Louise-Michel

This week's offering was Louise-Michel, a Belgian film. Possibly the first Belgian film I've seen – certainly one I won't forget in a hurry.

Your opinions were divided. Ratings from A to E were all represented. The most frequent was B (very good) and the mean was just over C (good) . Your overall  approval was 65% - a significant  improvement over our last offering (Meek's Cutoff) – possibly due to our investment in new speakers. (I can report from the next-to-back row that sound and vision were both excellent.) Although some people rated this film as poor, my wife remarked that she watched as people were coming out and every face wore a smile.

Again our film celebrates the life of a real person. Louise-Michel was a famous French anarchist, who rose to prominence during the Paris Commune. She volunteered to shoot Adolphe Thiers – the French head of state. If you thought this film was bizarre you will be amazed at this woman's life story. Take a look at her wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Michel This also has references to lots of other information on the real Louise-Michel.

If you didn't see the film, I should warn you of upcoming spoilers...

The star of the film – and surely she is a star – is Yolande Moreau. I thought her portrayal of a misfit eking out a living in an indifferent society was utterly convincing. Coincidentally, I recently saw her in “Seraphine” an account of the life of the French naïve painter, a role for which she won a best actress César – the French equivalent of an Oscar. This was another film in which she portrayed one of society's misfits. A moving and absorbing film, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

A wonderful thing about this week's movie is its bad taste. Surely such a film could never have survived a test screening in Hollywood. The re-enactment of the twin towers attack was a particularly seat-squirming episode. Probably too much and too soon after the event. When I see  pole dancing on film I  find it boring and not the least erotic. I wouldn't say the pole dancer in this film was erotic either but he certainly wasn't boring.

What a glorious sequence when the cousin with terminal cancer shot the tycoon. The close up on her face was sensational. She made a lasting impression on me without uttering a word. Did she love her cousin? Was she angry? What a way to go!

I would be interested to know what the French speakers in the audience thought about the subtitles. I thought they were written by someone who didn't speak English.. As far as I could tell, every use of “bonjour” in the film was translated as “good mornight”.  A quick search on Google reveals the following entry in the Urban Dictionary “can be used just like 'good morning, and goodnight' is used, though it is intended for us nocturnal folk that are always arguing on whether they should say good morning or goodnight after 12am, and before 5am.” Hmm. Well I think this level of subtlety would be lost on our subtitler.

Peter Bradshaw only gave 3 stars to this one – you may recall from our last bulletin  that he gave 4 stars to Meek's Cutoff. His review can be found here:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/31/louise-michel-review (In case you might think I only quote Guardian reviews I searched but could find no other UK national daily or Sunday paper with a review.)

IMDB users gave it 6.7 out of 10: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132594/

Radio Times 3/5: http://www.radiotimes.com/film/cj4b7/louise-michel-(12a)-(2008)

And UK audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes 58% - remarkably similar to your own score: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/louise_michel/

Finally, here are your own comments:

A	Good mornight!
B	Really unusual & funny
B
B	Very strange
B	Crazy!
B	This film really went for it! It didn't treat us like idiots.
B	Wrong on so many levels but so funny.
B
B	LIKE A WEIRD DREAM
B	Very funny.
B	Entertaining romp based around realistic characters. Ha ha!
B	TYPICALLY QUIRKY! AND ALL THE BETTER FOR IT!
C
C	Weird
C
C	Definitely puts black into 'black comedy'. Capitalist beware!
C	Very surrreal. Very funny in parts but quite slow moving.
C
C	Very odd – but amusing. Don't quite know what to make of it.
C	Weirdly good
C	Totally weird! Humour missed me.
C
C	Curious black humour with interesting gender issues. The end suggested it was a true story. Also presumably political connotations.
C/D
E	LOST IN TRANSLATION. NOT FUNNY & NOT WORTH THE COST OF TICKETS
E	Slow, confusing, improbable. Not funny!!? Very Belgian ... sense of humour?
E	Miserable unappealing characters – and I didn't care what happened to them. A black comedy that wasn't black enough or funny enough.
	Defies classification. Weird and silly.
	Too strong to rate. Some fantastic bits and some amazingly tasteless bits.