L'Empire

I was worried I wouldn't enjoy L'Empire - I had tried to avoid trailers and reviews, but finally gave in a read one which said at one screening many people had left halfway through the film. The images looked grotesque, but I still wanted to give it a go as I really admire Dumont's film l'Humanité and find his mix of professional and non-professional actors sensitive and clever, never humiliating. The film kept me entertained throughout. Dumont's touching look at small french coastal towns stem from his personal experience and history, which makes it all the more authentic. One could say the film is a pastiche of various sci-fi blockbusters (although I must say its way more like Star Wars than Dune) but in truth it felt like it must have been inspired by childhood games in a mostly poor and neglected area of rural northern France that features the entire village as enthusiastic players. On top of that great graphics and effects, and hilarious UFOs made for an amusing, unusual and ulitamtely moving film. I'm pleased I got a chance to see it at the Berlinale - and in my opinion it's a well-deserving winner of a silver bear!

TLDR: Don't waste your time unless you often find trite tasteless sexist jokes (for both sexes) extremely funny and original.

I don't know what I am more shocked and appalled at: how the director got such a budget for this piece of crap or that it was actually shown on a film festival (Berlinale) AND it is in the Main competition category. Blows my mind.

The movie's plot is a pretty clear allegory for the supposed ^battle of the sexes^. Also supposed to be a comedy. A parody. I have one memory of the crowd actually laughing out loud at something in this movie. So well, a very successful comedy it wasn't.

For a brief moment I thought it might be more than that - like for example satire of French teenage villagers and their forming worldviews. The Goths against the Mainstreams. Or something of this kind - slightly more fun. No. It is as banal and onedimensional as it looks - from start to finish.

Men's team is the monarchy represented by machos who grope women but also all women love them. Women's team are democratic warriors fighting for equality and solidarity but who also get emotionally attached to machos instantly.

Other than establishing such novelty cliches, the movie does literally nothing else. Oh, there is a joke about French police being useless. That was funny for a moment. But then it also quickly got boring and repetitive.

I am giving it more than one point because it is possible to sit through the movie without wanting to hurt yourself. Although on a side note, I watched it in the cinema and the extremely loud screechy music and sounds (which are so on purpose, I think) made me often have to tone it all down by covering my ears.

Its really bad, I dont how they were casted, but the only 2 to deliver lines convincingly were the 2 young girls, who also were in other good movies (monte cristo, novembre...) the rest was insanely bad... the script is just as bad, with minutes wasted on takes that drags the movie on making it boring and a pain to watch. I usually dont waste my time on this type of crap, it was one actress that caught my attention, also its a french movie so I make an extra bit effort to watch it even if it is not rated too high. But this is bad... bad enough to make me write a review 😂 I will also review a movie if it is really good, at the extremes.

Bruno Dumont's blend of avant-garde and drama is interesting as I have enjoyed his works in the past. Unfortunately, his recent films haven't been impressive and The Empire is his worst film to date.

Dumont explores a satirical sci-fi tale about the world and people. Despite the great usages of VFX, camerawork and some really interesting concepts, what falls flat is the bad writing, really unlikeable characters and bland approach. Dumont fails to understand to balance between the sci-fi concepts and satirical avant-garde approach properly. What could have been an interesting tale ends up being dull because the characters are underwritten and the writing suffers from having concepts that don't work well and moments feeling as if nothing was happening. It doesn't have that hard punch to what Dumont is wanting.

Alongside with some of the dialogue being awkward and poor, it's pacing and themes are uneven. It felt like as if Dumont saw Dune and decides to make his version of it, but not understanding how to develop the characters or make it interesting.

It's a disappointment.

I'm so glad for the continued existence of filmmakers like Bruno Dumont in this world of endless remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels. I mean, those that adore Wes Anderson for the uniqueness of his vision never saw a flick like "L'Empire". None of the descriptions I've read online really describe it adequately, and I don't think I can either, but since I write reviews of every movie I see, I'm going to give it a try.

The movie is described on Wikipedia as a parody of the Star Wars movies and big budget Hollywood flicks in general, set in Dumont's home of coastal northern France.

In what way is it really a parody of anything, though? The only ways in which the movie references Star Wars is that there's footage of spaceships and two of the characters have lightsabres for some reason. I wonder if Lucas has sued them for that yet. If you broke wind right now and it sounded like the opening bars of Imperial March you'd probably get a cease & decease letter in the mail from him tomorrow morning.

Aside from that, the movie does the typical French flick thing of having two utter babes in the cast, and then showing them being pursued and even coupled with some weird looking guys. The two who get the most screentime both kind of look like rats. One of the two looks like a younger version of Splinter from Ninja Turtles. He has rodent-like facial features, and the fact that he is very hairy adds to the effect.

The Splinter-looking guy decapitates a couple of people with his lightsabre for some reason, and the other guy effortlessly seduces one of the babes, saying to her "Regarde!" ("Look!") when he should have told her to "feel", because he grabs her hand and puts it on his groin.

How was this parodic of Hollywood? There was some guy who looked like Barry Humphries as Les Patterson dressed like Harlequin in a flying cathedral saying some things. Was he supposed to be the main bad guy? I also remember a bit toward the end with a bunch of horses gathering. Maybe it was supposed to be like a showdown between the good guys and the bad guys, though I don't know if there really was one... or if the movie really had good guys or bad guys. Hollywood flicks always has those, but French ones don't necessarily.

I don't know. I didn't really get it, but I did kind of enjoy it.