L'homme qui voulait vivre sa vie

Poor guy !

Things happen sometimes spiralling, upending your life!

What to do to fix it?

Good casting !

I saw this film at the 2010 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, and it was a pleasant surprise.

Great performances, tightly directed, and a very compelling storyline, in addition to a being beautifully shot and using some great Magnum Photos in the film as part of the main character's unexpected shift into a new world and a new life.

Based on the American writer Douglas Kennedy's acclaimed book of the same name, but changed to a Euro setting, director Eric Lartigau easily shows how European filmmakers can take the themes of murder, obsession and identity to new artistic heights, while also giving us one of the best thrillers of 2010. It's a thriller as cinematic art as only the Europeans can do.

The film might not have gotten as much attention as other films at TIFF 2010, but it definitely should. I truly hope it gets a wider release here in Canada and elsewhere.

Seek it out. Decidedly worthwhile.

The Big Picture (2010)

Terrific vibes here, and a euphoric basic idea of a man getting out of a troubled situation and going for broke, for happiness. Literally, and spiritually.

First there is the set-up: a happy, charming, positive Paul Exben (played by the cheerful French actor Romain Duris). He's got an unhappy, negative wife and a kid who loves him and an infant who doesn't know what he wants (except to cry a lot). He's a photographer in the new manner, using high tech computers and high end printers. He loves being who he is, and is very successful financially.

But the wife is bitter and unyielding. Things are going to go wrong and they do. Exactly how (involving another photographer, a man who is very old school with a darkroom and enlarger) is partly what the movie is about, and the surprise is one of its peaks. Then the movie takes some amazing turns.

I say amazing but really there is a lot of incredulity built in. Would Paul Exben really go so far? Wasn't there a simpler solution (many of them)? If the end goal really was to "start over" in a manner of speaking, wouldn't there be ways of doing that and not sabotaging everything else? Maybe not, but then we should have been set up better for all the implications.

The movie's original title is "L'homme Qui Voulait Vivre Sa Vie," or "The Man Who Wanted to Live His Life." That's sooooo much better and more compelling. And that's what the movie is about. But the English title reminds us that photography, and this photographer, are central to it all, and I'm a photographer. I've been that old school type (by necessity) for decades and still have an enlarger (and a university darkroom) at my fingertips. But I have also moved almost completely into new school photography with inkjet printing and such.

I have to say, this movie made me want to get back in the darkroom. Not that there are scenes that romanticize that. More that there are lots of flaws and mistakes in pointing out the differences. Our man Exben ends up ditching his fancy Canon gear and getting an old Nikon film camera and a couple of lenses. Then he starts to print, rediscovering his roots. And then on his darkroom wall are some color prints--absolutely impossible with some trays as shown. And pretty much not possible period these days. Yet his new direction in color is what takes his career new places. I found the photography stuff annoying and enchanting, both. If you're not into the field, you'll probably just like the enchantment part. Never mind the far too easy gallery luck near the end.

But the movie is about what the French title suggests--and here it falters, too. Is this a man who is really living his life? In some obvious ways yes. But the existential drama could have (and should have?) taken this far deeper. By the final scenes where our man is photographing a horrifying event from a distance (and then sells some illogically close-up photos of the event to a publisher) we get a sense that he is truly dedicated. But also a bit lost. An opportunist. A man who accepts being trapped by circumstance.

In a way, this is a movie waiting to be remade. It wouldn't take much to make it a classic look at the human condition, with some attractive hooks along the way. What we have isn't so bad, but it offers more than it delivers.

The failure of a professional photographer to use the latest equipment is a good metaphor for this movie, whose English title makes no sense. It seems like it was shot from the original script submission before any grownups had a chance to edit the story. Terrific performances by all the actors, but a story line so sloppy that I re-animated my disbelief about half-way through. For me the most enjoyable aspect was the glimpse to life in various venues around (and near) Europe. I would love to have seen this in the hands of Alfred Hitchcock. He would have lent credibility to the desperation, which I felt was contrived and forced on me. I'll bet they ran out of money while filming and couldn't afford the ending they'd originally planned.

I found the film a bit illogical and ridiculous as the main character's paranoia have not been depicted realistically...well I have seen the film in the french films club lair with my vision distorted by 2 rows of other people. Anyhow the film might have been a great one had it been cut better. Had it say started at the sea and then retrospectively (getting there backwards) let the viewer to discover the whole, a viewer would personalize the idea and intentions better. In the movie on the other hand, one gets to be introduced to the 'normal' person who gets clearly mad, arranging his life as a paranoic schizophrenic yet acting sanely as before so he even manages to lead a life of a star artist with ease. There are some great plot points like leaving of the loved, stealing of the identity, accidental death, unwanted? artistic praise, sea survival friendship. Unfortunately they are loosely connected with the hero's intentions that are depicted not deeply enough to make a good sense... hence a schizophrenic.