Concile d'amour

This is the kind of pretentious, self-indulgent, avantgarde art house cinema that killed attendance in German movie theatres at the time it came out.

It comes under the header of stage adaptation, but it retains a sense of staginess that inflicts upon you a feeling that you should be watching this in a theatre, not a movie theatre - except that I prefer root canal treatment over watching this any day in any form. A storyline may have existed at some point, but it is completely buried under a heap of surreal settings and over-the-top performances. The surrealism has no real function here, as it does not merely transcend reality, it disconnects from it. As a consequence, there are no identifiable characters either - the thing is just mystifying without sporting a mystery that keeps you interested.

Recremental bourgeois dross of this kind makes me envy China its cultural revolution.