Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointing Mess
Review: Never have I seen such a dull jumbled mess of a movie. And I thought Carax's earlier "Lovers on the Bridge" was AMAZING! The story doesn't make sense and neither do the characters' motivations. Don't waste your time with this film.
Rating: 
Summary: A Blast of Cinematic Energy You Won't Soon Forget
Review: Pola X is a love it or hate it experience. Motorcycles on winding roads it may have, but these roads are not called "Middle."This film, brought to us by the same man who brought us the intense, passionate, uncomfortable film The Lovers on the Bridge in 1991, revisits some of the same territory of that film here. There is Desperation. Lust. Love. Blindness. Sight. Darkness. Light. Prosperity. Intense Poverty. Artists. Their Art. The Loss of that Art. The Incredible Need to Recapture It. Hunger. Satisfaction. Illness. Life. Death. Pain. Loss. Intense joy. Bitterness. Jealousy. Regret. All in all, the ingredients of what makes a Great, with a capital G Great, film. Pola X has a light side and an incredibly dark and desolate one. The film starkly separates these sunny and shadowy pieces of our hero's life into two main segments. First we see the light. When the film opens, we meet Guillaume Depardieu, in his beautiful villa, with his beautiful mother, and his beautiful fiance. Next to all this is a beautiful little computer, next to which lies his beautiful little book, which he wrote when even younger, and which he became instantly famous for writing, a sort of cult figure. He is a beautiful young man who has everything. Except his writing, except his muse. Because he has reached a point in his life where everything is so stable and 'flat' that he is beginning to have trouble writing, creating, producing. And this is nagging at him, slightly, like a small child tugging softly at his arm for a piece of candy or a pat on the head. For a while, though, he is happy. Happy smoking a cigarette with his beautiful mother on the lovely sun-dappled lawn, and making love to his fiance with quiet passion in her young room in her own house. Happy with these creatures of light, these creatures which cannot see into him, into his dark self, his true self, his strong, artistic, belligerent self which is knocking at his door, waiting to be let out. All of this changes when he begins having dreams of a mysterious stranger, who is somehow familiar to him. Then, when in town one day with a friend, he sees a woman, a woman who somehow resembles the woman in his dream. She is following him. He follows her. They find each other. What happens next begins a gigantic odyssey of obsession, artistic fervor, dark secrets and their telling, and a manic intensity which takes our young hero, and all those around him and unravels them, slowly, one thread at a time.... This is riveting, fascinating French cinema. It asks, among other questions, which is more important: Art, or Life? Without a middle ground to choose from, our hero embarks on a desparate, driven attempt to find his Voice. As he peels off all the layers of familiarity and comfort, all health and future plans, in the name of writing again, he starts a slow, solid spin out of control, and ends up almost at the point of death. A must-have for every serious (intense) cinema lover. A raw, exorcising cinematic experience. Five Stars.
Rating: 
Summary: A complete mess
Review: Pola X is beautifully filmed and well made, but that's about it. You don't feel anything for the characters, no matter how good the actors are and no matter how hard the director tries to get the viewer involved. This movie is a complete mess and even that explicit love scene can't make up for it. Pass this one by!
Rating:
Summary: Darkly Amazing
Review: POla X is not for the weak of heart. THis movie is dark and dramatic. IT is based loosely on a Herman MElvile NOvel and the similarities between the stories are good. Additionally if you enjoy dark, intense films this is a perfect movie for you. IT deals with the disallusionment that young people encounter as they discover more about their lives. Discovering grace sometimes isn't a pleasent experience, sometimes it is violent and life-changing and that is what this movie is about. The acting, and directing are superb as well as the directors use of color and characters. I have never seen an American movie this good ever! IT is not euro-trash or pompus [waste]. IT is excellent film making. The movie never once looses sight of the fact that it is supposed to be artistic. Movies should be art, not fast hack written plots and if you are a serious art lover this movie is a must see.
Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful what?
Review: Some nice use of Scott Walker,mis-en-scen,star power,industrial pastiche music,long takes,short takes,and of course a non-faux love making scene between a good looking dude and well lets just an actress that is not.. Oh yeah and the Catherine Deneuve motor cycle crash was bad-*ss. Oh and I think I'm almost obliged by international law to describe all of this as a beautiful mess.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: That's the first thing that popped into my head after I saw this riveting French film: "Wow!" Everything about this film is of the first rank: acting, directing, writing. I think some viewers had problems with Pierre abruptly leaving his family and friends without an explanation for his mysterious behavior. Why didn't he ask his mother for the truth about his half sister--if she was in fact his half sister? I don't think it mattered to him if she was his half sister or not--I think he saw her as his ticket out of his comfortable and dull life. What I liked about the film was how it played with the concept of reality and fantasy. What may be real to a writer may be fantasy to a reader. Hence, that's probably the reason why no one believed that Pierre actually wrote his first bestselling novel. This film takes chances and will stimulate or offend some people--but isn't that what great films usually do?
Rating:
Summary: A SHOCKING BEAUTY OF A DVD FROM FOX LORBER/WINSTAR!
Review: This DVD is truly shocking all across the board. Leos Carax's film is a study of willful descent into madness by a perfect and dewy blond young Guillaume Depardieu and he informs this film with an understanding of ambiguity and existentialism that I think only the French can express somehow. Carax is masterful! How he got Catherine Deneuve to bare her breasts, I cannot imagine! Also, pleasureably shocking is how perfect the picture quality and sound on this DVD is. Fox Lorber has often had trouble getting their material up to the standard that DVD can display but this DVD shows they have turned it around. Never again would I hesitate to buy from them - I'll do it gladly! The color saturation and detail of the picture truly preserve the gorgeous original photography. Lastly, this DVD contains the most emotionally honest commentary track I've ever heard by Guillaume Depardieu. If you're buying any Catherine Deneuve or Leos Carax film, buy this.
Rating:
Summary: complex = carax
Review: this film is carax at his most mature, simply following the paths of godard and truffaut to their inevitable conclusion, a sort of enforced envolution of cinematic language. i liken carax to gustave mahler: half-disillusioned with the possibilities of his influences, but still dedicated to seeing them through to the end. there's not much else to say about the film. either you see where he's going or you don't; either you respect the innovation or you don't; either you're onboard for the experimentation or you're seasick, yet still docked. in the end, shutting down too quickly may mean missing out on a new artistic language, a new development in structure and meaning. in any case, it never hurts to hear a little scott walker, especially the schizophrenic walker heard here, i.e. tilt. the avant-garde never looked more...pleasantly dissonant?
Rating:
Summary: a porno for pedants
Review: This is a gorgeous dvd to look at (at least for the first hour or so) in a stunning 1:85 to 1 transfer. The sound is crisp and the subtitles are in sharp yellow, no strain to the eyes. The photography, the French locales and the cast are stunning too. The story - and I'm venturing a guess here - probably has something to do with an artist finding himself or, if you're less loftily inclined, it may be about a spoiled brat going bananas while trying out a different lifestyle to go with his new artistic goattee & grunge attire. Whatever. Lured by the names Deneuve & Depardieu, Jr., plus some outrageously complimentary reviews from several critics & the word erotic stamped all over the keepcase bracketed in their quotes, I bought it. Well, the critics & the white wine set have been lavishing this with such heavy praise & even heavier breath 'cause right in the middle there's a startlingly explicit sexual encounter of a très soixante-neuf nature between its leading man and his supposedly long lost sister. As directed & acted, it is indeed erotic, but to get there you have to sit through an inordinate amount of pseudo intellectual euro drivel. Pretentious & dour as only a European film can get, this is nothing more than a star-worship vehicle showcasing its male protagonist in various stages of distress & undress, & following in the tradition of Cocteau & Marais, Vadim & Bardot, or, if you prefer grime (of which there's plenty here) of Morrissey & Dallesandro. As further directorial emphasis, the rest of the cast (consisting mainly of the character's relatives) can't seem to keep their hands off of the hero's shirtless chest - and who can blame them? Well, Brad Pitt never had it so good, and never shall - in Hollywood. The film's obsession with incest, its timid flirtations with homoeroticism & its fascination with motorcycles as symbols of macho sexual power will remind you of Cocteau. The rest will remind you of Antonioni: sheer agony to endure. If you collect erotica and have the dough to spend on 2 minutes of good action, Columbia Tri Star has seen to it that you're not disappointed: they have craftily placed a chapter right at the beginning of this eye-popping sequence so you can skip "the boring parts" (or 99% of the film), and get to it right away. (With this scene missing, this bag of imported hot air would have never seen the light of day.) But if you're looking for 2 hours plus of solid plot & interesting characters, well, you're otta luck, pal.
Rating:
Summary: Gloomy and repellent
Review: This movie was a pretentious, confusing mess. Sure it had alot of pretty scenary and Depardieu is a handsome leading man and a good actor. But everyone in this movie was sullen and/or morose in almost every scene throughout the entire movie. (They all could have used megadoses of Prozac to boost their spirits for sure!) And when the brother and his continually whining half-sister have explicit sex, it made me feel uncomfortable and repelled rather than conveying any kind of sensuality or tenderness. Sitting through Pola X was like attending a very long, depressing funeral on a dismal, rainy day. You just want to leave and go home and put on a good music tape to forget about all the gloominess you've been subjected to.
|
