Not Coming to a Theater Near You
You know him?”
“Not socially. His name’s Jaws, he kills people.
What Dumont has learnt from Bresson is an ability to give expression to the materiality of the world, and the opening scenes of Flanders are tremendous filmmaking, images of almost perfectly-balanced composition that are steeped in the physicality of the world. Initially, reservations set in about the use Dumont makes of its non-professional cast, put in these roles of brutish, inarticulate peasant-types. The brutishness of life here in verdant Europe is mirror-imaged in the war scenes in North Africa (standing in for Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever you’d like); to the extent that the victim of a gang rape singles out for castration/torture/execution the one soldier that refused to assault her. A cruel, brutish, violent world, empty of meaning indeed, it seems. But all is redeemed in the amazing performance from Adelaide Leroux as Barbe (and in what Dumont expresses through her), the moral, emotional, and philosophical centre of the film.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
23 Nov 2006 9:47 PM | Submit Comment
