Craig-32
Joined Aug 2000
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Craig-32's rating
JESUS' SON is a tale like so many others that we've witnessed in the world of film: young, purposeless man wanders about, falling in with similar people, a love affair destined for tragedy, and etc. It sports an unremarkable look that would otherwise be remarkable had music videos and commercials already trumped it: overexposure and vivid colorization.
But from its opening scene, JESUS' SON establishes itself as something quite worth watching. Despite the use of main-character-as-narrator, which can be a real sticking point, the film's writing and Billy Crudup's tremendous acting ability propel every scene into something charming and full, almost overflowing with ideas. In the course of this movie's average length, FH (in case you haven't seen the film, F and H are the initials of Crudup's character's unpleasant sobriquet) runs in with a bizarre and completely original group of characters who are all like him in some way: his manic junkie girlfriend (Morton), a down-and-out scumbag with a hammer (Leary), a perennial widow (Hunter), a Mennonite couple, a drug-addled orderly (Black), a crusty old con (Hopper). However, these characters are not token or caricatured, but fully formed people who live in FH's bizarre reality and all connect with his desperate longing for escape or meaning in one way or another.
Much like Bruno Dumont's recent films LA VIE DE JESUS (hmm) and HUMANITE, JESUS' SON explores life in a particularly unforgiving world (in this case, 1970's Chicago, in Dumont's, bleak pastoral France) and claws for some sort of beauty therein. Unlike Dumont's films, FH seems to find that beauty amongst people whom he can relate with and help. The two sides to this film can be seen in a span where FH works as an orderly, and, with the frantically comic Jack Black, steals pills to make it through the long graveyard shift. After a grisly scene involving the removal of a hunting knife from a man's eye, the two wander into the countryside, and, drug-addled and playing off one another (like the characters in Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING. . .), marvel at the ghostly wonders of the night. These scenes are priceless examples of writing and imagination that, in terms of sheer delight, probably eclipse anything to come out of recent Hollywood.
In the end, the true glory of this film is to find compassion where our conceptions of characters would tell us otherwise. The characters are not spat upon in their depiction; everything they do is earnest and according to their human value. The viewer constantly waits for something truly horrible to occur (and this is, often, what the film portends), but instead we can find only light.
The movie has weak points, but they are few. All in all, this is a triumph of acting and writing, and the direction sparkles at times. The film fails to provide a coherent theme to speak of, but its disjointed pieces somehow fit together to form a wondrous whole that is never short on surprises or pure humanity.
But from its opening scene, JESUS' SON establishes itself as something quite worth watching. Despite the use of main-character-as-narrator, which can be a real sticking point, the film's writing and Billy Crudup's tremendous acting ability propel every scene into something charming and full, almost overflowing with ideas. In the course of this movie's average length, FH (in case you haven't seen the film, F and H are the initials of Crudup's character's unpleasant sobriquet) runs in with a bizarre and completely original group of characters who are all like him in some way: his manic junkie girlfriend (Morton), a down-and-out scumbag with a hammer (Leary), a perennial widow (Hunter), a Mennonite couple, a drug-addled orderly (Black), a crusty old con (Hopper). However, these characters are not token or caricatured, but fully formed people who live in FH's bizarre reality and all connect with his desperate longing for escape or meaning in one way or another.
Much like Bruno Dumont's recent films LA VIE DE JESUS (hmm) and HUMANITE, JESUS' SON explores life in a particularly unforgiving world (in this case, 1970's Chicago, in Dumont's, bleak pastoral France) and claws for some sort of beauty therein. Unlike Dumont's films, FH seems to find that beauty amongst people whom he can relate with and help. The two sides to this film can be seen in a span where FH works as an orderly, and, with the frantically comic Jack Black, steals pills to make it through the long graveyard shift. After a grisly scene involving the removal of a hunting knife from a man's eye, the two wander into the countryside, and, drug-addled and playing off one another (like the characters in Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING. . .), marvel at the ghostly wonders of the night. These scenes are priceless examples of writing and imagination that, in terms of sheer delight, probably eclipse anything to come out of recent Hollywood.
In the end, the true glory of this film is to find compassion where our conceptions of characters would tell us otherwise. The characters are not spat upon in their depiction; everything they do is earnest and according to their human value. The viewer constantly waits for something truly horrible to occur (and this is, often, what the film portends), but instead we can find only light.
The movie has weak points, but they are few. All in all, this is a triumph of acting and writing, and the direction sparkles at times. The film fails to provide a coherent theme to speak of, but its disjointed pieces somehow fit together to form a wondrous whole that is never short on surprises or pure humanity.
A woman came into my video store last night, and, while I was checking her films out, she said "Ugh. I just saw the most boring movie." I asked what it was: "Humanite, up at the LeFont." I was suprised, but not very. "Really?" I said. "I loved it!" She was shocked. "What could you possibly love about that movie? I mean, I can take just about anything, but it was the most boring and offensive movie I've ever seen!"
Now, my first reaction was not one of utter disdain, because, for one, she IS a customer at the very cool independent store in which I work, and she did seem to honestly appreciate film, but just not HUMANITE. And I understood, but I didn't agree. Of course, she asked me what was so great about it, and I stuttered through a terrible, ineffective justification for my love of the film, but this served only to make her think I was pretentious and make me realize just how hard it is to talk about HUMANITE.
It is a wonderful film. It is, like most movies I find myself drawn to, about loneliness, disappointment, and the idea that nobody really gets you. It is about the notion that terrible things happen to everybody every day, but nobody else really seems to sympathise when terrible crimes occur; people cease caring about "everyday" problems and, instead, lament (in this case) the rape and murder of a young girl. Superfluous events detract from real life. And, perhaps, this is what Dumont was getting at through the nature of his film: so much narrative involves one event in such strict terms that it seems unfair to the characters.
For my money, Dumont makes this point much more intelligently (read: subtly) than those involved in the Dogme movement. Keep up the good work, Bruno!
Now, my first reaction was not one of utter disdain, because, for one, she IS a customer at the very cool independent store in which I work, and she did seem to honestly appreciate film, but just not HUMANITE. And I understood, but I didn't agree. Of course, she asked me what was so great about it, and I stuttered through a terrible, ineffective justification for my love of the film, but this served only to make her think I was pretentious and make me realize just how hard it is to talk about HUMANITE.
It is a wonderful film. It is, like most movies I find myself drawn to, about loneliness, disappointment, and the idea that nobody really gets you. It is about the notion that terrible things happen to everybody every day, but nobody else really seems to sympathise when terrible crimes occur; people cease caring about "everyday" problems and, instead, lament (in this case) the rape and murder of a young girl. Superfluous events detract from real life. And, perhaps, this is what Dumont was getting at through the nature of his film: so much narrative involves one event in such strict terms that it seems unfair to the characters.
For my money, Dumont makes this point much more intelligently (read: subtly) than those involved in the Dogme movement. Keep up the good work, Bruno!
Cocteau's first feature certainly reflects the early idealism of cinema, that "we can do it!" spirit that made early artists truly believe in the potential of cinema as a medium to trump all other arts. Thematically similar to the more famous surrealist work "Un chien Andalou," "Le sang d'un poete" is a chroma-key free-for all, with talking hands, statues that come to life, and banal bourgeoise cardgames transpiring on children's corpses. It's hard to watch at times, made even harder by what I think is a terribly distracting score (to the point where I just turned the sound off and enjoyed the film as a silent with subtitles.) However, by the end one realises Cocteau's heartfelt audacity, and the true spirit of the early cinema artists who wanted to do things with film that nobody has the cojones to try today.
A seminal work in experimentalist cinema; why does it seem like we've fallen way behind?
A seminal work in experimentalist cinema; why does it seem like we've fallen way behind?