Le règne de la beauté

I intend to see this film again, to follow its action and dialog (with subtitles) more closely than I could at the cinema house, if and when it comes out on DVD. That DVD incarnation of this film is quite likely, given the fame and popularity of Denis Arcand's films; this one is still in the theaters here in Québec, director Denis Arcand's home province. The movie is essentially a pastoral, by turns urban, by turns rural pastoral, in the life of a promising young male architect. There are lots of sports that feature in the life that he and his woman, the latter a gym teacher, anyway, lead. She has a lesbian dalliance, and he takes up with a woman from Toronto (who later in the film comes to take a position in Quebec City).

Do not let all that yuppie quality and comfort of lifestyle deter you. Éric Bruneau is a stunningly handsome, slender but very appealingly and tautly muscled young man (with a nice face, too). Women and gay men will "flip" at his numerous scenes shirtless and buck-nakedly nude. It is worth seeing the film if only to gawk at this extraordinarily beautiful young actor; there even are moments, fleeting ones, admittedly, of full frontal nudity. The women are attractive, too. I hope eventually to have a better idea of what the various goings-on really add up to. (I am very fluent in French, having lived and worked in Québec for many years, but my hearing is beginning to deteriorate as I age, so subtitles help more and more. The magnificent Québec scenery, too, is gorgeous and very skillfully filmed.

The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions were the only two movies about a group of unlikable people talking and talking and talking that I enjoyed repeatedly and still once in a while I watch them again. I enjoyed other Arcand movies too; so I can state that is one of my preferred directors and found his subjects matters quite interesting and his approach original.

Well "La Regne de la Beaute" (which translates in "The reign of Beauty") is not the case. The whole movie on precious scenery after the other; beautiful people in each frame; perfectly dressed and even the music is beautiful; but what was the point of all that?.

The intellectual (but overall shallow) bourgeois French / Canadian society it is one of his preferred subjects; as it is the declining health care in Canada (or at least in Quebec); but none of these themes are quite developed here.

The infidelity of a young successful architect without considering his wife's slow descending into madness; could be an statement about a society that became so cold that family is no longer important (none of the characters has kids and nobody really seems to care about infidelities or jealously ) At the end is about a year in the life of a group of people with lots of personal issues resolved in an absolute cold manner.

I will perhaps seat through the movie again; but at first sight colder than all the snow in Quebec.

Most critics have scorned at this movie for not being the usual politically, critically engaged Denys Arcand movie. Arcand started by exposing the many ills of a corrupt and dominant liberal (in the economic sense) society, used a lot of sarcasm in later movies to depict the ills of large state bureaucracies. This movie makes no exception as he stages architecture juries and again Quebec's health system. I do not agree with some of his reductionist statements, but I do love all of his movies for being pure art. "Le règne de la beauté" is by far his most achieved artistic statement, whereas he brings out the beauty of all the characters,making them so endearing, and of course showing the best sceneries across the four seasons in the province he truly loves.

Personally I liked all of Denys Arcand movie I saw, I've seen "L'age des Tenebres" four times at the cinema and then some more when I bought the DVD... I had some expectations when I heard this movie was coming out, and I must say I haven't been disappointed at all, even if I believe this is maybe not a movie for everybody... There's no real story who would make the film worthwhile by itself, I believe that to appreciate it the viewer must immerse himself in all the beauty depicted in the picture; beautiful actors inside and out, beautiful and picturesque countryside, beautiful music all along, beautiful buildings, beautiful sex scenes with beautiful naked womans... I think this movie fit right in Denys Arcand's style, I think if you liked his previous movies and are not too superficial in your expectations you won't be disappointed at all... It's kind of a poem, filmmaker Sofia Coppola tried to do something like that with her 2010 movie "Somewhere" about the relationship of a rock star and his young teenage daughter, but in my opinion she missed her shot in a gigantic way compared to this one... In her movie there were things like 5 minutes of strippers doing nothing but dancing at their pole, I understand we're supposed to immerse ourselves into the protagonist's world but there's a limit to feeding boredom to the viewer... Overall I didn't see the time fly watching this picture and I didn't come out of the screening room of the theatre, so I suppose it will be entertaining for at least some persons who appreciate beauty, like me...

I loved all the beauty I saw in this film. But apart from the gorgeous views and buildings and good music, what else does the film have to bring? Telling the sad story of our today's society is important, but let's not pretend that everything is fine and we should accept and live with it! I don't want to spoil it, so I'll let you watch and judge!