strayed

we actually watched this a few nights ago. an andre techine film–the only other things i’ve seen by him are “wild reeds” and “my favorite season”, both of which i liked a lot, and possibly more than this. but this is quite good too. france, ww-2 right before the armistice with germany. a young mother and her children are escaping from paris when their refugee convoy is bombed (a truly horrific scene but not quite as traumatic as the black and white footage of real carnage that opens the film). they fall in with a strange young man and proceed to sit out the war for a little while. not a whole lot happens but you stay tense throughout. people connect, don’t connect and there’s no real resolution.

emanuelle beart plays the mother and the makeup people fail gallantly at trying to make her seem plain.

equilibrium

why the hell did i watch this?

apparently in the future high and low emotions will be outlawed and chemically prevented so as to prevent war and crime. that’s all well and good but why must the new cops who enforce this have to be named grammaton clerics? and why is everybody in resistance movements in these movies always so morose? whatever happened to the jolly french resistance with their jaunty berets and their devil-may-care attitude?