Après mai

Just watched the movie yesterday, and for those who are interested in the high school movement of France in the early '70s and expect the movie to have a say about the topic, it would be a disappointment. Therefore, alter your expectations towards an autobiography of a young artist who is in pursuit of love, his ideals and independence.

The opening of the movie is promising with protests, group of students clashing ideas and then acting based on those ideas. You can actually sense that there is something in the air which is obviously the belief in the revolution. Yet later, it seems quite undecided whether to focus on the aspect of revolutionary ideas or on the personal lives and thoughts of the characters. Both topics can be processed in a movie, however in this one both aspects seems inconclusive.

Also what I see missing in the movie is that all young revolutionaries were not faced a tough life or living a life that is rather comfortable. They want to change things but it seems they are not sure what they want to change or how bad things are for the working class. I am not expecting a person of that age to be fully aware of the situation but I wondered how would they react in a desperate situation. They do not look unhappy with their life.

If I had watched the movie with different expectations, I would have enjoyed it more. It is still likable but not satisfying.

Gilles is an interesting character, a political activist studying to be an artist. But it's frustrating that beyond his political beliefs we get to know little about him. Conversations are short. What do any of the people feel? There are a lot of opinions and judgments made about society, authority, each other - usual for French films. But left me unsatisfied. Warning: Ironically, be prepared to meet many dissatisfied people, even majorly unhappy ones, during the course of this film. Wonderful evocation of times ('70s) and attention to detail though.

Olivier Assayas's film 'Something in the Air' is an affectionate, although not uncritical, look at the lives of young French radicals after 1968. Watching it, you get an interesting sense of an era when students were interested in something other than building their careers (although the protagonists don't all completely abandon their bourgeois dreams); there's also the contrast between their profound political beliefs, and the feeling that their beloved freedom is basically the freedom of being young and moneyed - the revolution as a gap year, so to speak. The way that a life spent chasing experience ultimately does not build the foundation of lasting relationships is also well-conveyed. Overall, the cast are a little too beautiful - who wouldn't be a revolutionary when the benefits were so obvious? - and if the film has a serious weak-point, it's in not fully explaining quite why youth was drawn to the counter-culture except in a vague, spirit-of-the-age type way. A final quibble - the English translation of the French title (Apres Mai) is an awful one, better befitting a light romantic comedy.

Great movie that does put you in the shoes of those 60 and 70's idealists and lets us contemplate the beauty of their existence, and I mean the kind of movie like Melancholia, which makes you feel things from such a different perspective. The movie does not deal directly with contemporary contradictions of idealism, but it is undeniable that this issue awakens in us when witnessing the characters strife for integrity. It somewhat scented like Spike Lee way of proposing a theme for me. It weaves some plots which are left in low key, just to draw our attention to what really matters for the narrator. We are dealing naive yet sophisticated people - which is the beautiful paradox of their being. I must say that I didn't like a pair of choices like that insertion of Laura when Gille is reading her letter in the subway. For me it breaks the harmony, it is kind of out of the blue solution - though it has its coherence, and, again reminds me of Spike Lee's Jungle Fever.

It's a fascinating period, late 60s France from the perspective of the student movement.

The violence of the police, the underground press, the graffiti, protests, the connection and disagreements with the other socialist groups, the independent cinema collectives.

With the backdrop of the music and art of that era.

What this film is really about though is wanting to support a cause but also trying to decide upon your own future. I think they pull this off well by following the characters individually rather than just when they are a group.

It's beautifully shot and in some very picturesque locations.

I think it is a very good film.