A couple of days on and I still haven't made up my mind about this one; in fact, trying to recall some of its details I find it slipping away from me.
I think the best things it has going for it are Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg and neither disappoints, even though the film's approach to Cotillard's Carlotta never settles, so that she veers between inscrutable and possibly malign apparition (when seen by others) and a more naturalistic, fleshed-out character (when given her own perspective).
In terms of what else is going on, maybe the problem is there's just too much of it. The core is, I guess, Ismael's haunting by his multiple ghosts (Carlotta, Ivan, others?), and the effects of the associated trauma and absences on him and those around him. And for patches, when it focuses properly on its characters, the film is really quite satisfying. But there are too many loose ends, of too many different types, which dilute the force it could otherwise have had - the headlong leaps into melodrama, the 'perspective in western art' interlude, the whole spy brother sub-plot (there's something interesting in the latter two bits about story telling and its relationship to haunting and loss but it's never properly developed, and the film's form - the sliced up segments - gets in the way more than it illuminates).
So not really a success, I don't think - although it certainly had some kind of effect which continues to niggle ... which isn't nothing.
(w/ Sheila - part of FFF)
I think the best things it has going for it are Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg and neither disappoints, even though the film's approach to Cotillard's Carlotta never settles, so that she veers between inscrutable and possibly malign apparition (when seen by others) and a more naturalistic, fleshed-out character (when given her own perspective).
In terms of what else is going on, maybe the problem is there's just too much of it. The core is, I guess, Ismael's haunting by his multiple ghosts (Carlotta, Ivan, others?), and the effects of the associated trauma and absences on him and those around him. And for patches, when it focuses properly on its characters, the film is really quite satisfying. But there are too many loose ends, of too many different types, which dilute the force it could otherwise have had - the headlong leaps into melodrama, the 'perspective in western art' interlude, the whole spy brother sub-plot (there's something interesting in the latter two bits about story telling and its relationship to haunting and loss but it's never properly developed, and the film's form - the sliced up segments - gets in the way more than it illuminates).
So not really a success, I don't think - although it certainly had some kind of effect which continues to niggle ... which isn't nothing.
(w/ Sheila - part of FFF)
