C'est quoi la vie?

I caught this movie while flicking through French TV channels while on holiday in France, I don't remember exactly what drew me in to keep watching but I would put it down to the effortless intensity that seeps through this gloriously sparse and innocent film.

The roles of Grandson and Grandpa deserve equal credit for the honesty and simplicity present in two very convincing performances. Not only was a I captivated by the quality of the acting but the cinematography is some of the most impressive I have ever seen on film. "C'est quoi la vie?" can be compared to the sprawling Pagnol classics in which the camera often pays tribute to the beauty of the landscape in order to captivate the viewer.

As far as the screenplay goes, the viewer is left to fill a lot of gaps and figure out various facets to the progression of the story that are sometimes left unfinished. Dialogue is mostly sparse and unbecoming, but anyone who knows the 'country' mentality will know that this is as true to life as possible. I prefer to think that the dynamics of the screenplay were a deliberate attempt to maintain a tasteful level of subtlety and make the viewer work once captivated by the quality seeping through this touching and moving account of real farm life in northern-central France.

Nicolas works on his father's farm. The work is hard, life is though and business is not going well, so Nicolas dreams of a different life. One day he agrees to give a woman (Maria) a ride. After he has dropped her off, he is more and more intrigued by his feelings for her. Nicolas' life takes different turns, and he meets Maria again. This movie is like a warm bath on a cold winter day: beautiful, simple, all about life and how it should be. The scenery is absolutely stunning, the acting adequate. The story is not too solid, but it efficiently makes you wonder, `What's life?'.

This movie about a young man coming to terms with his destiny as a farmer after his father commits suicide due to the pressure put on the agricultural sector with the madcow crisis etc etc has gone wrong on several points:

It was way too long. If this would have been about 90 minutes it would have been much more endurable, but in my opinion it just droned on and on, actually not going really anywhere.

The script. There are plotholes the size of a decent meteor crater here. Too much is left to guess for. The grandfather becomes this senile old man overnight... come on, and nobody even wonders why that is. What did the family do with the old farm? Did they sell it, abandon it, what is it? And the relationship of the young man with the older woman is kept from the audience way too long to become anything that amounts to anything.

Characterization. Almost all the characters are as flat as a dollar bill. Sure the mother has an affair. Grandpa becomes senile. But this doesn't make any impact on the audience, we just don't care. The little sister keeps dreaming of going to the big city, but that is just as far as that character goes. And the young man decides to retract into the mountains with his family to become a farmer, he has been kicking and screaming to get the hell out of there and all of a sudden he wants to get down in the pre-historic dirt like his father, oh please, give us a break.

On a more positive note there is the photography. This is all nicely shot, but after seeing the umpteenth sunset/rise and more trees in the mist this becomes a little stale.

Overall not a good movie, but I give a 6 for the effort.

6/10

It's the kind of movie that makes you make a deep reflection of yourself, and, hence, life. The photography is beyond extraordinary, for the ones that love good photo movies, you are going to love this one, believe me. All the characters in the film are important, but, the most important is the grandfather, he is the one that open your eyes to life, at least for a moment... You won't regret, is a beautiful well-done film.

I will just focus on the atmosphere here: it is a slow movie. The editing brings you into the rural people's rhythm of life, as well as to contemplation of everyday otherwise-common country scapes. Some people might get bored by it, but personally I believe that many movies trying to be that kind of beautiful just miss it because they are to nervously edited (paradoxally, such movies would be less boring if they were longer). Very often I feel bumped around from one shot to another when all I want is to enjoy a movie the way I would a great scotch: by savoring each sip - that is each line, each expression, each shot. That's what I got from "C'est quoi la vie", which avoids the common bad taste of a so-called entertaining pace.

Then there is the Zen touch, provided by the traditional Japanese single-instrumentation of the soundtrack, and probably the work of a Japanese photographer (quite unusual in a French film). Also, it was as daring as successful, in my opinion, to apply such a constant yellow filter to the picture, giving a warm "sunglasses" affect to the scenery along the whole movie, making it very pleasant for the eye.