Nocturnal Animals

"Amusez-vous de l'absurdité de nos vies. Ils font beaucoup moins mal que le monde réel." C'est ainsi que Refn l'avait envisagé. Et cela n'a pas réussi. Une histoire puissante de trahison et de vengeance, évitant les émotions directes du public, mais absorbante et écrasante néanmoins. Le contraste des courbes parfaitement harmonisées d'un environnement sûr mais froid de la haute société de Los Angeles avec les mystères d'un désert texan poussiéreux et impuissant. La collision du vide du monde consumériste avec les valeurs de vie les plus fondamentales. Le regret des décisions passées erronées. Le film nous montrera-t-il vraiment le personnage qui en souffre le plus, et dont nous sommes si désolés ? Une question déchirante qui persiste jusqu'à la scène finale. L'art académique américain, ressuscité par le plus grand plaisir du jeu d'acteur. Et une bande originale digne de Bernard Herrmann. (29/11/2016)

Après le régal visuel et intellectuel offert par A Single Man, le célèbre créateur de mode nous propose cette fois un psychothriller dans lequel il confirme son génie, son sens de la beauté et son talent pour capturer la magie de l'instant. Il est fascinant de voir avec quelle facilité il parvient à représenter les contradictions, le beau comme le moche, sans que ça scandalise le spectateur et, au contraire, en ébranlant celui-ci de l’intérieur. J'ai de plus en plus de sympathie pour Amy Adams et n’ai que des mots élogieux à son égard. Parce qu’après s’être débarrassée de l’image qu’elle s’était créée avec son rôle de femme soumise/invisible dans American Bluff, elle m’a envoûté pour de bon et je la trouve extrêmement sexy à chacun de ses nouveaux rôles. Pour résumer, Nocturnal Animals est un film qui fonctionne à tous les niveaux, notamment grâce à l’intelligence de son scénario et à la splendeur de son accompagnement musical. Je me réjouis déjà de découvrir ce que Tom Ford sortira la prochaine fois ! (08/12/2016)

If the opening assault on the eyes (especially male eyes) was supposed to capture the female protagonist’s lack of taste and judgment (because we find ourselves in her gallery), it would be possible to understand her subsequent enthusiasm for Edward’s trashy novel built on the most moronic plot twists and populated with caricatures of Southern rednecks, hysterical husbands and indomitable sheriffs. If, however, the film really required us to keep a critical (and cynical) distance from a protagonist who is so unprepared for the real world that she can’t even unwrap a package that she receives (after cutting herself, she leaves the job to an assistant), the melodramatic conclusion, which instead relies on our identification with Susan, would not make any sense. I’m not sure how seriously Ford wants us to take Nocturnal Animals. In any case, it can’t be taken too seriously. The characters are one-dimensional. Instead of impactful statements, we have trite phrases, which the characters use to reveal their emotional state to us (instead of acting it out). In Susan’s world, everyone and everything primarily has to look good, which sometimes applies and sometimes doesn’t in the world of the book Susan is reading. It is thus probably not true (or at least not all the time) that she projects into the novel what she wants to have in it as its plot materialises before our eyes. Or perhaps the fetishes of women from better society include Aaron Taylor-Johnson ostentatiously wiping his ass? I suspect the director himself did not have a clear idea of how (self-)ironic and deliberately campy he wanted the film to be, nor how much he wanted the romantic and spiritual to take precedence over material values. The result is a trio of films – a Southern thriller, a melodrama about class differences and a satire of the world of snobs who judge others based on whether they own the latest iPhone – that are all quite entertaining in places, but most of the time come across as much more serious and self-important than would be fitting, considering their hollowness. 65% (23/11/2016)

There’s power in simplicity. I guess that’s how I would evaluate this film after watching it. At the beginning, it offers fairly strange opening credits, through which it tries to create an atmosphere of mysticism and I was a bit worried that what I might be getting was another successor to David Lynch. However, I was quite lucky that this didn’t happen and the slow-paced life of the protagonist, who is portrayed by Amy Adams, began to unravel. But then the story jumps forward and I was watching a whole different story penned by Jake Gyllenhaal. And even though the two stories didn’t actually intertwine, there was such an interesting ending that I actually had to admit that the point couldn’t have been any better. The film looks mysterious but in the end it is a very solid drama. And by the way, Michael Shannon is really good in this one! (07/02/2017)

Beautifully shot and stylized, outstanding music and magnificently performed, bombastic and snobbish nothing. The worst thing is that the final unraveling scene (and it doesn't matter which of the two or three possible interpretations you chose) does not justify the would-be ingenious formal construction as a mindfuck. It rather fully shows that instead of three different story line layers, one main story line would be more than enough to achieve the same effect and convey the same message (for all three possible messages). However, introductory hardcore subtitles should be kept as they are the best and most subversive part of it. (21/11/2016)