I had a bit of an off-night tonight, moviewise. First, I started to watch another Dardenne Brothers film that I'd found in my recent seach. It was called "Lorna's Silence". About ten minutes in, I began to experience cinematic deja vu. The young actress playing "Lorna" looked familiar. As the movie gets underway, Lorna goes home to her husband, a heroin addict. "Hmmm....have I seen this before"?
I wasn't sure. I knew I'd watched a few Dardenne Bros. movies about three or four years ago, and I remembered "The Kid With A Bike", "L'enfant", and "Rosetta", but the title "Lorna's Silence" didn't ring a bell. Still, when you get that feeling that you've already seen something, it's usually because you have. I let the movie run for twenty minutes before I was sure I'd seen it, and then I switched to another film. Now that I remember it and have looked it up on IMDB, I recall that "Lorna's Silence" is a really good movie. I would have watched it a second time, and I only switched because I have a bunch of dvds from The Libe and a whole lot more waiting on hold that I have to pick up. I am guessing that I saw "Lorna's Silence" in 2015, and because the title is obscure (not like "Gone With The Wind" for example), and because I see so many movies, I simply forgot it....until I saw it again. Or at least a few minutes of it anyway.
But it's really good, and I give it Two Thumbs Up. See it if you like the Dardennes.
So yeah....I switched movies, and I put a flick in the dvd player called "The Flower Of Evil", by Claude Chabrol. This movie came up, naturally, in my Chabrol search. You can't miss with Chabrol, right? Sigh.....I wish I could say this was so, because we were on such a roll....with Chabrol.
Yeah, I had to say it again because it was a good one-liner. And we were on a roll with him, but alas, nobody's perfect. Not even Claude Chabrol. "The Flower Of Evil" is not a terrible movie nor even a bad one, really. It just suffers in comparison to the Chabrol Masterpieces Of Mystery that we have recently enjoyed and reviewed.
The story feels like a soap opera. A cobbled-together family with a hidden history is about to be torn apart. A wealthy, egocentric pharmacist is married to an up-and-coming politician. She is running for mayor of their town. Both are in their mid-50s, and for both it is their second marriage. She is a widow and he a widower, and what's more, each of their previous spouses was murdered, though the plot is murky on the details. Husband and wife each brought one child into their union, and the two step-children - now grown - a handsome young man and beautiful young woman, have long since fallen in love with one another. They are not biologically related, so there is no problem in that regard, and anyway it's a French movie, so it's hubba-hubba city. A lot of onscreen time is spent with these two together in close up, simply because Chabrol likes the way they look. Their dialogue is not advancing the story but dragging it out.
The plot really involves the wife and mother/stepmother of the pharmacist, who is running for mayor, and it isn't worth a long rehashing here. The problem with this movie is that people talk, and move through scenes, and nothing develops until the end, which seems to be of the "tacked-on" variety.
My friends and I, way back when we were teenagers, used to speak derisively of the "tacked-on" ending to certain movies, where it seemed like the screenwriter was playing Pin The Tail On The Donkey. It didn't matter if the ending was fitting, or even if it was any good, just so long as there was an ending. Here, Chabrol gives you ten minutes - all the way at the end of a 101 minute movie - of what you would have formerly expected to be an integral part of one of his better films, the Mystery Element. And it just feels like he attached it with a thumbtack at the end to give his fans some resolution to a meandering story that features a lot of talk but not much intrigue.
I give "The Flower Of Evil" One Thumb Sideways, worth seeing only for hardcore Chabrol fans. I probably should have let "Lorna's Silence" play through. ///
A grey drizzly day today. Hoping the sun will come back out soon, to stay, and without wind. Just hoping for an extended period of nice weather so I can get back outside. I haven't been on a hike since Towsley Canyon over two weeks ago. Haven't been up to Aliso in about three weeks. Half of the reason is my job. It ain't easy. But the other half is the crummy climate change weather we have nowdays, where you never know what you are gonna get from one day to the next.
I can't wait for my next hike, because now I can look for eoliths, which I had never heard of before.
Probably wouldn't find 'em in sandstone, but you never know.
Go on a hike with me, and we will look,
See you in the morn. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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