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Mooch has a different opinion on I STAND ALONE
Harry here.... Well yesterday, Mongo liked it, and today.... Well read for yourself. Different strokes for different folks ya know... Here it is...
Angry French butcher gets a gun and angrily walks around being angry.
I Stand Alone / Seul Contre Tous
"Personally son, I always prefer my pregnant wife-beating courtesy of Nil
By Mouth, oh, and if you see your mother this weekend etc. etc."
I Stand Alone has no soul, no substance, no insight and no restraint. It
is the indulgent pseudo-intellectual ramblings of a pretentious and woe,
woe, woefully deluded Angst-chic Situationist throwback who ought to
realise that it isn't big and it Jesus-H.-Bastard-Mother-Of-God-Son
Of-A-Sinner-Arse-Of-A-Horse-Christ sure isn't clever.
The film came out over here in Britain around March/April to rave
reviews from everyone from the broadsheets to the gutter press, and
the way it was described immediately attracted me. So on that fateful
April day I suggested to my friend Gareth that we go and see this new
French film. What's it about? Butcher goes psycho. Excellent.
I Stand Alone is not merely a bad film. It is a dangerous film.
Because say if one of the She's All That crowd somehow found their
way into the theatre whilst looking for McDonalds? This is the film
that 13 year olds think foreign films are, and if someone was to
misguidedly break off in the middle of their jedi training and expose
themselves to this when they weren't fully ready, they would never
trust "films" ever again and movies - the dark side - would gain yet
another ally in the eternal battle. I'm inclined to agree with
Gareth's theory that it is an evil conspiracy instigated by Bay.
Now, Gareth is a veteran and I somehow made it battered and bruised
to the end, but others might not be so lucky.
You know when words absolutely fail you and all you can do to express
yourself is swear? Copiously? At lamp posts? Well, that's what I
experience when I think of this film, which is ironic because it was
also what the lead actor experienced while making this film. Unless
that's meant to be the script. You know when you are
15 / 16 years old and in the throes of bitter teen angst and you feel
so genuine and that every body else is fake, and you write lyrics and
poetry? This film feels like reading that poetry now. Writer /
Director Gaspar Noe really does think he is profound. He think's
he's Truffaut as well, but lets just stick with the profound bit.
Opening the film is a man with a gun, spouting off to a couple of others
in a bar about such high flown concepts as Justice and Morality, and this
kind of misguided pretentious drivel is representative of the entire
duration (or enduration or whatever) of the film. There's enough
material here for an entire Mansun album (plus B-sides). I don't
know if anyone out there in the big wide electronic world happens to
read Melody Maker, but the thing that this constantly reminded me of
was The Diary Of A Manic Street Preacher's Fan: "I hate Thursdays.
Shallowality and Mindless Mindlessness stalk the land like a maggot."
Except I Stand Alone isn't funny (apart from maybe the stunning
revelation that all Germans are "Nazis and sons of Nazis") or ironic.
It is deadly serious.
Gaspar Noe's previous filmic foray was apparently a short film about
a butcher who loses the plot. This suggests that he thinks he's found
some deep symbol of mankind. Sigh. The script is so clunking in its
presentation that you can see right through everything that Noe tries
to do, his clockwork invocation of nationalist pride into his main
character is just one cringingly obvious element in this whole sorry
affair. And it is boring. So boring. And no-one seems to have
mentioned the deafening bangs that keep happening and the constant
crashing bullet zooms which are annoying as hell right from the start
AND HAPPEN ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE BASTARD FILM.
After lots of angry walking angrily around being angry, Everyone's
Favourite Angry French Butcher goes to see his estranged daughter,
who is mute and living in an institution, and he takes her out,
telling the nurses that he wants to show her the city. Suddenly, as
they are travelling, the countdown appears, jolting you into putting
down that razor blade and sitting up in your seat. We are informed
on the screen that we have 30 seconds to leave the cinema, and the 30
counts down to zero. This is in fact a sick joke, again perpetrated
by Bay, because of course you don't leave the cinema and forever
after wish that you had. What then ensues is a sequence in which our
cuddly incestuous sociopath contemplates suicide ("Do it! Do it!")
and then we have the ending in which Noe seems to attempt to justify
incest. Hmmm. Whatever blows your goat, Gaspar.
This is where the reviews come in. Another evil plot? Of course
another evil plot! It just seems to me that the critics - a gentle,
easily-led race - were innocently fooled, by Noe's self-belief. A
few points. 1) JUST BECAUSE IT FEATURES POOR PEOPLE
DOESN'T MEAN IT'S GENUINE 2) JUST BECAUSE IT DOESN'T
HAVE SPECIAL EFFECTS DOESN'T MEAN IT'S GOOD 3) JUST
BECAUSE IT WENT TO THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL DOESN'T
MEAN IT'S COOL and finally 4) JUST BECAUSE IT HAS BIG WORDS
DOESN'T MEAN THEY'RE USED PROPERLY.
After the last shot, the screen switches to black and - in a
suitably, almost parody-like prentious manner - displays the message in
large screen-filling letters: "YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING A FILM BY
GASPAR NOE", to which my friend immediately replied "and if you've got
any sense you'll never watch another one."
Mooch
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+ Expand All
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is funny. I liked the review (probably more then I'd like the movie).
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I turned it off half way, because I could not understand what the actors were saying.
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ha ! not bloody much !
p.s the french make some shite don't they ? -
A review that mentions Situationists and Melody Maker? Boy, Mooch, did you send this to the wrong site. Hands up everyone here who hasn't heard of Greil Marcus? Thought so. That Mansun crack was priceless, though- absolutely priceless. Don't suppose you'd consider filling in for the late (and sorely missed, I'm sure) Mr. Hallenbeck on a regular basis? Your kind of venom is needed to keep the humors in balance, my friend. Well done.
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ahhh bognoggy shimbdaggle spluum
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You know, foreign flix are a lot like foreing people. They can be charming, often very likeable, and why should anyone look at them any different than an American. On the other hand they were raised with different values, in a different culture,and they speak an entirely different language, and sometimes these culture clashes can prove horrid. So the same becomes true with this films, you can't always expect a viewer from another culture to understand all the crap they try to shove down our throats. It just doesn't work that way. Few things can be cross cultural and be successfull, even films.
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You probably wouldn't like VIVRE SA VIE. Without pretentious filmmakers, screenwriters on cocaine, and producers spending an eighth of the budget on importing viagra by the barrel - the world would be an uninteresting place.From APOCALYPSE NOW to HEAVEN'S GATE, I say bring 'em on! This particular foreign film does sound a little bit gimmicky, but I don't understand how it could provoke such a strong reaction across the Atlantic. Personally I'd rather go see THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS, but unfortunately movies like that are few and far between in the States. I wish Samuel Goldwyn had a little bit power to get their acquisitions into theatres. I used to be able to see a new art film every week at the worst shitbox, 5 screen, inside a mall, Cineplex Odeon. But at least those 5 screens were devoted to arthouse films. Now Sony/Loews and Cineplex Odeon have merged, and AMC built one of those rat bastard 30 megaplex right on my corner. And everyone goes there! Now we have even less selection of bad movies, with inferior sound, and terrible projection. And no one says or does anything about. And there's no one to run to.
Burn in hell AMC South Barrington 30! BURN! -
Great reviewer! attitude and intelligence tigether, well rounded culture, Like an educated Hallenbeck!! Harry get this guy as aregular!
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I STAND ALONE isn't for everybody, that's for sure, but -- as the vitriolic reaction above attests -- it really does get under your skin in ways that no other recent film that I know of does. Speaking for myself, when I came out of the movie, I had some misgivings about what I'd just seen. But the next day, I couldn't stop thinking about the movie. The day after that, I started telling people about it. The day after that, I found myself recommending that people go see it. It's that kind of film. It's been about a month, now, since I've seen it (here in L.A.), and I still find it tough to shake the experience. A great movie? I don't know. A memorable filmic experience? Unquestionably.
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THANK YOU GOD!
That movie was one of the worst things ever to grace the screens of Sundance. Not that it was especially shot bad, or acted bad, but the fact that it was two hours of a man, the director I'm assuming, finding reasons to have sex with his daughter. Thank you for the wonderful ballsy stand against pretension everywhere!
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