Friday Night

I very much like how this film begins, and it is a creative aspect to have a story line start out of being stuck in traffic. Yet, about 1/3 of the way into the film, it begins to become a bit bizarre, when the man enters her car. Everything seems a bit surreal and things do not always follow logically. My explanation, and what I think makes the film better in retrospect, is that everything that follows may not have actually happened. It seemed to be all too perfect, and she did everything without a single qualm. We were already shown that she was a bit apprehensive about leaving her current comfortable, and the fact that she entered a fantasy seems quite normal under that sort of stress. Nonetheless, whether you believe it was a fantasy or it really happened, it is poetically shot and deserves to be seen, to make ones own decision about the film.

Vendredi Soir (2002), directed by Claire Denis, is a film about two

residents of Paris who come together because of a horrendous,

citywide traffic jam. The movie is slow and deliberate, but not

boring. The film's power derives from the interaction of two

attractive strangers who are temporarily trapped--and yet

liberated--by the fact that mass transit is shut down, and auto

traffic has come to a standstill.

Valérie Lemercier portrays Laure, a young woman who has left her

apartment to move in with her lover. Ms. Lemercier owes a great

debt to Ms. Denis, who could have cast the part with a more

traditionally beautiful woman. (In the U.S., the role would probably

have gone to Demi Moore.) Instead, the director chose an actor

who is undeniably beautiful, but in an interesting, complex way.

Lemercier is an outstanding actor, and she is given enough time

on screen to demonstrate her professional skills.

Don't see this film if you're looking for excitement, graphic sex,

violence, or a strong narrative story line. See this film if you want to

view Paris--and human relationships--portrayed in a serious, but

almost dreamlike, lyrical, fashion.

This film resists all that is wrong with blockbuster cinema, totally refusing to offer straight-forward, passivity-inducing narrative structures. It is one of the most book-like films you are likely to see, taking its time to develop the central characters in manner that leaves them open to determination by the audience's imagination. It is an erotic film that has no climax. It is a film that engages in life rather than distracts us from it.

This is an immensely subtle film that uses a broad range of cinematic techniques so you should definitely see it on a big screen. In fact, I wouldn't even bother seeing it on TV, so diminished would its impact be.

I guess that I must be living under a rock because it took me this movie to bask in the luminescence of Claire Denis (and Agnes Godard). I stumbled across Beau Travail in the beginning of my cinephile journey and her baroque images and elliptical editing style just flew past my head. Then, I saw 35 shots of rum a few years back and it did make me sit up, especially "The Nightshift" sequence, but I still felt that her magic lacked a dramatic gravity.

But this film just blew me away. This is poetry of a heightened experience so ephemeral and intense that it is remembered in fractured glances and gestures, in hazy motives and unclear desires, in actions that are incomplete ellipses, in the associations and impressions of the surroundings that stand in as a placeholder of the actual experience.

Highly recommended.

This was a damn good movie. Very different, the closest movie that comes to the feel and over all effect is The Loss of Sexual Innocence. Movies such as this catch many off guard because they don't follow the de facto movie format. Meaning, an event happens, people react to said event, drama, conclusion, resolution.

This movie takes a totally different approach, and that's what makes it shine. This movie defies being labeled as a movie altogether. People say this movie is boring, that nothing happens, there are almost no words. They'd be right, there is no real drama, conclusion, resolution. I don't believe that's what this movie is even about.

From the opening moments of the Paris rooftops I knew I was in for something special. The long shots, the turning off of lights, the gazes at the Paris skyline. This was a visual feast with poetic credentials, and I expected as much.

Folks, this movie was not about Jean and Laure. I believe thats where all the critical flack stems from. This movie isn't about a brief encounter that is over by sunrise. The plot that you all speak of, that's secondary.

The movie tends to focus on their surroundings more so then them. A cluttered car, a heater, traffic, boxes. A best example of this is their skin, during the sex scenes there are close ups of their skin rather then showing them making love. As if the plot, in this case, making love, is secondary to the poetic element of the story.

In any given event, the surroundings are just as important as the story itself. This movie displays that perfectly. That is the purpose of this movie, that is it's beauty, that is what it is about.

If this movie is about the surroundings rather then a plot or story, then what would be the purpose of showing rooftops, skin, lamps, boxes? Because is it life, and it is poetic and beautiful. What is the purpose of a rose? Why take a picture of it, or give it to someone? A rose simply is, this movie simply is. The nuances of life deserve appreciation and this movie pays homage to that fact. That is what this movie is about.

It is life, it is the beauty of everything around you.