Trop tôt/Trop tard

Perhaps the thing that most amazes me about Huillet & Straub's films is how effortlessly cinematic they remain while being such cerebral works. The landscapes that constitute this film's visual language are among the greatest I've ever experienced in any film, conveying a sense of almost transcendent wonder at the landscapes of France and, even more so, Egypt. It is a vision informed by Bresson, Antonioni, Ozu and pregnant with the aesthetics of Kiarastami and Wenders. That this visual wonder does not overwhelm the work's ideas- informed by Engles's meditations of the premature birth of socialist radicalism during the French Revolution, and the frustrations of Egyptian communists as to the "misdirection" of the masses' activism (including what was, to me, an unfortunate ultra-leftist critique of Nasser)- constitutes proof that cinema can not only be philosophical, but actually practice philosophy.

Featuring a justly infamous, even startling opening sequence with a tilted camera pointed out the window of a moving car that keeps driving and driving around a famous traffic circle (forget the name) in Paris for 10 odd minute - a continual 360 that never catches a glimpse of its axis, too perfect - TOO EARLY, TOO LATE is a singular meditation and extended visual metaphor on the theme of revolution (get it??) shot in a variety of locations and cities with a Marxist voice-over reading from famous selections on the subject. Quite unlike anything else you'll see and while obviously not what you'd call entertainment, some of the shooting once you get outside the city is breathtakingly beautiful. Are they trying to implicate us in this collective indifference to social ills by growing absorbed in the natural beauty of the surroundings? I'm not sure, but certainly Straub/Huillet's subtle avant-garde combo filmwork is among the most underappreciated in German and, indeed, international cinema.

So slow, no story to it, personally I hated this 104 minute waste of time. No idea why this is on 1001.

The locations were the locations in the letters the narrator read The present-day locations were the locations of yesterday impoverished villages the narrator listed, villages destroyed by poverty a hundred years after the French Revolution of 1789 (lessons not learned) The very first shot was of the multiple revolutions through the Place de la Bastille (hint hint....) The purposeful camera movements were expertly executed to elide the present into the past, to carry viewers on a counterclockwise revolution into the history of revolution and on a clockwise revolution into the unknown future, an ebb and flow structure, the expertise camera work winding back the hands of time These landscapes were the seeds of revolution where revolution was sown The steady panoramic pans of natural landscapes in France framed in human abandonment and Thracianesque decay were contemplative pans meant to recall how the landscapes were once run riot with innumerable people and the hustle-bustle of life and the cries of hunger and upheaval and revolution, and how now in the present the locations are seemingly abandoned, decayed, returning to their natural state, emptied, nothing changed, the landscape itself reclaiming everything that once stood on it The clockwise revolution through the town that began with an empty field (once seeded and sown, the birth of fruit; the field like a womb, seeded and sown, birth of children) then passed by empty abandoned farm buildings hundreds of years old (once the scene of life and energy, children and marriages, play and work, time and tide, etc) and ended with the old cemetery was extremely evocative, hundreds of years of days and nights and tides and time and work and play and death encapsulated in the directors' highly expertise clockwork camera circuit spanning a mere breath of air The camera captured the sound of the wind as it was bending the grass and the trees, a universal metaphor: the poor and the starving were wind who for brief periods of time bent the grass and trees The revolt and revolution continue in the present-day French country as the camera captures clouds breaking up and flocks of birds bursting out of trees, raucous moments briefly overthrowing the landscape requiem, expertise camera work perfectly capturing the spontaneity of clouds and birds The text recited from the book during Part B/Egypt (diptych-structured film) was of 100% interest, it was a passage about an Egyptian peasant revolt and the ensuing Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which nicely enveloped together the first part of the film (Part A: French revolts and revolutions)

I did not go to film school so cannot speak to the technical side of this movie, although people seem to agree that is quite solid.

So, I'm left to judge the film by the way they tell their story. When it comes to Too Early / Too Late I think there seems to be a lot of space left open for interpretation and contemplation. Much like a therapist whose comfort with awkward silence causes the patient to wrestle with their own thoughts,Straub and Huillet invite us to meditate on the passing of time and the legacy of rebellions.

Growing up reading about various rebellions or overthrown governments I had rarely given thought to the physicality of the spaces these impoverished workers lived in and dreamed to improve. This is what the film does well.

Where I find it lacking is that a fair amount of the film is boring. Too much contemplation and meditation. The poems on rebellion spoken over the landscapes they reference is a cool idea for a project and at times it's very thought-provoking. In between those moments, however, there's just too much dead air with 10-min shots of country roads.