Change Your Image
sebastianjamesnail
Reviews
She's Just a Shadow (2019)
Aesthetically Very Strong....Execution Wise Very Weak.
Often times a movie is bad and that is the end of it. I have never seen a movie that is so compelling aesthetically, yet so vapid plot wise.
Every character is, for the most part, a terrible person. Some just happen to be out protagonists. Women are naked throughout the entirety of the film, to the extend that you become entirely desensitized to it by the half hour mark. In fact it was far more intriguing as to why characters wore close at all.
The film is icky, disturbing and gross. Bloody but not violent. Lots of nudity but no sex. The world is bleak, but since everyone we meet sucks it's hard to feel that bad for them. There's no grounding point. Technically, the script isn't terrible, at least minute to minute. Beat to beat however, it becomes clear the movie's overall focus it it's edgy set pieces and its dark aesthetics because the plot is not even boilerplate.
It's an interesting idea, premise wise and aesthetically. Decent in small doses. Terrible as a movie.
Des filles en noir (2010)
An Introspective, Sad and Strangely Relatable Look At Youth That Transcends Culture
Teenage angst is a common phenomenon, one that transcends culture, race and time. This film encapsulates the wildness. The pendulum of emotion and perhaps most importantly of all, the softness of that existential dread and despair that comes for many of us during our formative years.
It is steeped in art and culture, yet also removed from it in a way that grounds the film and its dark, often shadowy images. The premise is simple: two tragic girls engrossed in a suicide pact, one seemingly more willing than the other. And as with all suicide pacts, this one goes wrong. The delicate and fragile nature of this film touched me as a viewer and took me back to an uncomfortable and transient place in time that perhaps would be better not to revisit at all.
It is very French, production wise and plot wise, taking slow, graceful steps that us Americans might mistake as a meandering plod. But every little scene and set piece has a purpose and the construction, while not perfect, is fundamentally sound. I can't say I would "recommend" this film, due to it's touchy subject matter, but I think it is a very good film and a very unique one at that.