The Film Desk: La Guerre est finie

[domino harvey]

A few highlights from today's announcements:

- Alain Resnais' La Guerre Est Finie from The Film Desk

Revisited this today via this release and while I remain as unmoved as ever beyond it being borderline “okay,” this release has one of the best-curated and substantial booklets I can remember, presumably courtesy of one-time forum member Craig Keller’s guiding hand. There’s a (much needed) modern essay contextualizing the political content and then everything else is period reactions and reflections reprinted in full plus an amusingly hostile interview of Resnais courtesy of the always ridiculous Robert Benayoun. Every piece added value to considering the film, and I wish all boutique labels would follow suit by imitating it directly

[therewillbeblus]

Coincidentally I also watched this earlier today and it was a frustrating experience. Overall it's an incredibly mediocre movie that's a step better than the major le Carré adaptations, but features some breathtaking sequences up there with Resnais' best -particularly the early fantasy love sequence with Bujold. There's also the recurring shots of many different women entering or exiting spaces from the backs of their heads that could've been used to greater effect than confounding nothingness. The visual ideas are loose and ill-fitting around its austere plot. I wanted to love this at times, but came away shrugging, especially with the tacked-on narrative pivot in the end that just adds to all the reasons rendering much of its formal wit tertiary

[domino harvey]

I chuckled when one of the pieces in the booklet admitted that much of the film was boring - it really is! But there’s like 20% of it that has great ideas and images (before I revisited it a few years ago, literally the only thing I could remember was the oscillating edits of the girls you describe, which preconfigured Tik Tok editing by more than half a century) that help you forget about the ennuyant rest of it

[Beloved Aunt]

courtesy of the always ridiculous Robert Benayoun.

Lol

Please, tell us more!

[therewillbeblus]

I chuckled when one of the pieces in the booklet admitted that much of the film was boring - it really is!

And it's partially boring by design, since the film stresses the "patience" of a revolutionary spy, the details fitting within the more realistic vision of le Carré's spy experience. That just doesn't make for an entertaining movie if you hone in on plot over style, as Resnais does here. He has every opportunity to make those stylistic flourishes gel with the themes of emotion Yves Montand is experiencing but Resnais repeatedly loses all interest in Montand's emotional state just as he builds up a sublime aesthetic to communicate it. It's a movie that's constantly deflating its own strengths; favoring plot over an intimate narrative

[domino harvey]

courtesy of the always ridiculous Robert Benayoun.

Lol

Please, tell us more!

He’s just an extremely obnoxious left wing critic who values political import over typical filmic values and while there is more overlap between the tastes of the Cahiers and Positif crews than either side would probably admit, he had a vendetta against many of the sacred cows of the Cahiers set, especially Godard (so much so that he was constantly invited to participate in the Conseil by them in part because they can entertain an iconoclast but also more likely because they knew many of his absurd ratings just make him look dumb and he took the bait every single time). He liked Resnais’ film (enough to vote for it in his year end Cahiers ballot) but he also needles him in the interview in a way that felt very on brand

[Beloved Aunt]

I see he directed a couple of films, but I assume those aren't really worth seeking out. Would you advise checking out Benayoun's writings, for whackiness (or for any other reason)?

[domino harvey]

Was rereading Monaco’s chapter on this film and he claims (at the time of writing, and the later On connait la chanson’s French box office alone must have eclipsed any of the earlier art house titles world wide) that it was Resnais’ most financially successful film. But I have a hard time believing that when Marienbad was so popular in the states that there was a whole I Dream of Jeannie episode about going to see it! It did get an Oscar nom for screenplay, so obviously it had a heightened visibility here, but quite surprising I think

[domino harvey]

I see he directed a couple of films, but I assume those aren't really worth seeking out. Would you advise checking out Benayoun's writings, for whackiness (or for any other reason)?

His essay against the New Wave is included in all editions of the New Wave Reader, I suspect it’s his most widely read work for that very reason. I do see he much later wrote a book on Woody Allen which was translated into English, which must be really something since I can’t think of a director less involved in politics as Benayoun saw them