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Public Enemy
Sep. 19th, 2010 10:45 pmI managed to watch two entire movies this weekend. Or one long movie split into two parts. Or an expensive TV mini-series split into four parts. Whatever. For me, unlike many of you lot who seem to spend half their lives watching football games on Sky, for me it was a lot of television viewing.
The movies in question were Killer Instinct and Public Enemy Number 1, two French films starring Vincent Cassell about which the critics were almost unanimously enthusiastic when they were released in the UK last year (they were made in France in 2007 and 2008).
Mainly based on the "autobiography" of French gangster Jacques Mesrine, the movies suffer from a similar handicap to that seen in Blow, the film of the autobiography of George Jung, which even the acting of Johnny Depp could not save. That handicap is that, in real life, characters drift in and out over the years (or die). In the land of criminals, where loyalty is hardly the first principle, any film that covers 20 years is going to feature a large number of bit-players, but only one lead and no film-long supporting roles.
Killer Instinct has a great performance from Gerard Dépardieu as small-time crook-boss Guido, but, given the nature of the films, he doesn't remain central to Mesrine's life beyond 1966. The women in Mesrine's life similarly come and go.
So, despite Cassell's mesmerising performance, the period of time covered by the two films and the lack of a constant supporting cast make the films episodic and, since Mesrine is hardly a sympathetic character, uninvolving. That the films are great to watch is down to qualty directing and quality acting.
As Mesrine nears the end, he becomes enamoured with the Red Brigades (the killing of Moro is a key factor here), but only, it appears, because they are in the headlines and being in the headlines is what Mesrine wants.
This forces me to compare the films with The Baader-Meinhof Complex another film of the period but one which, I feel, is rather more successful. Why this film has been relatively neglected I don't know. The three films taken together offer a nice vignette of crime and terrorism (and the jail systems) of the era.
Oh, but one almost hilarious interlude is when Mesrine is on the run in London. Spot the 30 seconds theoretically set in a London street (via a red bus and two "bobbies"). Obviously a lack of budget stopped this shot actually taking place in the UK, so they did it in Paris instead. The bus is, well, nothing like a London bus, and the London policemen appear to be wearing uniforms borrowed from Madame Tussaud's. Marvellous.
++++++++++++++
Work is, well, wearying was the only word I could think to describe it. I'm getting old. Getting up at 5.15 every morning is tiring. I'm looking forward to some time off. None of this is particularly ground-breaking stuff. That's what the working life is all about. It could be worse; it could be better.
But I AM still delighted with my Dell Streak, with which I used Google Maps on Saturday during a long walk to Greenwich and "back the long way" to investigate some back roads I had not been down before. Not sure how much using this will cost me when I am in France and paying three quid a megabyte, but, provided GPS info-download is not an enormous use of bandwidth, I can see this being marvellous useful for some off-piste strolls in Nice, Cannes, and towns in between.
________________
The movies in question were Killer Instinct and Public Enemy Number 1, two French films starring Vincent Cassell about which the critics were almost unanimously enthusiastic when they were released in the UK last year (they were made in France in 2007 and 2008).
Mainly based on the "autobiography" of French gangster Jacques Mesrine, the movies suffer from a similar handicap to that seen in Blow, the film of the autobiography of George Jung, which even the acting of Johnny Depp could not save. That handicap is that, in real life, characters drift in and out over the years (or die). In the land of criminals, where loyalty is hardly the first principle, any film that covers 20 years is going to feature a large number of bit-players, but only one lead and no film-long supporting roles.
Killer Instinct has a great performance from Gerard Dépardieu as small-time crook-boss Guido, but, given the nature of the films, he doesn't remain central to Mesrine's life beyond 1966. The women in Mesrine's life similarly come and go.
So, despite Cassell's mesmerising performance, the period of time covered by the two films and the lack of a constant supporting cast make the films episodic and, since Mesrine is hardly a sympathetic character, uninvolving. That the films are great to watch is down to qualty directing and quality acting.
As Mesrine nears the end, he becomes enamoured with the Red Brigades (the killing of Moro is a key factor here), but only, it appears, because they are in the headlines and being in the headlines is what Mesrine wants.
This forces me to compare the films with The Baader-Meinhof Complex another film of the period but one which, I feel, is rather more successful. Why this film has been relatively neglected I don't know. The three films taken together offer a nice vignette of crime and terrorism (and the jail systems) of the era.
Oh, but one almost hilarious interlude is when Mesrine is on the run in London. Spot the 30 seconds theoretically set in a London street (via a red bus and two "bobbies"). Obviously a lack of budget stopped this shot actually taking place in the UK, so they did it in Paris instead. The bus is, well, nothing like a London bus, and the London policemen appear to be wearing uniforms borrowed from Madame Tussaud's. Marvellous.
++++++++++++++
Work is, well, wearying was the only word I could think to describe it. I'm getting old. Getting up at 5.15 every morning is tiring. I'm looking forward to some time off. None of this is particularly ground-breaking stuff. That's what the working life is all about. It could be worse; it could be better.
But I AM still delighted with my Dell Streak, with which I used Google Maps on Saturday during a long walk to Greenwich and "back the long way" to investigate some back roads I had not been down before. Not sure how much using this will cost me when I am in France and paying three quid a megabyte, but, provided GPS info-download is not an enormous use of bandwidth, I can see this being marvellous useful for some off-piste strolls in Nice, Cannes, and towns in between.
________________
