Jessica Kiang, already an excellent film critic, outdoes herself, this time for THE PLAYLIST, in writing a piece in vintage New Yorker style as an appreciation of "Mr. Anderson's new film."
I did not know, but learn from Jessica, that the film includes: "a complete and perfect recreation of the famously ramshackle house from Mr. Jacques Tati‘s 'Mon Oncle')". I guess I'm not surprised.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 11-07-2021 at 10:42 PM.
An interview with Wes Anderson by Susan Morrison in The New Yorker shows a lot about his personality and the way he works in the movie, I think - and why it works to do mashups and make things up.
Some quotes from French reviews.
Overall AlloCiné score 72% (3.6 out of 5). Reading through just the excerpts they give of reviews. There's a range, obviously: At the top they are delighted, think the movie "a total feast" that "reveals an irresistible tragicomic poetry." More than reviewer thinks as I do that this is a film that can profitably be watched multiple times to enjoy all the rich details, some hidden in the background or not immediately visible. At the lower end, some French reviewers, not captivated, find THE FRENCH DISPATCH like a jewel box or a chocolate box or a museum, but unengaging, cold, and remote.
CAHIERS DU CINÉMA (Vincent Malosa) (the most enthusiastic of all the 30 reviews, which is very unusual and worth noting): "Never perhaps has a Wes Anderson film seemed so alien to itself and so vague in its subject matter and aims, yet never has the filmmaker seemed to achieve such a degree of finesse, nuance and integrity with his subjects, his actors (...)."
L'HMANITé (Sophie Joubert): "One could see it multiple times without exhausting all its richness as it offers a profusion of signs, offers different levels of reading, visual and sound, mixes French and English, black and white and color."
LE FIGARO: "The solution is to watch The French Dispatch again, because the image is so full of surprises, and not necessarily in the foreground."
20 MINUTES (Caroline Vie): "Wes Anderson's world is as rich as it gets. To have the opportunity to leaf through it like a glossy magazine is a total feast for the eyes as well as for the mind."
LA CROIX (Stéphane Dreyfus): "This preciosity of a gifted cinephile filmmaker has sometimes played tricks on him when formal meticulousness stifled emotion. This is not the case here, where the homage to the great press and to France, the country of arts, weapons and (culinary) laws, reveals an irresistible tragicomic poetry."
LIBÉRATION (OlivierLamm): "The filmmaker seems to lose himself in the labyrinth of his manic obsessions with this nostalgic sketch film where, as a demigod and taxidermist, he transforms the liveliness of his chronicle into a chic slide show."
I used the great German automated translation system DeepL for these English versions.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-27-2021 at 10:49 AM.
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Doesn't open here until next weekend. I feel that most Wes Andersen film's are worth watching repeatedly; especially Budaapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom. I've seen both films three or four times and every time I watch them, I get something new out it. Looking forward to next weekend.
Colige suspectos semper habitos
Worth waiting for - and rewatching - on the big screen.
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