Some critics hold the theory that Italian filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio
Taviani alternate regularly between good movies and bad movies; and there's
a subtheory that instead of working together on each project--the
professional relationship they claim to have--one is actually the auteur of
the successful pictures while the other is reponsible for all the
second-raters.
The difficult part of proving this would be deciding which Taviani
productions work and which don't--a complicated issue, judging from the
many disagreements I've had with critical colleagues over the years. For
the record, my favorites include the brilliant "Padre Padrone" and the
neglected "Night Sun," while I've always considered "The Night of the
Shooting Stars" slightly overrated and "Kaos" extremely so.
In any case, I went into their new "Elective Affinities" with
a perfectly
open mind, especially since I have a soft spot for Isabelle Huppert and
also have fond memories of the Goethe novel it's based on; but whichever
Taviani is the good brother, his evil sibling was in there somewhere
messing up the works. True, the movie has gorgeous camera work, and the
performances are reasonably convincing. But all the earnest acting and
sumptuous cinematography in the world couldn't compensate for its
perilously low energy level, which becomes downright draining after a
while. (Its position in the festival's second half, when critics' own
energy levels are likely to be plummeting, didn't help.) The production has
French dialogue--probably because of its financing, possibly because of
Huppert, and conceivably because there was a passably good Italian version
of the novel about a dozen years ago--so it can officially be declared a
multinational disappointment.
I walked into "Thieves" with a similar degree of good will, hoping this
might be the Andre Techine picture that finally clued me in as to what the
fuss over his work is all about. Don't get me wrong, I've respected his
movies for many a long year, but I've never managed to get excited about
any of them. Meanwhile, his critical reputation has gone steadily up among
my American colleagues, leaving me virtually alone in my solitary
skepticism.
"Thieves" is as good as any of his films, with a fairly interesting plot
and solid performances by Daniel Auteuil, Catherine Deneuve, and a number
of less luminous but perfectly persuasive faces. What's missing, for me at
least, is a sense of real emotional connection with the characters and
their story, which seems wrapped in a sort of intellectual haze that
prevents any of the picture's potential feelings from reaching me at full
strength. My only consolation is that Techine appears to be cranking out
movies at an enormous pace nowadays, so the opus that finally illuminates
me about his virtues may be just around the corner.
All of which means the high point of my day was not a screening but rather
a talk with Bernardo Bertolucci, less about his disapointing Cannes entry
(the lovely but shallow "Stealing Beauty") than about his early days as
friend and assistant to Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose connection with his own
work is still waiting to be traced and assessed with the carefulness it
deserves. Bertolucci is still the great talker I remember from our first
meeting in the 1970s, and it's a pleasure to find him in excellent verbal
and intellectual form even if his latest on-screen work doesn't click along
on all cylinders.
Suggestions? Comments? Fill out our Feedback Form.