New Directors/New Films and Film Comment Selects

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for taking the time to reply in such detail. I was merely explaining why my response was different from yours.

"With all due respect," you comment, "while I am interested in what others say about a film, everyone's in a different space and reacts differently. In the final analysis, like viewing a painting, I always go with my experience and what it means to me on a personal level."

Indeed. But I was consulting with other people on what actually happened in the film. One can get that wrong. Especially in this case. There were a number of places where I was not sure. And I consulted further this morning with people who had seen the film with me last week. As I said, a couple bits in your own summary of the action of BELLE ÉPINE seemed to me to be almost certainly slightly off: "Franck (Johan Libereau), [who] takes advantage of her for his sexual pleasure. When she walks out of a movie leaving Franck feeling angry and deserted, she goes to his house to try and talk to his mother."

By my own impression and by consulting with others the other day and today, I found we all felt this was not accurate. Of course I may still be wrong about all this. I may have misunderstood the film, and the lady who loved the film and seemed to have observed and understood it best, and you. That is my point. The film is hard to follow. And so I don't know what it means, and I don't find it ultimately satisfying. I know it is meant to reflect the confusion of feeling of its young protagonist. But there is such a thing as too much of an objective correlative.

Another discerning and very well informed person whom I often talk to waved all these questions aside and said they didn't matter and said, "It's just a little film, but it's promising."

Can we leave it at that?