Un 32 août sur terre

I enjoy chronologically moving up the filmographies of directors I admire. I watched this about 5 or 6 years ago (when I was 17) and didn't think too much of it then but watched it again on a whim now and I feel as if certainly grown in the meantime to appreciate more than the boring superficialities I had unconciously learned through so many years of popular media consumption. I now change my rating from 5 to 9 stars, because for me, now, the definition of a good film is this magical creation of a mood and atmosphere where you can occupy the space with the characters. The story doesn't always matter. You crash your car, perhaps you die, perhaps you go into a coma or perhaps you really break your window and escape from your car, there's no telling. Perhaps it's all a dream and why not since it's August 32nd from the time after the crash (well at least until it's suddenly 5th september after 36th August sometime near the end of the film; could that be a hint towards a reality?). Who knows, really? Charred body of a stranger in the desert, a swindler cabbie who cheats you and gives you a nosebleed (just like when you got a nosebleed sometime after your crash) and more evil men who randomly drive up to people and beat them to coma in the middle of the night...it's certainly a strange and difficult world. A vast and white desert, a claustrophobic and white room for the night, will the characters ever mate with each other? Did anyone else notice how the shot of the cab driving into the road leading to the white desert had this very phallic imagery? Hah not sure how much I'm reading into it. The strange nature of these observations and hints dropped throughout the film will resurface later in Villeneuve's Enemy (which is brilliant imo). There is a quiet, realistic humour throughout which is mostly missing from Villeneuve's other works but works well here to sustain the "mood". It's a film about nothing which "hints" towards a "something". Perhaps the hint is based on nothing really...perhaps the director himself does not know...it doesn't matter. Would recommend, it's always good to watch stuff which makes you think...even about nothing.

Not too shabby for a debut feature, August 32nd on Earth brings its whacky premise to cinematic life in a simple, amusing fashion, and is a well crafted, wonderfully photographed & finely performed dramedy that commences Denis Villeneuve's filmmaking journey on a promising note, if not a memorable one.

I've watched all his mainstream films, but they were too good to understand in every aspect, especially the deep hidden meanings beyond those spectacular visuals, stunning cinematography as in BLADE RUNNER 2049, actions in SICARIO, and emotional and dramatic thrills in INCENDIES and PRISONERS. But after watching a small and mediocre films as this, now I understand why Villeneuve is special. He made full use of one accident scene and all the desert scenes making the film look almost as beautiful as car chasing scenes in THE DARK KNIGHT and the space sequences in GRAVITY, INTERSTELLAR, etc respectively. He managed to give an average script a direction which is more than extraordinarily.

Also the performances of both leads were great. The cab driver subplot also had a promising thriller content, which could've been more useful if the film had been a thriller.

Overall, beautiful direction and great performances make this mediocre story to be more than one time watch. 7/10 (6 for script, 8 for acting, 9 for direction )

That's one weird looking desert.

Denis Villeneuve's first debut featured film. When the main character confessed her intention to her best friend, I honestly thought this movie was a comedy, because of the absurdity of the situation. Still, as the drama started to show, the characters became the carrying aspect of the movie.

The theme of existential crisis was explored in a decent way. The weirdness of the way the characters trying to find meanings in their lives was reflected through the bizarre title of the movie. I think this aspect was quite clever, and later on as the date changes this theme became clearer.

The biggest problem was for sure the pacing. The movie was very slow and sometimes meandering despite the runtime not reaching the one hour and 30 minutes mark.

Overall, a decent debut from Villeneuve. 6/10.

I watched this movie wondering if I wasn't watching a sort of Seinfeldian version of movie-making - that is, "a show about nothing."

It dawned on me after watching this movie that this is basically what I saw - a big bunch of nothingness. And yet the story was beautiful and disturbing and depressing and inspiring, and ultimately poetic... I guess that's what they mean by "atmospheric" as used in describing a film.

The cinematography was superb - the part where the two lead characters ended up in the Utah salt desert was just so awesome. The acting was seamless, though I was handicapped by seeing it with English subtitles: since I don't know French, I fear that a good bit of the emotive force of the story, as told through the dialogue, was lost on me.

Anyway, I am so glad I taped this off of late night Canadian television, I definitely plan to watch it again. It's a movie you not so much "look" at, but "feel". Watch it, feel it... you'll see.