The cinema of Julien Temple brims with highs and lows of life, absurdist moments, eschews various emotions and personal struggle of the characters. Most of his titles are documentaries based on the life of musicians, like a self-analysis presented with respect. Just 2 days back, i was checking out glimpses of "Oil City Confidential," it would have been Lee Brilleaux's 70th birthday. I remember during the pandemic Temple's music videos was something i loved coming back to. Later, i was going through all of Temple's filmography and I looked out some of his earlier stuff. I had watched Vigo (1998), went into the film knowing very little. I have seen L'Atalante (1934), but I didn't know what this film was gonna be. It was a good viewing experience and i had a little note about the film which i kept forgetting to post. Thanks to the late great Lee Brilleaux, on the occasion of his birthday, i had made up my mind to revisit Temple's works. I feel 'Vigo' is a very unusual piece of art in his vast filmography.
Vigo is a movie within a movie, from the very beginning, we find ourselves in a film that explores the passionate relationship between French film-maker Jean Vigo (James Frain) and his wife Lydu (Romane Bohringer). They are cannot live without each other, but they live on different tastes, sometimes they are the saddest lovers on earth, sometimes the most passionate. With a stormy rhythm, Temple keeps the viewer's interest undiminished, both through the brilliant screenplay, successive flashbacks, and through the amazing visual interoperations. The script tells different timelines, showing Vigo in a tuberculosis sanatorium where he meets his wife, then the career when Vigo gives it all to the medium, then his conflict with censorship, the making of L'Atalante (1934), a phase of breakdown, rebellious days and the end. There is a funny sequence when the couple are having sex and Vigo is gifted a camera and the entire vicinity is lit as he follows the people around, capturing their reactions. There are so many sides to each sequences in the film, each can be a bittersweet moment when the film ends. Few scenes could've been better with good writing as it felt one dimensional. There are few things that Temple did not go into much detail, the character study in was just left it hanging with transitions and brilliant cinematography. Regardless, This is an interesting, honest and tragic insight into the world of Vigo and it does hit all the notes that I had hoped most of the time and does justice to his legacy.
