked as an Assistant Director for) fish-out-of-water stories, I find Denis's sensibilities more modern and cosmopolitan. Her portrayal of human desire and yearning lensed by great Agnes Godard has no real parallel. The cinematography in this is so effortlessly cool without ever being flashy. And this is why I always have a hard time taking a screengrab from her films.

J'ai pas sommeil also features alluring Katherina Golubeva. Obviously the camera loves her. Her beauty is overwhelming in every frame she's in.

I have to reassess my Denis priorities here. I do love her later, more visceral, post Beau travail stuff. But nothing really beats her earlier films. J'ai pas sommeil reaffirms that she is one of the greatest filmmakers working today.

Dark Obsession

Pola X (1999) - Carax








As I revisit Pola X for the first time since it's theatrical release in 1999, I realize that my misgivings were solidly based on my expectations of it to be another Lovers on the Bridge. I downright hated it. Didn't even give it a chance to register. So now, years later, after Carax's triumphant return with Holy Motors, after talking to the somehow 'wisen up' artist, I gave it another go. Surprisingly, Pola X is not about self reflection or a bitter misunderstood genius as I initially thought it to be. It's about dark obsession, a love story that is quite similar to his earlier films, but just without whimsical romanticism. It's not the graphic sex scene (albeit tastefully done and very very dark) that differentiate Pola X as a more mature work. Even though it features some beautiful young actors - Guillaume Depardieu at his most dashing and a dangerous beauty, Katherina Golubeva among them, being young is never verbalized or beholden to. For once, it's not about the first love.

Pierre the title character (Depardieu), is a successful writer who is about to get married. He and Lucie are very much in love. Everything is sunny and golden and light. Enter Isabelle (Golubeva), a dark war refugee and claiming to be his half-sister. Pierre is gripped by her magnetism, shuns his wealthy life in the country and his domineering mother (of whom he calls sister, Catherine Deneuve), moves into industrial ghetto in Paris, headed by enigmatic Sharunas Bartas (looking like a Diehard villain here). Now he's seen the darker side of life, he realizes that his past writings are trivial fluff. Things get complicated when sickly Lucie decides to move in, just to get closer to Pierre. Short on money, he makes a disastrous TV appearance where he was supposed to talk about his previous book and gets accused of being an imposter. Then his new dark writings get icy receptions from the publisher. It's all downward spiral.

As the the film unfolds, I realize my penchant for tragedy. I DO LIKE SAD MOVIES! Shot by Carax regular Eric Gautier with some seriously underexposed cinematography, Pola X is a decidedly dark, brooding film. And I liked it a lot more the second time.

Debunking American Myth

Twentynine Palms (2003) - Dumont

My god.... Zizek would have a field day with this film if he ever saw it.

David (David Wissak) and Katia (Katerina Golubeva) are driving down to Joshua Tree National Park from LA in their red Hummer. Seems David is involved with filmmaking (he's scouting for locations). With slow pacing, we get to witness their mundane routine- driving, trekking, eating, swimming in a motel pool, fucking, fighting and making up. There is a sense that David and Katia are not communicating well (Katia only speaks in French and David always yells at her, "I understand only a half of what you say!") On the outset, Twentynine Palms plays out like another Antonioni-esque film about disconnection and isolation in modern society. But that's not what Dumont is interested in here. As its sudden, grotesque violence that befalls on our protagonists at the end of the film, it is clear that he is after something else.

Given the context of 9/11 and Invasion of Iraq, Dumont is set out to debunk American machismo- Westerns & military power (Hummer) and also throws in sexual politics: David constantly demands sex and Katia accuses him of not having a heart. When he lets her stir(!) his Hummer, to his horror, she scratches the shit out of the car. We spend copious amount of time watching him looking at the dents and them looking for a car wax in following scenes.

Twentynine Palms is a difficult film to like. Dumont's blunt use of symbolism and sudden violence to illustrate the point rub me the wrong way. Yet I prefer this to von Trier's Dancer in the Dark or Haneke's Funny Games remake. His talent is undeniable.

The Outsiders

Few of Us (1996) - Bartas









We are introduced to a vast wintry landscape below through the helicopter windshield. A young woman (Katerina Golubeva) is dropped off in the remote village where its inhabitants seem like the Eskimos in the far north. She shares a smoke with an old reindeer herder. There is a bit of magic realism with the bedroom overgrown with vegetation. But the welcome is short lived. At the gathering of the villagers at night, Kat watches their drunkenness in silence from one corner of the room. She sticks out like a sore thumb, since she is taller than everyone around her. Did she come to the place looking for acceptance or solace? After a knife fight with a couple of drunken local men, she flees the village on foot. No one helps her. Some even pretend not to notice her struggle.

Few of Us is no anthropological survey or gooey, touch-y feel-y travelogue where everyone gets along. It's a cold, unforgiving world for the Bartas' outsiders. Their loneliness is accentuated here with breathtaking scenery and the village's physical remoteness. The film is gorgeous as usual. Bartas holds the static shots for good 2-3 minutes, so they can come alive before your eyes . Again, his no dialog approach fits much better here with the isolation and sadness of the characters than other interloper films like Varda's Vagabond (which I love very much but now obviously not as much as this). I loved it. It surely becomes one of my favorites of all time!