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arts / rec.arts.movies.international / _Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy_; _Both Sides of the Blade_

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* _Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy_; _Both Sides of the Blade_septimus_...@q.com
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_Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy_; _Both Sides of the Blade_

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Subject: _Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy_; _Both Sides of the Blade_
From: septimus...@q.com (septimus_...@q.com)
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 by: septimus_...@q.com - Sun, 24 Jul 2022 21:43 UTC

I have stayed away from the same director's _Drive
My Car_ -- the critical darlings have been dismal
in recent years -- but a contrarian critic really
loves this one. And I agree; it is an amazing film.

Even though I don't read Japanese, enough of the
characters in the title are sufficiently familiar
hat I know it is more accurately translated to
"Chance Encounters and Wishful Thinking." But
"Wheel of Fortune" is catchy in the U.S. "Fantasy"
is fine, really; it adds a classical music touch
to a very Rohmeresque film with three vignettes.
9I hope I am not overly sexist for saying that
director Hamaguchi is superb in eliciting
exceptional work from young and very beautiful
actresses, too!) The film features Schumann's
Scenes from a Childhood" piano score, which is
certainly a perfect fit for the last story, but
it puts me in an receptive mood for the
capricious first story, where the "player"
(serial philanderer) fashion model capriciously
manipulates her ex-lover, now on the verge of
falling for her best friend. I like the second
story; the innocence of the two main characters,
and their careers, are undone by a regretful error.
The male character (played a famous personality in
Japan, supposedly) gives the female some really
profound advice, as only a writer/mentor could,
but the actor could have been more expressive.
The third short story, which delves into older
characters looking back at their younger self
who might have been some of those characters we
have seen earlier, is absolutely magical. I
love it when characters have such imagination --
Eric Rohmer has it, Wong Kar-Wai has it,and maybe
I should check out Hamaguchi's earlier work after
all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the strength of French cinema is the ability
to portray intellectual and emotional depths all at
once. Claire Denis is one of the greatest directors
around. Her style is very impressionist, with lots
of close-ups, and the philosophical parts of her
films are externalized -- located in a space ship
or a tropical island or West Africa. When she does
domestic dramas, the intellectual underpinnings of
her films get short drift, and she tends to focus
too much on the emotional. Her second collaboration
with novelist/writer Christine Angot is better than
the first (_Let the Sunshine In_, enshrined too
quickly by Criterion), but it is still problematic.

The beginning of the film feels like Terrence Malick,
with its depiction of bliss in the water. (_To the
Wonder_, or perhaps _The Thin Red Line_.) Much of
the score sounds like Malick too, a lot of brooding
percussion, as does the whiplash pans. Vincent
Lindon is an ex-con, ex-rugby player, who is estranged
from his wife (now abroad) his son (failing school),
and his mother 3 hours from Paris, whom he cannot
bring himself to visit. He is living with Sara
(Juliette Binoche), a French equivalence of a US NPR
radio personality who engages with artists and
intellectuals. Sara, in contrast, is all about now;
there is hardly any information about her past
given, other than her relationship with Francois
(Gregoire Colin). Lindon's character hooks up
with Francois to start up work with young rugby
players. This gets sideways when Sara runs into
Francois again through one of their agency parties.
Colin looks and acts like Alain Delon as some big
time crime boss, and Sara flocks to him like moth
to a flame. Binoche is amazing (as she is always),
as shatteringly vulnerable as her starring debut
in _Rendezvous_, but the later part of the film
becomes all about her physical desire for this
ex-lover of hers. She has a career and a husband
-- why exactly is she so vulnerable? She has
an obsessed lover role in another film _Who You
Think I Am_, but that film has a better structure to
support her wonderful acting. This Denis film,
also called _Fire_, also reminds me of the remake
of _Scenes from a Marriage_, where Jessica Chastain
is at least as good, but her backstory is far, far
stronger.

Still, it is Claire Denis, and much of this lack
of focus must be deliberate. Maybe I should see it
again.

Re: _Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy_; _Both Sides of the Blade_

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Subject: Re: _Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy_; _Both Sides of the Blade_
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 by: septimus_...@q.com - Sun, 24 Jul 2022 21:47 UTC

PS -- good to see Claire Denis' old collaborators Alice
Houri (_Nenette and Boni_), Mati DIop (_35 Shots of Rum_),
and Lola Creton (_The Bastards_) again! They seem to
have mostly dropped out of acting.

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