The Woman in the Fifth (2011)
(La femme du Vème)
Country: FR/GB/POL
Technical: col 84m
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig, Samir Guesmi
Synopsis:
An American writer travels to Paris to be close to his daughter, having spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. His estranged wife invokes a restraining order and he is robbed of all his belongings, obliged to lodge with an Arab café owner in the suburbs, for whom he works to pay his way. At a literary soirée he meets a beautiful translator, and peculiar things begin to happen.
Review:
A curious film of many parts, but which fail quite to cohere into anything substantial. Presumably the Kennedy novel opens up the inside of our protagonist's mind to us, whereas here we are just on the receiving end of everything he encounters, without being privy to his impressions, or ethical decisions. Margit would seem to represent a kind of creatively justified anomie, 'the ascendancy of the author', and we could get into all sorts of reflexive stuff there. But then there is the Polish girl (it's Pawlikowski after all!), who would sacrifice herself on the altar of his genius. In the end it is so hard to tell who or what is 'real' that one starts not to care, and gladly takes the final fade to white as an indication of imminent suicide.
(La femme du Vème)
Country: FR/GB/POL
Technical: col 84m
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig, Samir Guesmi
Synopsis:
An American writer travels to Paris to be close to his daughter, having spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. His estranged wife invokes a restraining order and he is robbed of all his belongings, obliged to lodge with an Arab café owner in the suburbs, for whom he works to pay his way. At a literary soirée he meets a beautiful translator, and peculiar things begin to happen.
Review:
A curious film of many parts, but which fail quite to cohere into anything substantial. Presumably the Kennedy novel opens up the inside of our protagonist's mind to us, whereas here we are just on the receiving end of everything he encounters, without being privy to his impressions, or ethical decisions. Margit would seem to represent a kind of creatively justified anomie, 'the ascendancy of the author', and we could get into all sorts of reflexive stuff there. But then there is the Polish girl (it's Pawlikowski after all!), who would sacrifice herself on the altar of his genius. In the end it is so hard to tell who or what is 'real' that one starts not to care, and gladly takes the final fade to white as an indication of imminent suicide.
(La femme du Vème)
Country: FR/GB/POL
Technical: col 84m
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig, Samir Guesmi
Synopsis:
An American writer travels to Paris to be close to his daughter, having spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. His estranged wife invokes a restraining order and he is robbed of all his belongings, obliged to lodge with an Arab café owner in the suburbs, for whom he works to pay his way. At a literary soirée he meets a beautiful translator, and peculiar things begin to happen.
Review:
A curious film of many parts, but which fail quite to cohere into anything substantial. Presumably the Kennedy novel opens up the inside of our protagonist's mind to us, whereas here we are just on the receiving end of everything he encounters, without being privy to his impressions, or ethical decisions. Margit would seem to represent a kind of creatively justified anomie, 'the ascendancy of the author', and we could get into all sorts of reflexive stuff there. But then there is the Polish girl (it's Pawlikowski after all!), who would sacrifice herself on the altar of his genius. In the end it is so hard to tell who or what is 'real' that one starts not to care, and gladly takes the final fade to white as an indication of imminent suicide.