CALIFICACIÓN DE IMDb
7.0/10
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TU CALIFICACIÓN
La vida en el norte de Francia. Freddy y sus amigos están todos desempleados. Pasan el tiempo deambulando en motos y dirigiendo sus sentimientos agresivos hacia los inmigrantes árabes.La vida en el norte de Francia. Freddy y sus amigos están todos desempleados. Pasan el tiempo deambulando en motos y dirigiendo sus sentimientos agresivos hacia los inmigrantes árabes.La vida en el norte de Francia. Freddy y sus amigos están todos desempleados. Pasan el tiempo deambulando en motos y dirigiendo sus sentimientos agresivos hacia los inmigrantes árabes.
- Premios
- 14 premios ganados y 5 nominaciones en total
Jean-Claude Lefebvre
- Inspecteur
- (as Jean-Claude Lefèbvre)
Suzanne Berteloot
- Infirmière
- (as Suzanne Bertelot)
Melinda Deseure
- Chef majorettes
- (as Mélinda Deseure)
- Dirección
- Guionista
- Todo el elenco y el equipo
- Producción, taquilla y más en IMDbPro
Opiniones destacadas
With this first movie, the filmmaker Bruno Dumont signs a work of talent and establishes himself as a real author. It is all the more extraordinary as he never studied cinema and he doesn't belong to any film school. It doesn't prevent his movie from being reminiscent of the Dardenne brothers' cinema in its treatment: few dialogs, nearly no music, Dumont doesn't judge or criticize his characters. Neither does he judge their actions, doings and he doesn't condemn the murder of the Arab teenager. Nevertheless, Dumont has got a quality he constantly uses throughout his movie: a wide sense of observation. And sometimes, he lets express his sense of suggestion. In another hand, Dumont may be a genuine filmmaker, be that as it may, he's got a common point with Robert Bresson another French filmmaker: he hires no professional actors. We can take this characteristic for another asset in "life of Jesus" because it gives more strength and neutrality to this movie.
The title of my review is extracted from a song by Steve Albini's former band Big Black: "Kerosene" in which this "enfant terrible" screams: "never anything to do in this town!". It's exactly the same thing in the film. During nearly one hour, nothing is happening. We only see Freddy and his mates wandering again and again in the little town of Bailleul and its surroundings given they are on the dole. I have previously written that Dumont's opus contained few dialogs. Dialogs are almost useless here. Freddy's countenance and his pals' are sufficient enough to communicate the spectator their boredom. There are a few moments of happiness: every Sunday they play in the municipal brass band or they are going by the sea. Furthermore, Freddy takes part in competitions of chaffinch singing. But these short moments of happiness don't change anything in their lives and don't bring them hope. In another extent, when Freddy has sex with Marie, their sexual relations are very primary. It is also interesting to notice that to emphasize their humdrum life, the director uses a recurrent shot that regularly comes back throughout the film like a sort of leitmotiv: a rural or urban landscape with the gang in the middle distance or in the background. Then, gradually, this dull life turns to drama with two dramatic events: Freddy's gang rapes a young girl and they kill an Arab teenager. What shocks is the quasi-indifference of the gang. How did they arrive there? We can put forward several explanations. I will retain this one: maybe constant boredom destroys any judgment and makes the gang narrow-minded enough to lead them to commit a murder.
Bruno Dumont also achieved a tour de force in the cast. All right, the actors are no professional but they reveal themselves highly convincing. With Freddy's gang, the director draws a gallery of listless or racist characters deeply rooted in their land of the North of France. Of all these characters, we could argue that Marie is eventually the sole positive one since she doesn't want to meet the gang again (and especially Freddy) after the rape of the young girl and she accepts the friendship of the Arab teenager, Kader (let's admit it not for very long). As for Freddy, he is a simple-minded but not really clever person. Moreover, Dumont lets us suggest his easily influenced side, particularly in the scene when they rape the young girl. His friends encourage him to act.
At last, this movie contains a particularly harrowing sequence: when the gang visits one close relative of them who's dying of AIDS.
One last thing and I will finish with it: why did Bruno Dumont give his movie a title in which there's no question of Jesus? It is a mystery but it doesn't spoil the strength of this perfectly mastered movie.
The title of my review is extracted from a song by Steve Albini's former band Big Black: "Kerosene" in which this "enfant terrible" screams: "never anything to do in this town!". It's exactly the same thing in the film. During nearly one hour, nothing is happening. We only see Freddy and his mates wandering again and again in the little town of Bailleul and its surroundings given they are on the dole. I have previously written that Dumont's opus contained few dialogs. Dialogs are almost useless here. Freddy's countenance and his pals' are sufficient enough to communicate the spectator their boredom. There are a few moments of happiness: every Sunday they play in the municipal brass band or they are going by the sea. Furthermore, Freddy takes part in competitions of chaffinch singing. But these short moments of happiness don't change anything in their lives and don't bring them hope. In another extent, when Freddy has sex with Marie, their sexual relations are very primary. It is also interesting to notice that to emphasize their humdrum life, the director uses a recurrent shot that regularly comes back throughout the film like a sort of leitmotiv: a rural or urban landscape with the gang in the middle distance or in the background. Then, gradually, this dull life turns to drama with two dramatic events: Freddy's gang rapes a young girl and they kill an Arab teenager. What shocks is the quasi-indifference of the gang. How did they arrive there? We can put forward several explanations. I will retain this one: maybe constant boredom destroys any judgment and makes the gang narrow-minded enough to lead them to commit a murder.
Bruno Dumont also achieved a tour de force in the cast. All right, the actors are no professional but they reveal themselves highly convincing. With Freddy's gang, the director draws a gallery of listless or racist characters deeply rooted in their land of the North of France. Of all these characters, we could argue that Marie is eventually the sole positive one since she doesn't want to meet the gang again (and especially Freddy) after the rape of the young girl and she accepts the friendship of the Arab teenager, Kader (let's admit it not for very long). As for Freddy, he is a simple-minded but not really clever person. Moreover, Dumont lets us suggest his easily influenced side, particularly in the scene when they rape the young girl. His friends encourage him to act.
At last, this movie contains a particularly harrowing sequence: when the gang visits one close relative of them who's dying of AIDS.
One last thing and I will finish with it: why did Bruno Dumont give his movie a title in which there's no question of Jesus? It is a mystery but it doesn't spoil the strength of this perfectly mastered movie.
There is enormous promise in the opening scenes of Bruno Dumont's first feature "La Vie de Jesus". He is clearly a director with a great feeling for landscape, that ability to draw the viewer into a self-contained world, in this case an agricultural area of Northern France. Within minutes we know what it is like to live in this small redbrick town bounded by seemingly endless lanes and fields where very little happens and even the local cafe is all but deserted on a weekday mid-afternoon. We share the stifling boredom of the group of unemployed youths with little do except joyride their mopeds. We are in a world akin to that of Bresson's "Au Hazard Balthazar" and "Mouchettte" with Dumont revealing his with the assured unflinching vision of the master himself. Already we are beginning to sense the thrill that comes with the intuition that we may be discovering a major new talent. A brilliantly observed scene where the group of friends visit the brother of one of them who is in a coma dying of AIDS seems to confirm this. Words cannot convey their feeling but expressions say everything. However after this doubts gradually creep in. It requires real genius to sustain viewer interest in a film about provincial ennui. Not that nothing happens. There is an attack on an Arab youth that results in manslaughter, an arrest and an escape. The problem is not a lack of psychological development. There is an inevitability about the main protagonist, Freddy's obsession with the only girl around and his gunning for the Arab as a result of sexual rivalry fuelled by group racism. Rather is the problem one of a lack of narrative development. One sequence of moped riding becomes just like any other as do all those scenes of young people just moping around. Unfortunately the film eventually evokes viewer tedium in a way that is self defeating. Nevertheless there is excitement in the discovery of a new directorial talent and the prediction that he could in time make a really outstanding film.
Whilst certain elements of Dumont's cinematic approach are commendable, the curiously titled La Vie de Jesus (1997) never really amounts to anything more than a series of laboured, social-realist clichés. As with his other films, such as L' Humanité (1999) and the recent Flanders (2006), we have the presentation of a series of slowly paced, deliberately structured and naturalistically rendered vignettes that propel the narrative - in this case, one that looks specifically at the issues of teenage delinquency, violence and alienation - whilst simultaneously creating a stark sense of drama from the seemingly mundane. As each scene is placed, one after the other, the broader implications of the story become apparent, and it is not until the end of the film that all the ideas become clear and we can think and reflect on the moral message that Dumont is seemingly presenting. However, for me, the film was so slight and seemingly without greater interpretation, that any attempt to really think about or feel this film were somewhat superfluous.
For ninety minutes we follow around our central protagonist Freddy - an epileptic skin-head and motorcyclist - as he spends his days riding around the countryside with his gang, engaging in uninvolving sex with his girlfriend, or harassing the local Arab family. So we have elements of defiance, disappointment, littleness, jealousy, racism and more, all going into the creation of this suffocating pressure-cooker like environment that is never as successfully rendered as it possibly could be. I first saw the film back in 2002 when I was still in my late-teens and I found it somewhat disappointing, especially in the context of Dumont's second feature, the award-winning L' Humanité. I decided to re-investigate the film after having recently viewed the Shane Meadows film This is England (2006), which has a number of similar themes and overall scope. For me, both films are well acted, well directed and have an honesty to them that is rare and laudable, but for me personally, fell flat given the weak script and the overall clichéd subject matter.
Some of the acting is highly impressive, particularly from Marjorie Cottreel as Freddy's put-upon young girlfriend, but David Douche as the central character occasionally comes across as a little stilted; obvious showing his limitation as a non-professional actor. However, despite these slight limitations, it is the overall mood of the film that eventually becomes the most problematic aspect. The film is so relentlessly grim and depressing, with no beacon of hope to cling to, that Dumont's ultimate message is buried beneath the misery. So much so in fact, that any moment of real dramatic tension is stifled, highlighting its own clichés and plunging the depths of third rate melodrama. Dumont would go on to improve his craft with the aforementioned L' Humanité, in which he drops the clichés and refines his characters to the point of real, searing interest. La Vie de Jesus isn't a complete failure; committed cinema goers will find some level of interest from the uncomplicated visual presentation and slow meditation on violence and guilt, however, too much of the film (for me) missed its target on almost every level.
For ninety minutes we follow around our central protagonist Freddy - an epileptic skin-head and motorcyclist - as he spends his days riding around the countryside with his gang, engaging in uninvolving sex with his girlfriend, or harassing the local Arab family. So we have elements of defiance, disappointment, littleness, jealousy, racism and more, all going into the creation of this suffocating pressure-cooker like environment that is never as successfully rendered as it possibly could be. I first saw the film back in 2002 when I was still in my late-teens and I found it somewhat disappointing, especially in the context of Dumont's second feature, the award-winning L' Humanité. I decided to re-investigate the film after having recently viewed the Shane Meadows film This is England (2006), which has a number of similar themes and overall scope. For me, both films are well acted, well directed and have an honesty to them that is rare and laudable, but for me personally, fell flat given the weak script and the overall clichéd subject matter.
Some of the acting is highly impressive, particularly from Marjorie Cottreel as Freddy's put-upon young girlfriend, but David Douche as the central character occasionally comes across as a little stilted; obvious showing his limitation as a non-professional actor. However, despite these slight limitations, it is the overall mood of the film that eventually becomes the most problematic aspect. The film is so relentlessly grim and depressing, with no beacon of hope to cling to, that Dumont's ultimate message is buried beneath the misery. So much so in fact, that any moment of real dramatic tension is stifled, highlighting its own clichés and plunging the depths of third rate melodrama. Dumont would go on to improve his craft with the aforementioned L' Humanité, in which he drops the clichés and refines his characters to the point of real, searing interest. La Vie de Jesus isn't a complete failure; committed cinema goers will find some level of interest from the uncomplicated visual presentation and slow meditation on violence and guilt, however, too much of the film (for me) missed its target on almost every level.
This movie was one of my first contacts with french cinema. Later I saw a bunch more, but this one stays one of the best. It gives a somewhat scary insight in the rural parts of France. It shows a group of young boys that have definitely suffered from heavy inbreed. They are miserable machos wih an attitude. It shows a young generation with few hopes but the cheap thrills and the fast kicks. The tone of the story could be compared with 'Gummo'. The style of the movie is obviously not comparable with Gummo, since nothing is comparable in style with Gummo. But, returning to la vie de jesus, It is a beautiful movie wich leaves you with a strangely uncomfortable feeling. If you have the chance, go see it. The only thing that I really can't place it the very explicit shot somewhere in the middle of the movie.
Bruno Dumonts "La Vie de Jésus" is one of the best movies I saw that year. It's a very gripping tale of a group of bored, at first glance no-good youngsters, who end up in a lot of trouble because of their racism. To me, without being a patriot, this isn't really a French, but a Belgian movie. The setting (French Flanders), but also the themes it deals with, the environment (no foreigner can fully grasp the horror of all those old people sitting on their chairs in the doorstep, waiting for something to happen, staring at the occasional passer-by). But whatever country it is made in, it is a strong story, filmed in a raw way, which very much fits the rawness of the characters in the movie. If you take under notice that all the actors were amateurs, yet they manage to make lots of so-called pros look like the real amateurs, you have to give the director credit for that.
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaDirector Bruno Dumont confirmed that porn actors were used in the unsimulated sex scene between Freddy's and Marie's characters. "The main actors were replaced by body doubles. I did not like it, towards them. If they had accepted, I would have do. Today, I wouldn't. In all my other films, everything is fake, it's cinema," he said.
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Detalles
Taquilla
- Presupuesto
- EUR 1,200,000 (estimado)
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