Alain Jessua was one of the great mavericks of the French cinema;he was too modern to be labeled "old school" but he had ,fortunately,nothing to do with Godard,TRuffaut and co.Simply ,from this debut to "Paradis Pour Tous" (1982),he has never produced anything mediocre (let's be nice and forget the final works ).
"La Vie A L'Envers " begins with a tape played backwards ;a man is tired of his girlfriend ,of his nine-to-five work and decides to live without the others -I'm watching you,but I don't see you" -and the things ;it was the beginning of the sixties and France was entering the consumer society ,a society which was omnivorous in its appetite for apartments ,cars ,food ;and the main character turns this down;he has made his this sentence from " fight club" 'the things you own ends up owning you" ;and his bubble head girlfriend is a nuisance to live with at home,with her petty ambitions ("there's one of my movies just out ,let's go to the theater":the "movie" in question is an unbearable commercial )and her longing for a bourgeois life .It's not only misogyny:he even can do without his best friend ( "a friend I never see;"it's better that way" ).In an empty room ,he's never been so happy .When the doctor (the last human being he meets ) tells him he has a friend who can give him a nice place to live provided he continues his "work" (his recorded frame of minds),we think of an insane asylum right now.
Charles Denner gives a great performance of this rebel without a cause :no political or sentimental reason for such a behavior,and we never have the impression that the character is going insane . When he begins to enter "his" world ,he walks through a subway corridor covered with posters which read 'trust yourself".
In his sophomore effort ," Jeu De Massacre " ,Jessua would continue his study of deviancy: this time the hero,who makes up incredible stories , disappointed by a routine life and under an over possessive mother 's thumb,tries to live as a comics' hero; "Armaguedon" is " Vie A L'Envers " in reverse:the hero tries to attract the crowds ' attention by becoming some kind of terrorist ;and in his (at least to my eyes) final important work "Paradis Pour Tous" ,a shrink has found a new way of treating depression.
Between 1963 and 1982,Jessua only made six movies ,but they are all interesting ;to someone who would discover him,I 'd suggest "Traitement De Choc"(1972) ,his most accessible effort.
"La Vie A L'Envers " begins with a tape played backwards ;a man is tired of his girlfriend ,of his nine-to-five work and decides to live without the others -I'm watching you,but I don't see you" -and the things ;it was the beginning of the sixties and France was entering the consumer society ,a society which was omnivorous in its appetite for apartments ,cars ,food ;and the main character turns this down;he has made his this sentence from " fight club" 'the things you own ends up owning you" ;and his bubble head girlfriend is a nuisance to live with at home,with her petty ambitions ("there's one of my movies just out ,let's go to the theater":the "movie" in question is an unbearable commercial )and her longing for a bourgeois life .It's not only misogyny:he even can do without his best friend ( "a friend I never see;"it's better that way" ).In an empty room ,he's never been so happy .When the doctor (the last human being he meets ) tells him he has a friend who can give him a nice place to live provided he continues his "work" (his recorded frame of minds),we think of an insane asylum right now.
Charles Denner gives a great performance of this rebel without a cause :no political or sentimental reason for such a behavior,and we never have the impression that the character is going insane . When he begins to enter "his" world ,he walks through a subway corridor covered with posters which read 'trust yourself".
In his sophomore effort ," Jeu De Massacre " ,Jessua would continue his study of deviancy: this time the hero,who makes up incredible stories , disappointed by a routine life and under an over possessive mother 's thumb,tries to live as a comics' hero; "Armaguedon" is " Vie A L'Envers " in reverse:the hero tries to attract the crowds ' attention by becoming some kind of terrorist ;and in his (at least to my eyes) final important work "Paradis Pour Tous" ,a shrink has found a new way of treating depression.
Between 1963 and 1982,Jessua only made six movies ,but they are all interesting ;to someone who would discover him,I 'd suggest "Traitement De Choc"(1972) ,his most accessible effort.