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Reviews
Flandres (2006)
Dumont's "Band of Cains"
Bruno Dumont seems to create controversy in every one of his films, but I've only seen "Flandres" and "L'Humanite. " Dumont's film language is very bleak and very stark. He uses little to no soundtrack music, letting ambient sound to substitute. His characters seem to writhe in a painfully prosaic film world, their experiences and torments more vivid for the lack of melodrama.
Demeste (Samuel Boidin) and Barbe (Adélaïde Leroux) have a complicated romantic relationship in a rural farming village somewhere in Francophone Europe. Barbe is promiscuous with other men, yet Demeste seems to permit the trysts without comment. You only see his brooding glares. All the young men in the area enlist to go off for war somewhere in an Arab desert. They young soldiers take their emotional baggage with them into this hostile environment. There are fistfights in the camp, firefights in the field, and no one understands the language or mannerisms of the locals. Inevitably, acts of war become acts of war crimes. Seemly normal guys go off to war and become brutal Neanderthals murdering, molesting and bailing. The survivors, like all survivors, are left to try and understand what happened and what they've become.
Before the Music Dies (2006)
Excellent documentary
Director Andrew Shapter has created a marvelous documentary concerning the health and well-being, not of the Music Industry, but the vulnerable muse behind it that changes certain people from being just competent musical technicians into transcendent artists channeling their muse and changing the lives or their listeners. Through interviews with musicians and industry players past and present, the director tells a story of change; a change from radio nurturing new stars to the time of video killing the radio stars. What has replaced those stars does not forebode well for the future of musical art.
All is not lost, however. A few powerful personalities have found a way to use their indomitable will and contemporary technology to forge a new direction. That direction suggests an exciting future that will continue to allow artists to connect to their audience without the mediation of an ever-consolidating Music Industry Distribution Network.
Anyone who is concerned with the dearth of challenging, intelligent and enduring musical art should see this film and make it their duty to seek out that muse.