philosoraptor42

Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)

I've been trying to catch up with classic sci-fi movies and this was one that came up a lot. More recently the director Jean-Luc Goddard was known for releasing a film titled "Film Socialisme" in which he considered it so unimportant whether the audience understood it or not that he insisted that showings not include English subtitles. Perhaps that should have been a clue as to what I should expect from this earlier work.

I get the impression that Alphaville has dated badly. Which is strange since presumably the future world is portrayed by just shooting the contemporary setting in order to appear timeless. Then again, Goddard chose to film apartment blocks because they seemed futuristic in the 60s when he was filming. It was inevitable that those same apartment blocks would date.

The other problem is that the plot seems to do for dystopian storylines what Pontypool did for zombie movies, only far less coherently. Part way through the movie we discover that language in Alphaville is, essentially, dissolving. It's seen as very important that every hotel room contain a Bible, but the Bible is actually a dictionary. I've just revealed the most interesting idea in the whole film and here's the punchline. The female character in the film is saved by the central detective by understanding the word "love" and by telling the protagonist that she loves him. I'd like it if this was a commentary on the way all movies expect the female character to fall in love with the male protagonist, but that would make this a parody and the fact is that this film is simply too slow and monotonous to be a comedy.

That said there is a Kafka-esque feel to things here. The protagonist regularly seems to have to kill people just as a matter of course. He drifts through various absurd scenarios with certain female figures openly announcing that they are spies. All through the movie there's this kind of all controlling super-computer Big Brother voice that not only controls the whole of Alphaville in which the film takes place, but actually narrates the film.

Perhaps my dislike of this movie comes down to not having the right sense of humour. However, if this is supposed to be a serious movie then that really is a joke.

U+

Cosmopolis (2012)

David Cronenberg's adaptation of a Don DeLilo novel is not exactly set in the future so much as in some kind of bizarro parallel dimension. Characters talk to one another as if every word were highly significant, yet the people saying the words barely feel like real people. There are a few points where a particular actor will get a real sense of their character and manage to seem like a real person in spite of their highly pretentious script. But one person never seems able to give any depth to his character at all and that's Robert Pattinson. His ability to express himself appears to have been botoxed away.

Cosmopolis is about a billionaire who is trying to make his away across town to a very particular hairdresser in his limosine. He has everything he needs to carry on his day in the limo. Traffic is barely moving, firstly because of security blocks related to a visit by the President and later because of anti-capitalist protests. This means that various people will visit the protagonist in his limo, including his doctor, who reveals to him that he has an asymmetrical prostate. That's supposed to be highly significant. The slow traffic also allows him to go out for a bite to eat with his fiancée every now and then and easily return to the car.

There's a sort of dream-like feel to the whole film, but nothing seems to have any real significance. Samantha Morton plays a character who acts almost like a soothsayer. She almost manages to give a compelling performance, but even she cannot get around the ridiculousness of being a business expert who constantly repeats "I know nothing of this" during her long ultra-technical monologue.

Robert Pattinson's behaviour becomes quite extreme towards the end of the film, but since he never really gives any clues to what he thinks about anything his behaviour is totally baffling and uninteresting. The whole script is based around him and yet we learn very little. What we do learn didn't make me terribly interested in hearing more. He's playing an utterly selfish character with zero charisma.

The film doesn't really get interesting until Paul Giamatti turns up towards the end. His character is completely nuts and yet he insists that he and Robert Pattinson's character are alike. As a result this is the first time that Robert Pattinson's character appears remotely interesting. Sadly Giamatti's appearance doesn't occur until the final scene and the film ends with the scene pretty much unresolved. And even in this final scene Giamatti is held back by the bizarre way his lines are written and the lack of direction to the story.