HERE BE SPOILERS / READERS BEWARE...
A young man becomes assistant to a photographer of some renown, who lives in a large and neglected mansion. Once known for his fashion shoots, the photographer is now experimenting with machines, products and techniques related to the long-forgotten world of "daguerrotype". Pretty but fragile Marie, the photographer's daughter and muse, catches the assistant's eye...
Time for me to take the review train and travel to the French-speaking part of Belgium. The movie is long but I'll try and keep the review short : this is an interesting but slow-moving, incoherent and inconclusive movie. "Le secret" is open to interpretation - in fact, it is open to a multitude of interpretations - but I get the impression that it involves at least one great big error in logic.
Near the end, the movie pretty much suggests that "Marie" does not exist, although her lover believes in her physical reality : she is a spectre, an afterimage or a vision evoked by exposure to dangerous chemical products. No problem there, narratively speaking, if it weren't for the fact that earlier in the movie there's a scene where Marie has a job interview with the kindly director of some scientific institution concerned with plant life. The said director speaks to the young woman and sees her clearly in full daylight, which would suggest that she is a real, actual person with a real, actual life and real, actual interests. Moreover, later on Marie is shown receiving and reading an official letter from some scientific institution in France, which, again, would make sense only if she is a real, living and breathing person.
While we're at it, there's a scene where the photographer goes around crying and sobbing, saying things like "My daughter just died" and "That accident just killed my poor, poor child". However, he does not do any of the things a recently bereaved father would do : he does not pray over the body, he does not call for a funeral director, he does not warn authorities. Clearly we're in fantasy land here.
I'm not too fond of this kind of nonsense, even if it hides behind dream-like imagery or deep (well, supposedly deep) meditations on the difference between art and nature. Write, correct and streamline your screenplay, people, and THEN shoot your movie.
Still, I developed a raging lust for the stunning mansion serving as main location. Talk about a beautiful building...
A young man becomes assistant to a photographer of some renown, who lives in a large and neglected mansion. Once known for his fashion shoots, the photographer is now experimenting with machines, products and techniques related to the long-forgotten world of "daguerrotype". Pretty but fragile Marie, the photographer's daughter and muse, catches the assistant's eye...
Time for me to take the review train and travel to the French-speaking part of Belgium. The movie is long but I'll try and keep the review short : this is an interesting but slow-moving, incoherent and inconclusive movie. "Le secret" is open to interpretation - in fact, it is open to a multitude of interpretations - but I get the impression that it involves at least one great big error in logic.
Near the end, the movie pretty much suggests that "Marie" does not exist, although her lover believes in her physical reality : she is a spectre, an afterimage or a vision evoked by exposure to dangerous chemical products. No problem there, narratively speaking, if it weren't for the fact that earlier in the movie there's a scene where Marie has a job interview with the kindly director of some scientific institution concerned with plant life. The said director speaks to the young woman and sees her clearly in full daylight, which would suggest that she is a real, actual person with a real, actual life and real, actual interests. Moreover, later on Marie is shown receiving and reading an official letter from some scientific institution in France, which, again, would make sense only if she is a real, living and breathing person.
While we're at it, there's a scene where the photographer goes around crying and sobbing, saying things like "My daughter just died" and "That accident just killed my poor, poor child". However, he does not do any of the things a recently bereaved father would do : he does not pray over the body, he does not call for a funeral director, he does not warn authorities. Clearly we're in fantasy land here.
I'm not too fond of this kind of nonsense, even if it hides behind dream-like imagery or deep (well, supposedly deep) meditations on the difference between art and nature. Write, correct and streamline your screenplay, people, and THEN shoot your movie.
Still, I developed a raging lust for the stunning mansion serving as main location. Talk about a beautiful building...