Avida

Nothing at all like what the synopsis at the film festival led me to expect. This is the only movie that I have ever walked out on in my life. And I did that with only 15 minutes left in the show.

A clever ad agency might write a tagline such as "It'll keep you guessing!" What they really mean is that you will never know what the hell it's about. There was a vague pretext that seemed to offer a hint of progression and kept you thinking that it would all make sense in the end. When I realized that there was no way they could cobble together a storyline in the final 15 minutes, I decided that their time was up.

Essentially, it was a macabre sequence of situations that mostly gave the viewer a repulsive look at the actions and reactions of unsupervised people with mild to strong mental handicaps. It relied on using midgets, obese people and various unpleasant stereotypes to present a very non politically correct image. While I don't oppose challenging the PC crowd, it ought to at least be done with a message. In this case, the message appears to be "french people are messed up".

Avida is a game of words mingling life and eagerness, but I personally think this movie was overblown by its ambition and does not make justice to its title. It gathers a set of awkward characters united by unbelievable links. Furthermore, the way everything is connected at the end is, in my opinion, a bit pathetic. What remains of it was a set of images... an interesting one, but not enough to make this a good movie.

I believe this film is supposed to be a comedy, but I surely didn't noticed! The nonsense and caricatural nature of the movie is actually the only good thing about it, but when it drags on an on and on it becomes no longer bearable. I have to say I fought hard to continue seeing it until the end, and I am still not sure it was worth it...

This film is brilliant - but there will be a fair share of naysayers who will criticize the film for ridiculous reasons. The fact is that AVIDA is extremely creative and progressive film-making and might actually make you think about society at large, the symbols that flow throughout - religious or social - and a bunch of other ideas that certain authorities would rather have you ignorant of.

This is one of those films, like Jodorowsky's HOLY MOUNTAIN, that is shat on in the year of its release but inevitably becomes a cult classic and will be loved by generations to come. It's just that it takes balls to put yourself behind this film and espouse its charms. Something that very few critics, most of whom are coerced by the mediocrity of popular opinion, rarely do these days.

See it if you can.

Best artistic film i have seen in years. Incredibly connected to Buñuel/Dali's "An Andalusian Dog" (quoted few other Buñuel's films as well) brings completely fresh vision of surrealism. I saw this film together with a Hollywood actors agent who was completely shocked by the film considering it the act of crime. I had to be easy with comments cause it would make me a criminal as well. There is hilarious scene with Chabrol in the ZOO which rediscovers his tremendous, almost forgotten, acting talent. One of the highlights of the film is wonderful Velvet who makes mythical anti-Venus character so pure and powerful. So, "Avida" is such brilliantly made film, on best tracks of European film-making, which goes straight to film art history with no doubt. I consider Gustave De Kervern and Benoît Delépine saviors of European film art.