Auguste Rodin

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

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.

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 director chose to tell about the life of the sculptor August Rodin from a different perspective. The film begins in the middle of the sculptor's life. After a difficult period, he acquired a positive reputation around his work, and the French government invites work inspired by Dante. director successfully reconstructs the complex relationship with his colleague, lover, and confidante - Camille Claudel. The film has all the ingredients for success - passion, love, and tension, so I do not agree with the low grade received by the film. In conclusion: I think the film met expectations, was true to the original, focused on the processes surrounding the artist's life.

It is a film who I like . For cinematography, for Victor Lindon, for good intentions, for fragmented story, for the noble effort to give portrait not of a life or period but of the spirit of a fight. It is not Camille Claudel but a version, at first sigh rude and not easy to accept , of the self definition of Auguste Rodin. A story of love but not only. A sort of testimony in obvious manner. So, I like it.