Un lever de rideau

Promptitude, so goes the saying, is the politeness of kings and this short film by Ozon covers that subject, a comedy of manners.

As a New Yorker, I am often told by people from outside the City, that New Yorkers have no manners. This, of course is a falsehood. In New York, the assumption is that that people have things to do, places to go and goals to accomplish; that we have the chance, in this life, to regain many lost things, but not time. Thus, rudeness is the wasting of other peoples' time.

This short subject shows this is an attitude not unique to the island of Manhattan. It is the attitude of one of the men in this three-character short subject, who complains that his girlfriend has, in six months, wasted thirty-six hours of his time in making him wait, enough time for Victor Hugo to have written six important poems. I'm on his side, but he does need to chill. Perhaps he should carry a book with him while waiting, perhaps a collection of poetry.

Ozon has shot this simply but classically: long takes with fluid camera movement to maintain composition. thanks to dp Yorick Le Saux, with the length of each shot gradually decreasing in each section to heighten tension. The compositions are simple but elegant and this is fairly typical of Ozon's leisurely pace of storytelling at longer lengths. Color choices are also muted, another hallmark of Ozon's style. In fact, this is a fairly good introduction to Ozon's work. If you're thinking of investigating this director, you could do far worse than try this 30-minute film before essaying works of greater length.

I've watched this twice on the Sundance Channel in the US with English subtitles. The first time I thought is was pretty good, the second time I thought it was excellent. Like with most subtitled films, a second viewing allows you to get more into the film, whereas the first viewing is often spent just trying to catch all the visuals and read all the subtitles.

Very intelligent and thoughtful, often philosophical, sometimes poetic and reflective, and rather verbose exploration of love, selfishness, respect, self-respect, pride, punctuality, relationship power, ideals, determination, willpower and especially about the choice between sticking to your ideals versus sacrificing them for love.

Bruno is a fussy young man who wants to hang onto his self-respect by living up to his ideals, even if it means losing the girl he really loves. Rosette is flighty young woman who lives for the moment, unfettered by any time restraints, and who is simply clueless about Bruno's inner struggle with their situation. Bruno's best friend Pierre is the only one of the three who can see both sides of the coin, and he strives to bridge the gap between the two.

A gorgeous film to look at, even though it consists entirely of three people in an apartment. The leads are stunningly attractive, the short is beautifully shot, and although it's mostly dialogue, there's some lovely and very effective piano music to bridge the gaps between the discussions. It's also well acted and directed.

I'm sure many in the non-thinking crowd would consider this short film boring, talky pretentious French crap, but we probably don't have to worry about that since most of those people will turn it off as soon as they realize that have to read subtitles with big words.

Excellent short film.

Honestly when I first read the premise I thought to myself this would be full of pseudointellectual talks and over the top drama and I was almost right. The idea of breaking up simply because of being late for 45 minutes seems ridiculously unreasonable but wait till you hear those explanations. The character of Bruno is too wooden and non-emotional for me to take his acting seriously; maybe he was supposed to be presented this way but I just couldn't buy it, and most of his lines either. The two other actors on the other hand were marvellous and played their hearts out in stark comparison to this Bruno guy. Overall I feel like this short feature brings us to thinking that it's better sooner rather than later to realize what's bothering you, get to the bottom of the problem and solve it the best you can even though it might hurt in the end; to decide who is the person you love the most - your partner or yourself. All we have to do is just say what we need to say to dot every i and cross every t - and the rest will follow. In a word, it's a nice half hour spent, not totally wasted but nothing gained also.