Tuesday, July 25, 2006

in which I do the same thing I did yesterday

Back to NWFF to see two more Luc Moullet films. First, A Girl is a Gun, or, An Adventure of Billy the Kid. This was in the madcap vein of Smugglers, although I liked it somewhat less. Still shot without sync sound, but in living color, it depicts the eternal struggle between man and woman. It stars Jean-Pierre LĂ©aud at his most beautiful--of course he ends up being scalped: who wouldn't want that hair? He's such a mugger, too; the scene of his palm being cut in an "Indian" wedding ceremony features Jean-Pierre making an hilarious "yeeowch" face. And I loved the scene of him trying to strangle himself with the noose he's just been saved from. As in both of yesterday's movies, there's a lovely woman rolling around in mud (this time with Jean-Pierre--both of yesterday's featured girl-on-girl action). It climaxes in a variation on the final scene from Duel in the Sun, except with a happy(ish) ending. Only three people in the audience, one of whom left a half hour into the movie.
Final shot: repetition of opening shot, tableau.
This was followed by Anatomy of a Relationship, preceded by the 12-minute short film, Attempts at an Opening. Attempts depicts Luc's attempts at opening a Coke bottle. It was amusing, but after about three minutes, I felt like, "Oh, for fuck's sake, just give it here and let me do it." It felt more like one of those movies I'd have rather heard him talk about making, than to actually see. Anatomy was amazing, though. (It's funny--so far the films that NWFF scheduled for the reviewers to see have not been as exciting as the ones they didn't schedule. Billy the Kid was a little more polished than Smugglers, but it also had dead patches that Smugglers never had.) Anatomy is really a Caveh Zehedi film, made before Caveh was out of diapers. An hilarious and lacerating portrait of what went wrong in his relationship, he's pretty unsparing of himself (playing himself). The movie is co-directed by the woman in question, although she doesn't play herself in the relationship, but does show up as co-director at the end. I guess I always bought the story that French men know exactly how to please a woman, but Luc makes it clear that the French are every bit as clueless as men anywhere. Although he does open the possibility that perhaps it's just him, that perhaps no man has had this problem before now. As a magical thinker myself, I completely identify with his Religious Christian Atheism: when he has a sudden windfall of money, he launches into an excruciatingly funny rationalization of how it must be a divine blessing, but since there is no God, he must have suddenly come into existence for just that moment, performed the miracle of giving Luc $14,000, and then died--this is all delivered in the utmost sincerity, as if he's given it a great deal of thought (which I'm sure he did) and understood that this is the most plausible explanation.
Final shot: tableau, two protagonists.

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