5.11.2011

As we say in French: "N'est pas Blier qui veut" *

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When this film - in English OUR DAY WILL COME - came out in France, I was pretty reluctant and didn't go see it. The trailer - pretty comparable to M.I.A video clip for her song BORN FREE- made me uncomfortable, even though the cinematography seemed interesting. The music was unbearable and the story looked kind of "too much", in a bad way - a provocative but senseless story.

However, after hearing all the (pretty bad) reviews, I decided that I should watch it and build my own opinion. I've always been interested in Romain Gavras's father - Costa-Gavras -, and he appeared to be confident enough with a video camera, as I had noticed in his video-clips.

It's done now. I've watched it. And let me say this : what a shame I did. I think I'd rather have stayed in my evasive state of mind, because now, I can actually confirm what critics, reviews or inexperienced people had said about this feature: it's useless, empty, vulgar, gratuitous and the actors' direction is a shame, because it's non-existent.

To be short - even if I wanted to, it couldn't take long to write a summary - this film tells the story of a nerdy and redhead adolescent and of an embittered guidance counselor who go on a journey together and start acting rebellious, doing wannabe anarchic acts against anything they happen to dislike. It is set in the North of France - for Gavras' defense, the set is gorgeously interesting in its poverty and misery - and there is nothing else to add.

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The art of portraying rebellious and anarchic behaviors is difficult and painful. And it is not given to every filmmaker. If some U.S reviews compared this film to Kassovitz's LA HAINE - I can see why, but I disagree -, the other "comparison" was made with Blier and his film GOING PLACES (in French LES VALSEUSES). But if Blier managed to give life to his story and his crazy, conceited and insouciant characters, Gavras failed: Olivier Barthelemy is transparent, and I've never seen Vincent Cassel that tiresome. The result is an hour and some of clichés, violent but inexplicable scenes, serving a very poor script with even poorer dialogues.

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I found these images and thought it was fun to see how Gravras was inspired by Blier's GOING PLACES.

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The beach scene


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In a word: OUR DAY WILL COME or how to be simpleton instead of being provocative. Some should stick to what they're good at - in this case, video clips and commercials.


* The title means "Isn't Blier who wants to be", but it sounds better in French :)

MJ.