832. La Belle Noiseuse/The Beautiful Troublemaker (1991)

Running Time: 237 minutes
Directed By: Jacques Rivette
Written By: Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent, Jacques Rivette, from the novella Le Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu by Honore de Balzac
Main Cast: Michel Piccoli, Emmanuelle Beart, Jane Birkin, David Bursztein, Marianne Denicourt

CAREFUL, THERE'S A BIT OF NUDITY...

Fellow Netflix members who are also interested in "La Belle Noiseuse", may have realized that the film is currently (and has been for some time) on a "very long wait", which is what prompted me to go hunting for this one and thankfully finding it uploaded to YouTube.

The plot isn't too hard to follow, considering the film is four hours long, directed by Jacques Rivette (see "Celine and Julie Go Boating") and French - the French sometimes have a way of leaving me with a perplexed look on my face, wondering what I've just witnessed. The film revolves around a painter named Frenhofer (Piccoli), who one evening has some admirers over to his house for dinner. The one who is most excited to dine with Frenhofer is Nicolas (Bursztein), a fellow painter and a big fan of Frenho' (which is what he is called by his wife). Also dining with Frenhofer and Nicolas is Marianne (Beart), Nicolas' girlfriend and Liz (Birkin), Frenhofer's wife, as well as another friend of Nicolas. Over the course of the evening, the conversation takes many directions, but eventually lands on La Belle Noiseuse - a painting that Frenhofer has never been able to capture on canvas, one that has plagued him for many years. Nicolas is encapsulated by the idea of such an elusive thought as La Belle Noiseuse that he offers up Marianne to Frenhofer as inspiration for La Belle Noiseuse, without her consent. That night, Nicolas tells Marianne of his offer and needless to say, she's pissed. However, the next morning before David awakes, Marianne sneaks out and goes to Frenhofer to begin modeling for him. After a while, David becomes jealous of the relationship that is developing between Frenhofer and Marianne - the powerful relationship between model and master.

SPOILER ALERT!

I've honestly been sitting here for about five minutes just thinking - thinking about what I want to write and how I want to sum up this movie. As I sit, looking at my blank, white, cyber canvas, I can't help but be reminded of the Frenhofer character, as he took meticulous care to make sure his drawing table was just right, before dabbing his pen in the ink and starting to draw the first lines of Marianne's body. It makes you realize that art and expression exist in all forms - not just as paint brush on canvas or pen on paper, but sometimes even as words or even as a thought. The film to me was the ultimate portrayal of a painter's process. Look at the exhaustion and the agony that this character of Frenhofer went through as he struggled to create something that he didn't know if he could create. During the process, he questioned his own agility, knowing that he was an old man now and wondering if he'd lost the gift of being able to take on such a task. He forced himself to stare youth in the face and try to recreate something that would not impact him, but would impact the model upon it's completion.

According to a few pieces that I've read following my completion of this film, it seems to me that it was only Marianne who would know when the painting was finished and judging by the look on her face, Frenhofer would know whether or not he had succeeded or failed. The 'La Belle Noiseuse' was something that would show Marianne a different version of herself and probably change her in some way - what way, I do not know. In the end, Frenhofer buries the painting alive, hoping to someway protect Marianne. Notice the way the two look at each other at the end of the film, knowing that they spent a considerable amount of time in Frenhofer's studio and knowing they uncovered certain pieces about one another that no one else could ever see. Did the two have an affair? Not in the traditional sense, but I think Nicolas' fear of losing Marianne was totally justified, because he knew the power that this relationship had - the relations between the model and her sculptor. Yes, the two had a raucous affair, that went beyond the physical act of making love. This is evident throughout the film, in the growing fear that begins to exist and grow inside Liz. At first, she's totally fine with Marianne posing for Frenhofer, even convincing Nicolas to let her come back. Then, as the film goes on, she grows uneasy and scared, knowing that her youth has escaped her and that she no longer has what it takes to symbolize La Belle Noiseuse.

What is La Belle Noiseuse? I haven't a clue, but to me the whole idea just represents something that exists on canvas and is ever elusive - something that must be searched for and perhaps stumbled upon. Something that Frenhofer sees in Marianne, but didn't see in his own wife. Despite an easy blueprint, the film definitely makes you think and isn't a bit boring. Whether or not I've even slightly cracked the nail on the head, I do not know. However, I definitely have some thoughts and I like what I've come up with.

RATING: 7/10  I'll just stop there and let that speak for itself. I almost can't even justify the '7' rating, but I know, for the most part, I liked the film and the four hours was quite easy.

MOVIES WATCHED: 765
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 236

November 20, 2013  10:33pm

585. Celine et Julie vont en bateau/Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Running Time: 193 minutes
Directed By: Jacques Rivette
Written By: Juliet Berto, Eduardo de Gregorio, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Jacques Rivette
Main Cast: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Barbet Schroeder

IT CAME FROM YOUTUBE

What...in the blue hell...did I just watch? That's the feeling that I was left with as "Celine and Julie Go Boating" came to a close and I couldn't decide whether I'd just seen a masterpiece or a disasterpiece. I'm still not entirely sure, but which way will I lean? Read on.

It would cause Excedrin headache #52 if I were to get into great detail on the plot, so I'll just cover the basic blueprint of the film, which should be plenty for you to get the just of it. The film opens with a shot of Julie
(Labourier) sitting on a park bench, reading a book about magic and potions and such. As she reads, she can't help but notice a girl rushing by, dressed in gaudy attire (feather boas, sunglasses, etc.). Although Julie doesn't know it yet, the girl is Celine (Berto) and as she rushes by, she begins dropping various possessions. Julie runs to catch up to her, but Celine won't stop and Julie ends up chasing her clear to her apartment. One thing leads to another (this is me not getting into the details) and Celine ends up moving in with Julie. Julie's the more adult of the two, holding down a job in the local library and Celine more resembles a child, with childlike features, expressions and body language. A day or so later, Celine begins to recount to Julie a job she had as a nanny and how she was rushed off the premises one day, skinning up her knee. The next day, Julie decides to pay a visit to this house, to see why the family ejected Celine. Julie enters the house and hours later is pushed out the front door with no memory of what happened inside. The following day, Celine returns to the house to find out why Julie was ejected and the same thing happens to her: she enters and after several hours, is pushed outside with no memory of events. That should just about cover the essentials.

Julie (left) and Celine (right)

SPOILER ALERT!

Let me start off by stating that it took me three sit-downs to finish this movie, not necessarily because it was difficult to get through, but because it was very long and I've been working early hours. Let me also state that when I was finished watching "Celine and Julie Go Boating", I couldn't resist looking up some further information on the explanation of the plot. Now, of course, Rivette himself never told anyone the true meanings behind his film, so that left a lot of amateur film critics to make their own assumptions. For the most part, people are fond of comparing the film to the story of Alice in Wonderland and say that the plot has a lot to do with imagination, magic and memory themes. I looked at this movie in a different way. Maybe my way wasn't as thought out as others, but the following are just the ideas that naturally came to me as I was watching this movie and like they always say, you can interpret each and every movie however you please...so here goes.

My theory is that Celine and Julie were on heavy amounts of acid or some other hallucinatory drugs. Now before you discredit my theory, allow me to explain. The obvious clue that lead me to this conclusion was the sucking of "candy" to regain memory. After Celine and Julie exited the house and flagged down a taxi, they would always find a hard candy mysteriously lodged in their mouths. They later realized that sucking it would cause the events that occurred while inside the house to come back to them. Later in the film, when there is no candy to be consumed, the girls happen upon a book that tells them that equal amounts of water, earth, fire and air will work just as well, so they mix up a concoction and chug it down. So, to summarize, Celine and Julie can flashback to a previous time (a time when they were blacked out and have no memory of) by ingesting certain substances...does that not scream junkie? Beyond that, my theory is also held together by the fact that Celine and Julie act as if they're all hopped up on some serious goofballs. They're constantly laughing and picking at one another and did I mention that they're CONSTANTLY laughing!? So it it possible that the entire film is about a couple of junkie girls who fantasize and hallucinate a house where a murder is taking place? Yes. Is it likely? No. I'm probably way off base, but I just couldn't help thinking that and it seemed like an obvious candidate for the solution to this movie.

I also kept wondering whether or not there actually were two girls or if one was merely a figment of the other one's imagination. If you watch the film and look at the characters of Julie and Celine as one person, it all makes sense. They're never in the same scene with a third character and there are at least two instances where Julie pretends to be Celine and vice versa. It's more likely to believe that Celine isn't real, as she is the more flamboyant one in the beginning of the movie. Julie seems more down to earth and it seems more likely that her life may be boring enough (reading books on a park bench, working in a library, holding out hope that her COUSIN turns out to be the love of her life) to invent Celine, a more exciting personality. This theory, in my opinion, holds much more water that the junkies theory and believe it or not I didn't see anyone else on the net pitching this idea. I can't have been the first one to think of it though...I'm just not that smart folks.

The only other recurring theme that struck me from the film was the whole watching a movie, within a movie idea. Notice how when Julie and Celine suck the candy and recall their blacked out memories, it's as if they're staring at an off-camera television and watching a popular soap opera. Not only that, but it's as if they're watching a soap opera and imagining that they're one of the characters and furthermore, one of the characters who can really change the outcome of an otherwise tragic story.

"Celine and Julie Go Boating" is a tough nut to crack, to say the least. One of three things will happen when you watch this film: you'll either hate it, love it or you just won't know what to think of it and be totally perplexed at the whole concept of it. I fit into that last category. Let me say to, before I forget, that the actresses were absolutely BRILLIANT. At times, this film frustrated me, but these two girls were very smile inducing. Their onscreen energy was contagious and that's saying something when energy from two girls, in a film from 1974, travels thirty-eight years into the future and sticks to me. Was anyone else reminded of Janet and Chrissy from "Three's Company" when observing Julie and Celine. I really think that Julie looked like a redheaded Joyce Dewitt and Celine was childlike and naive enough to remind me of Chrissy. That's my random though of the month, chew on it.

RATING: 5/10  Yeah, rating this film a '5' is my way of petering out of giving this one a proper rating. Listen, I didn't hate it by any means and hey, maybe it was a masterpiece in disguise. But for my money and my attitude when I watched it, the masterpiece just didn't shine through as blatantly as I'd have liked it to, so I can't go too high either. So it's a '5'...deal with it :)

MOVIES WATCHED: 520
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH:  481

September 6, 2012  10:59pm