Monday, March 21, 2005
BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS
Met with an old college friend last Wednesday at the Siskel Film Center to see 5x2,the new Francois Ozon film. It was playing as part of the Siskel's European Union Film Festival. The only other film I've seen by Ozon is Swimming Pool, which I liked, but more for Ludivine Sagnier and her fabulous breasts than for anything the film had to say about life or art. However, I was intrigued by the structure of 5x2: Five moments in the lives of a couple, Gilles and Marion, are told in reverse chronological order. The film begins as a lawyer recites the particulars of their divorce settlement and ends with their first intimate encounter at a seaside resort.
I'm wary of films that have gimmicky setups like this, (I'm thinking of Memento and Adaptation), but due to its subject matter, I thought 5X2 might be a little more thoughtful than those other films and a little less interested in proclaiming its own cleverness. And it was: 5x2 was a sober meditation on how a relationship changes through time. We first see Gilles and Marion as their marriage is ending and notice that their interactions with each other veer from awkward formality, to relaxed intimacy, to explosions of bitter rage. In the next sections of the film, their behavior changes from the cautious familiarity of a couple that has been together a long time, to the warm intimacy of a couple on their wedding day, and ultimately to the chraming tentativeness of two people first figuring out their attraction to each other. 5x2 may very well cause you to reflect on how your own relationships have changed over time; you may wonder whether those changes were caused by you or were inevitable due to the passing of time.
5x2 shares a great strength and a significant weakness of French cinema. On the one hand, it has the wondeful habit of French films of taking an interest in people for their own sakes, not just to advance a specious plot or to set them up for a fiery death in a CGI explosion. For example, in the final section of the film, we are surprised to find that Gilles is with another woman, Valerie, and that they have been together for four years. We immediately sense tension in her relationship with Gilles and come to dislike her for nasty, passive-agressive demeanor. But the film never dismisses Valerie out of hand, it shows some compassion for her, even though it shows us why her relationship with Gilles is doomed. I imagine in an American version of this film, her character would be a completely over-the-top shrew that we wouldn't believe anyone could stand for a second.
The significant flaw of the film is its evasive ambiguity. I thought 5x2 was interesting, but telling us that relationships change over time isn't necessarily profound, in fact, it's common sense. Although I liked the film, I might have liked it more if it had something to say in connection with its theme, such as, change is good/bad, people feel compelled to destroy their relationships, time will defeat any relationship in the end. Instead we are given a few red herrings regarding Gilles's sexuality and another one concerning Marion that seems forced into the film only to make Gilles not look like such a bad guy. I'm not saying that Ozon should have included an interview at the end of 5x2 explaining its meaning, I just thought that the film didn't have much of a point. Not having a point is fine, but sometimes not having a point walks hand in hand with not having anything to say.
Okay, I know it sounds like I didn't like 5X2 all that much, but I did. Just don't see it expecting your socks to be knocked off. Maybe just one sock.
¶ 12:10 PM I'm wary of films that have gimmicky setups like this, (I'm thinking of Memento and Adaptation), but due to its subject matter, I thought 5X2 might be a little more thoughtful than those other films and a little less interested in proclaiming its own cleverness. And it was: 5x2 was a sober meditation on how a relationship changes through time. We first see Gilles and Marion as their marriage is ending and notice that their interactions with each other veer from awkward formality, to relaxed intimacy, to explosions of bitter rage. In the next sections of the film, their behavior changes from the cautious familiarity of a couple that has been together a long time, to the warm intimacy of a couple on their wedding day, and ultimately to the chraming tentativeness of two people first figuring out their attraction to each other. 5x2 may very well cause you to reflect on how your own relationships have changed over time; you may wonder whether those changes were caused by you or were inevitable due to the passing of time.
5x2 shares a great strength and a significant weakness of French cinema. On the one hand, it has the wondeful habit of French films of taking an interest in people for their own sakes, not just to advance a specious plot or to set them up for a fiery death in a CGI explosion. For example, in the final section of the film, we are surprised to find that Gilles is with another woman, Valerie, and that they have been together for four years. We immediately sense tension in her relationship with Gilles and come to dislike her for nasty, passive-agressive demeanor. But the film never dismisses Valerie out of hand, it shows some compassion for her, even though it shows us why her relationship with Gilles is doomed. I imagine in an American version of this film, her character would be a completely over-the-top shrew that we wouldn't believe anyone could stand for a second.
The significant flaw of the film is its evasive ambiguity. I thought 5x2 was interesting, but telling us that relationships change over time isn't necessarily profound, in fact, it's common sense. Although I liked the film, I might have liked it more if it had something to say in connection with its theme, such as, change is good/bad, people feel compelled to destroy their relationships, time will defeat any relationship in the end. Instead we are given a few red herrings regarding Gilles's sexuality and another one concerning Marion that seems forced into the film only to make Gilles not look like such a bad guy. I'm not saying that Ozon should have included an interview at the end of 5x2 explaining its meaning, I just thought that the film didn't have much of a point. Not having a point is fine, but sometimes not having a point walks hand in hand with not having anything to say.
Okay, I know it sounds like I didn't like 5X2 all that much, but I did. Just don't see it expecting your socks to be knocked off. Maybe just one sock.
