Audience: We are the audience! What are we watching?
Actors: We are the actors! This is what we are doing on the screen right now. We are the actors!
Audience: We can see that! You don't have to narrate every single...
Actors: We are the actors! Look at our creepy puppet child!
I don't think Leos Carax's Annette is necessarily "about" celebrity relationships, or even relationships between performers, though it is definitely about celebrity CULTURE and its characters BEING performers gives the director an excuse to create a dark, dank musical where every part OF the relationship is a performance, not to say PERFORMATIVE. But then, how much of OUR lives are performative, especially given the role of social media in our broadcasting of ourselves? Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard are money on the bank as a stand-up provocateur (a savage and memorable take-down of Bo Burnham's act) and a tragic opera singer whose shows infect the film's style and plot - his cynicism, disdain for humanity and delusions of godhood; her posed grace and doomed character - and when they have a child, it's both a surprise and arguably not that it would be played by a puppet (an eventually touching marionette, really), an object that's as much part of the creative act and media narrative as anything they've produced. Visually, the film is very strong too, with obvious color theory behind it and dreamy editing. My only other Carax film has been Holy Motors, which was more opaque and therefore more interesting, but its subject matter is adjacent to Annette's. When are we NOT performing for someone or ourselves? And in this case, what does that mean for our children?
Leos Carax (Holy Motors) takes the natural unreality of musicals and stretches it like Silly Putty, guffawing at the audience the way Luis Bunuel used to wink at it. It's a bit overlong and more than a little dark, but I enjoyed it immensely and won't forget it soon. 8/10
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Comments 1 - 8 of 8
SpacedJ
Audience: We are the audience! What are we watching?Actors: We are the actors! This is what we are doing on the screen right now. We are the actors!
Audience: We can see that! You don't have to narrate every single...
Actors: We are the actors! Look at our creepy puppet child!
(repeats)
theBelatedLobster
I love this movie so muuuchI love this movie so muuuch
Squin
You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!Siskoid
I don't think Leos Carax's Annette is necessarily "about" celebrity relationships, or even relationships between performers, though it is definitely about celebrity CULTURE and its characters BEING performers gives the director an excuse to create a dark, dank musical where every part OF the relationship is a performance, not to say PERFORMATIVE. But then, how much of OUR lives are performative, especially given the role of social media in our broadcasting of ourselves? Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard are money on the bank as a stand-up provocateur (a savage and memorable take-down of Bo Burnham's act) and a tragic opera singer whose shows infect the film's style and plot - his cynicism, disdain for humanity and delusions of godhood; her posed grace and doomed character - and when they have a child, it's both a surprise and arguably not that it would be played by a puppet (an eventually touching marionette, really), an object that's as much part of the creative act and media narrative as anything they've produced. Visually, the film is very strong too, with obvious color theory behind it and dreamy editing. My only other Carax film has been Holy Motors, which was more opaque and therefore more interesting, but its subject matter is adjacent to Annette's. When are we NOT performing for someone or ourselves? And in this case, what does that mean for our children?Ray Anselmo
Leos Carax (Holy Motors) takes the natural unreality of musicals and stretches it like Silly Putty, guffawing at the audience the way Luis Bunuel used to wink at it. It's a bit overlong and more than a little dark, but I enjoyed it immensely and won't forget it soon. 8/10rvnnt
Wtfnymets138
Currently streaming on Amazon PrimeFonzleclay
What was the point of any of it?