Auguste Rodin

With Rodin, Jacques Doillon gives us a very strange movie. While the actors are great, the light is OK and the cinematography is flawless, what ruin the film is the story and how it is told.

Rather than going through the events of the life of the sculptor, Rodin is only showing glimpses of it like Quotes, moments of works or moments of love. The problem with it is, though the chronological order is preserved, that the spectator is completely lost with untold names or missing events and you always need to think about what happened before in the movie to finally understand what took place an hour ago, which is completely annihilating the empathy for the characters because you can't feel the same as them because you have no idea what just happened.

In addition to that, the scenario have no real purpose, the movie is starting nowhere, and is ending nowhere. Moreover, there are totally useless nude scenes, which is sometimes embarrassing because its going nowhere and is never justified. I'm OK with that, but there must be at least 20 minutes of these, and because the movie is often boring and overall too long, it's annoying.

"Rodin" presents moments in the sculptor's life as he struggles to complete his statue of Balzac, which was panned at the time but is now considered by some to represent the dawn of modern sculpture. Rodin's role in changing the art of sculpture is reflected by the impressionists with whom he socialises, including Cezanne and Monet, who were likewise challenging the conventions of painting. In the background, literally and figuratively, is the famous "Gates of Hell" sculptural group that the master is slowly assembling. In the foreground is his tempestuous relationship with student Camille Claudel, one of the many students/models he beds over the course of the film. Like his "Balzac" the film was panned on release (but likely not to be considered a game-changing masterpiece in the future) and although I seemed to have liked it more than most critics, it is undeniably slow-moving and disjointed. Unlike films such as "Lust for "Life" (1956), it does not follow the artist from beginning to end, so anyone without some knowledge of the sculptor will find themselves dropped into the story midpoint with insufficient 'exposition' to immerse themselves in the characters or situations. While a known womaniser, the emphasis on Rodin's flings with his frequently nude (and sometimes not very convincing) models gets in the way of what is interesting: the sculpting. On the plus side, the film is beautifully photographed and I thought that Vincent Lindon (Rodin) and Izïa Higelin (Camille) were very good (an opinion not shared by all).

This portrait of Auguste Rodin runs very slowly with lots of time to savor limited aspects of the sculptor, especially his comportment with women. I though that I was being harsh in giving the film a rating of 6, but then I saw that the average at imdb is under 5! I am not sure what the point here was, since Camille Claudel is a great film which gives much more insight into the relationship between the artist and his most famous student/lover. The impression one comes away with is that artists can be just like everybody else and are not really so special as human beings. It's just that they leave works behind, some of which come to be heralded as great, usually posthumously.

The cinemnatography was often very good, but I found the fade ins and fade outs between scenes somewhat disruptive of the flow of the story, to the extent that there was one

I normally love this kind of historical bio-pic. The last 2-3 movies I have been to see of this genre (Naruda and Django were the other two). This one disappointed, especially as I remember seeing the superb Camille Claudelle more than twenty years ago. I wanted to get the other half of the story - but felt let down.

Two great things about this movie: the use of sepia throughout really locates the movie in time, making it feel oldie worldie. The sets, most of which are inside the artist's studios give one a real feeling of the process of sculpting. The selection of limbs and heads lying around and give the movie a strangely surrealistic air. visually the studios provide a visual backdrop that is every bit as good as that in Parfum.

Two things that let this movie down. 1. the lack of a coherent narrative or story line. Its about love found and lost but it moves along at a too-slow pace and scenes seem poorly connected to each other. Vincent Lindon's portrayal of Rodin is also disappointing he mostly seems to wander around his studio looking miserable and lost. I found it difficult to empathise or identify with him and wonder why during the course of the film so many women throw themselves at him. I nearly left after an hour and a half but made myself stick it out.

The film "Rodin" was able to convey a multilayered picture of the life as it is; not always beautiful and smooth, but fragmented and rough. The closer the viewer got to the main characters the moe it was possible to feel their personal agonies. For me, the movie followed very closely the way Rodin presented his sculptures in all their fleshiness. Acting was mainly superb, but for me Lindon underplayed his role. Cinematography was absolutely beautiful and the music fit the overall ambience. I would have liked to have seen a bit more focus on Camille Claudel, portrayed bu Higelin, but of course she deserves her own movie. The ending was absolutely excellent.