Charly: Tribeca, April 27 and May 1 and 3, 2008
After her debut Demi-tarif, and even after the first 30 minutes of her second feature Charly, it wasn't clear to me that Isild Le Besco was going to find a way to integrate the sensual immediacy of her film style into a larger structure. But I think everything is going to be all right with her. As the film's young, enigmatic protagonist (Kolia Litscher) is adopted by the eponymous trailer prostitute (the excellent Julie-Marie Parmentier), Le Besco's fanciful, free-floating universe is invaded by psychology and fairy tale at the same time. To watch the semi-literate boy and his OCD-afflicted hostess get excited about an impromptu reading of Wedekind's Spring Awakening is to realize how many layers of meaning Le Besco has been sneaking in while we were listening to the tiny shocks of ambience change on each cut. After three days and nights, the trailer idyll culminates in a startlingly beautiful sex scene and the emergence of the boy protagonist as the author of his own fiction. Charly screens three more times at Tribeca: on Sunday, April 27 at 9:45 pm at the 19th St. East; on Thursday, May 1 at 10:15 pm at the Village East; and on Saturday, May 3 at 5:30 pm at the Village VII.
Labels: reviews, screenings
posted by Dan Sallitt | 12:11 AM
5 Comments:
I actually have a ticket for this one on the 3rd. I'll be seeing This Is Not A Robbery, Simple Things, The Cottage, 57,000 Kilometers Between Us, Somers Town, Charly, Idiots and Angels, Baghead (which I'm looking forward to quite a bit because I enjoyed The Puffy Chair so much), The Secret of the Grain, Katyn, and Bitter & Twisted.
Eric - I still haven't seen anything by the Duplass Bros. I postponed seeing Baghead because it has a distributor.
I saw Somers Town (which I like within limits, as is always the case with me and Shane Meadows) and will see The Secret of the Grain on April 30.
My only experience with Shane Meadows was This Is England, which I did like to some extent. I noticed that Sony picked up Baghead and it was set for July, but that was moved to an unknown date. Since I don't want to take any chances with it coming out when I wouldn't be able to see it, I bought the ticket. Same with some of those Sundance movies which almost all have dates.
"Author of his own fiction" eh? You think the reading did it? I'm not sure I would grant him that much power, but his studiousness might point that way...
Danny - I wouldn't necessarily say that the reading did it. And obviously he doesn't cross the fourth wall and give up his status as a fictional character. But, if we consider the trailer fairy-tale idyll as a fiction within the larger fiction of the boy's life, then he is the one who decides the shape of that inner fiction. He could have various psychological motivations for his actions (I'm trying to avoid spoilers), but they aren't exactly explicit; whereas the structural motivations for his actions are completely clear. For me, he might as well make a bow to the audience, like Magnani at the end of The Golden Coach.
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