MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON. L'amour? Not sure!

Usually the purpose of a love story is the empathetic pleasure derived from the natural melting of boundaries between the audience and the lovers, in that we are encouraged to feel everything that the characters are feeling, and it makes us feel good.
Here, in this dreary little French film (that's sold as a modern day BRIEF ENCOUNTER), it’s actively discouraged. In fact, virtually all embellishment of emotions seems frowned on. It’s like a 70 year old stern nun with a stick up her arse directed this, and it’s as emotionally cold as a High Definition porn flick.
Yes, it’s clear that the creative choices of the director were to simply observe - a dispassionate static camera throughout - like a security camera that happened to catch pieces of information accidentally, and then pretended it wasn’t actually interested. The lovers say very little to each other – he’s an illiterate builder, she’s a chilly children’s teacher unable to set down roots anywhere, or even acknowlegde her emotions. When they’re together, they have minimal conversation, and it’s always about irrelevant surface level shit – like which CD you like listening to, and it leads to nothing meaningful. I wanted to jump into the screen and pull their underwear down, and force them to touch each other's naughty bits. It was THAT frustrating.
However, the aesthetic of the film IS frustration, so to deny my frustration might be selling it short. It reminded me a lot of Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR – a film about John Keats and poetry and romance, that was SO unromantic and dispassionate, it was like watching two insects slowly die of suffocation in a glass jar. The strange thing about this French flick was the definite 'style' of not lighting the characters in the scene – so you kind of have to find them every time. They are enmeshed in their surroundings – unable to escape. They blend in with the drab wallpapers, grey walls, and cluttered kitchens, unable to wrestle out a unique identity that might separate them from their environment. In a Hollywood movie, they would be so backlit, they would seem to walk on air, radiant like the Virgin Mary or some other airborne fantasy. And the camera would have definitely zoomed right in on the kiss (with a deafening violin surge) – but not here – we’re virtually excluded from it, in bizarre silence. It's almost embarassing. Ugh!
In fact, there’s no musical soundtrack to ‘steer’ the emotions in this film at all.
Creatively, the net effect of a film like this is curiosity. I was impressed with the audacity of the creative choices, though sometimes wondered if it was directorial laziness or extraordinary restraint. But ultimately these choices didn’t become greater than the sum of their parts – the movie feels hollow, undernourished and unsubstantial. In a porno, if you don’t get aroused, it’s a failure. In a love story, if you don’t feel emotionally transported, you’re just standing at the station, watching a train disappear into the distance, with your ticket in your hand. And that’s annoying.

INCEPTION

What can I say about this movie outside of the trillions of websites that will inevitably spring up trying to make sense of it? This movie will spawn its own religion.

And you know something – it’s a REALLY GOOD MOVIE. It has some flaws, but it’s meaty and makes you think for days afterward. Non-stop.

If you like your movies linear like a good Sherlock Holmes plot, turn around, and walk away, girlfriend! This movie is big, splashy, showy and all over the place. It feels like an abstract jigsaw puzzle carelessly strewn across a table - yet, at any given ‘sudden lockdown’ moment, this movie knows exactly where all the parts are, and how they relate to each other (though only repeated viewings will prove this to be true).

It’s reminiscent of THE MATRIX in lots of ways. A device to enter dreams must be physically present, and people must be plugged into it. Yet, once Nolan has the rules established, he entirely goes to town with them. I honestly had no idea what was going on for about 40-50% of the time, but if you stick with it and work HARD, it starts to answer questions you had about 15-20 minutes ago, while you’re busy processing the asteroids of new information hurtling at you, constantly. The net effect is like a two and a half hour rigorous enema – utterly exhausting, but not without its definite charms.

Nolan is back to his obsessive themes again – dealing with unfulfilled romantic love in an environment of unreliable memory, and the effects of ‘father-loss’. The entire movie is about Leo trying to get home and be a father again – yet his own father issues are complex and austere, and impinge upon his efficacy as a ‘successful’ grown up man.

Both women in this movie are wild cards – and yet the men are very clearly defined. The Ellen Page character while interesting, ultimately has no gravitas – it’s like she’s simply there for the cool ride, and for satisfying that box-office demographic. And when she tries to become an authority in Leo’s ‘marriage’, she makes no sense – like what does she know that can possibly help?? While we all love Ellen Page (who doesn’t?), it feels like much of her part in the film has already ended up on the cutting room floor to make the movie shorter, and so her motivations in scenes are sometimes unclear, and ultimately unsatisfying. And by the way, who is Tom Hardy? And where have they been hiding him? The most magnetic performance from a breathtakingly handsome man. WOW! Move over Daniel Craig - your number is up.

But, don’t resist - this movie is the MUST SEE of the summer. And please don’t criticize it because you don’t fully understand it the first time. Because YOU’RE NOT MEANT TO.

This film is aimed squarely at the video game generation, who relish the concept of being lost in something far greater than themselves, knowing in faith, that everything will make sense in the end. They want to be challenged. They want to have to see it again and again to gauge how clever they were the previous time. And Warner Brothers is totally depending on that!