divemaster13
Member: Rank 4
I didn't want to wait until Monday, so here's a review of a French film (Clean) I was assigned to review a while back. I re-watched it last night.
Previous reviews:
2/13: A Tale of Two Sisters
2/20: Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2/27: A Chinese Tall Story
3/6: The Mystery of Rampo
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Clean (2004)
Directed by Olivier Assayas
Starring Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte
In French, English, and Cantonese
Film: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Full disclosure: I have a HUGE crush on Maggie Cheung. I have loved watching her in many films, some fantastic (Comrades, Almost a Love Story; Hero) and some just a whole lot of fun (too many to list). Even in the execrable Irma Vep, which I thought was one of the worst movies I had seen in a long time, I found Maggie to be the sole bright spot. I could probably watch a DVD of her reading her grocery list and give it a good rating.
So, that brings me to Clean. I was not terribly optimistic, as this film was made by the same Olivier Assayas who made the aforementioned Irma Vep. (Assayas and Cheung ended up marrying for a couple of years after Irma Vep, but divorced before Clean.)
All I can conclude is that Maggie owed her ex-husband a favor. The film is full of plot holes, inconsistencies, and subplots that wander off into nowhere, and is poorly directed. VERY poorly directed. However, the central theme of the movie is compelling and both Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte give wonderful performances. Cheung and Nolte should have thought twice before lending their efforts to such a slap-dash film. Don’t get me wrong—Cheung and Nolte are great. But no one else is even trying, and I put all the blame squarely on the director and film editor.
Cheung plays Emily, the bitchy, self-centered, heroin-addicted wife of a second-rate rock singer. She has singing aspirations of her own. No one likes her and everyone thinks she is a drag on her husband's career. He ends up OD’ing and she ends up in prison for 6 months for possession.
After her 6 months are up, she decides to make a clean go of it. Not so much for herself, but for her young son (about 7 or so) whom she has basically had no contact with ever. She and hubby had dumped the kid with hubby’s parents while they were chasing drugs and rock fame.
But now she has nothing. No apparent future in the business, no more heroin, no family. So she decides to make herself into a better person in order to spend time with her son.
Nolte, as Albrecht, the father-in-law, gives a masterful and nuanced performance as he tries to do what’s right for himself and his wife, as well as the boy. He knows that a child needs his mother and that at some point he and his wife may no longer be up to the task of raising the child. But he can't just give him up to a junkie just out of prison. So, there are a series of meetings and conversations; promises kept and some unable to be kept. Nothing would please Albrecht more than to see Emily make something out of herself and for her to begin a new life as the mother of her child.
Ok, enough plot. You can’t watch this movie for the plot, anyway. You watch it to see Nolte at his gruff but gentle best, and for Maggie. She won the award for best actress at Cannes for her portrayal of Emily in this film. She gives it everything she’s got and really hits it. You can feel her desperation, her desire to change herself (which is not easy). Nolte and Cheung deserve 5 stars.
So why only 2.5 stars? Where to start? First off, Assayas also wrote the film, and its obvious he can’t write. Way WAY too much of the movie is wasted time-filler. Except for one short early scene, we don’t get to see any of the Emily/Albrecht interactions until the last half hour or so. Time is wasted on Emily doing this random thing and then that random thing. Meeting people we don’t get to know and don’t care about whatsoever. Too many small subplots that don’t add anything. And maybe it’s just “French filmmaking” but the camera moves are extremely annoying and the edits seem to come at all the wrong places. The editor of this movie should never be allowed near film stock ever again; it’s that bad. Also, as part of her character of Emily, Maggie sings. In English. This is *not* a good thing. Maybe Emily is supposed to be a breathy, atonal, grungy sounding alt-club-rocker (and to those in the know, maybe she nails it), but it does nothing for my ears.
To give an example of why I blame Assayas, during the interviews (included on the DVD as extras), Nolte expressed surprise that Assayas didn’t want any rehearsals. Nolte proposed to come to France/London a few weeks early to discuss his character and rehearse scenes, and Assayas basically said “Nah, we’ll just wing it.” Nolte stated that very few takes were filmed; it was basically one and done for each scene. Reminded me of Ed Wood. Maggie said that she was not given any direction at all as to her character, that Assayas told her to just do whatever she wanted with it. (Assayas confirmed this seat-of-the-pants approach in his interview). Assayas could have at least helped the little boy who played Emily’s son. The little guy is so stilted, it seems like he is reading lines off cue cards. The fact that Nolte and Cheung are so good is a testament to their high-level abilities, and not in any way from being directed properly.
Plus, and I’ll just get this out there—I deducted a half star out of bitterness that my bucket list includes a date with Maggie Cheung. Dinner. Or even lunch. Just a couple of hours. I'm sure I could think of something for us to do together for 2 hours (that doesn't involve singing). And this incompetent froggy bastard Assayas was married to her for several years. Sigh.
Additional notes: The first third of the film is mostly in English while the rest is mostly in French (except for Emily’s conversations with her son and with Albrecht). Maggie’s English is very good (she learned it as a child) and her French sounds very good to my non-French-speaking ears, despite her only learning it as an adult. There are a few scenes in Cantonese as well.
The R3 Edko (HK) DVD has removable English subtitles but they don’t kick in until everyone starts speaking French. For a while I thought something was wrong with the DVD when no subtitles appeared for the first third of the film. This is too bad because with the British accents, conversations taking place in rock venues, and Nolte’s gravelly growl, I could have used some subtitling assistance throughout.
The Edko DVD includes very limited filmographies (really? listing only 5-6 films for each star??) and the aforementioned interviews with Cheung, Nolte, and Assayas. These are in English and are quite interesting. There is a short clip of Maggie at a “Hong Kong Gala Event,” and a trailer.
Previous reviews:
2/13: A Tale of Two Sisters
2/20: Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2/27: A Chinese Tall Story
3/6: The Mystery of Rampo
-----------------------------------------------------------
Clean (2004)
Directed by Olivier Assayas
Starring Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte
In French, English, and Cantonese
Film: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Full disclosure: I have a HUGE crush on Maggie Cheung. I have loved watching her in many films, some fantastic (Comrades, Almost a Love Story; Hero) and some just a whole lot of fun (too many to list). Even in the execrable Irma Vep, which I thought was one of the worst movies I had seen in a long time, I found Maggie to be the sole bright spot. I could probably watch a DVD of her reading her grocery list and give it a good rating.
So, that brings me to Clean. I was not terribly optimistic, as this film was made by the same Olivier Assayas who made the aforementioned Irma Vep. (Assayas and Cheung ended up marrying for a couple of years after Irma Vep, but divorced before Clean.)
All I can conclude is that Maggie owed her ex-husband a favor. The film is full of plot holes, inconsistencies, and subplots that wander off into nowhere, and is poorly directed. VERY poorly directed. However, the central theme of the movie is compelling and both Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte give wonderful performances. Cheung and Nolte should have thought twice before lending their efforts to such a slap-dash film. Don’t get me wrong—Cheung and Nolte are great. But no one else is even trying, and I put all the blame squarely on the director and film editor.
Cheung plays Emily, the bitchy, self-centered, heroin-addicted wife of a second-rate rock singer. She has singing aspirations of her own. No one likes her and everyone thinks she is a drag on her husband's career. He ends up OD’ing and she ends up in prison for 6 months for possession.
After her 6 months are up, she decides to make a clean go of it. Not so much for herself, but for her young son (about 7 or so) whom she has basically had no contact with ever. She and hubby had dumped the kid with hubby’s parents while they were chasing drugs and rock fame.
But now she has nothing. No apparent future in the business, no more heroin, no family. So she decides to make herself into a better person in order to spend time with her son.
Nolte, as Albrecht, the father-in-law, gives a masterful and nuanced performance as he tries to do what’s right for himself and his wife, as well as the boy. He knows that a child needs his mother and that at some point he and his wife may no longer be up to the task of raising the child. But he can't just give him up to a junkie just out of prison. So, there are a series of meetings and conversations; promises kept and some unable to be kept. Nothing would please Albrecht more than to see Emily make something out of herself and for her to begin a new life as the mother of her child.
Ok, enough plot. You can’t watch this movie for the plot, anyway. You watch it to see Nolte at his gruff but gentle best, and for Maggie. She won the award for best actress at Cannes for her portrayal of Emily in this film. She gives it everything she’s got and really hits it. You can feel her desperation, her desire to change herself (which is not easy). Nolte and Cheung deserve 5 stars.
So why only 2.5 stars? Where to start? First off, Assayas also wrote the film, and its obvious he can’t write. Way WAY too much of the movie is wasted time-filler. Except for one short early scene, we don’t get to see any of the Emily/Albrecht interactions until the last half hour or so. Time is wasted on Emily doing this random thing and then that random thing. Meeting people we don’t get to know and don’t care about whatsoever. Too many small subplots that don’t add anything. And maybe it’s just “French filmmaking” but the camera moves are extremely annoying and the edits seem to come at all the wrong places. The editor of this movie should never be allowed near film stock ever again; it’s that bad. Also, as part of her character of Emily, Maggie sings. In English. This is *not* a good thing. Maybe Emily is supposed to be a breathy, atonal, grungy sounding alt-club-rocker (and to those in the know, maybe she nails it), but it does nothing for my ears.
To give an example of why I blame Assayas, during the interviews (included on the DVD as extras), Nolte expressed surprise that Assayas didn’t want any rehearsals. Nolte proposed to come to France/London a few weeks early to discuss his character and rehearse scenes, and Assayas basically said “Nah, we’ll just wing it.” Nolte stated that very few takes were filmed; it was basically one and done for each scene. Reminded me of Ed Wood. Maggie said that she was not given any direction at all as to her character, that Assayas told her to just do whatever she wanted with it. (Assayas confirmed this seat-of-the-pants approach in his interview). Assayas could have at least helped the little boy who played Emily’s son. The little guy is so stilted, it seems like he is reading lines off cue cards. The fact that Nolte and Cheung are so good is a testament to their high-level abilities, and not in any way from being directed properly.
Plus, and I’ll just get this out there—I deducted a half star out of bitterness that my bucket list includes a date with Maggie Cheung. Dinner. Or even lunch. Just a couple of hours. I'm sure I could think of something for us to do together for 2 hours (that doesn't involve singing). And this incompetent froggy bastard Assayas was married to her for several years. Sigh.
Additional notes: The first third of the film is mostly in English while the rest is mostly in French (except for Emily’s conversations with her son and with Albrecht). Maggie’s English is very good (she learned it as a child) and her French sounds very good to my non-French-speaking ears, despite her only learning it as an adult. There are a few scenes in Cantonese as well.
The R3 Edko (HK) DVD has removable English subtitles but they don’t kick in until everyone starts speaking French. For a while I thought something was wrong with the DVD when no subtitles appeared for the first third of the film. This is too bad because with the British accents, conversations taking place in rock venues, and Nolte’s gravelly growl, I could have used some subtitling assistance throughout.
The Edko DVD includes very limited filmographies (really? listing only 5-6 films for each star??) and the aforementioned interviews with Cheung, Nolte, and Assayas. These are in English and are quite interesting. There is a short clip of Maggie at a “Hong Kong Gala Event,” and a trailer.
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