The Artificial Real

Rating: Null/10 (8 January 2010)

I've saved this for some time.
Louis Malle in two of his later films changed me. "Dinner" and "Vanya" were remarkable for being extremely layered, very much aware of itself as film drama. I delayed seeing this because some of his other films were significantly less impressive, even ordinary.
This is his most straight-ahead film I believe — straight ahead in the sense that you are intended to simply fall into the reality of the thing with the camera and any dramatic convention as irrelevant. So careful is he to be without artifice that he sacrifices all the devices he could have used to engage us. The thing is quite simply narratively incoherent.
The coherence and power is supposed to come from outside the film. We are told that these events really happened as we see them, that he is the boy who is the narrator, and that the entire film exists only for the final scene. There is no need for structure or storytelling when you have those two qualities.
I have to admit that the last scene does have power, both because of the way it unrolls and the fact that we know it happened — that cruelty comes home. But you have to pay for that by sitting through what amounts to a boring setup; old man memories. Just because something captured the storyteller when it happened, doesn't mean it should be part of the story.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.