Détective (1985)

 

At a Paris hotel, a hotel detective fired after a murder there, is still investigating helped by his inspector nephew and girlfriend. A boxing manager, owing money to a couple and the mafia, rides on a match next day.

Typical for its director, this overpopulated crime puzzle is made with brilliant style and has its moments of miniature intellectual insights and wit and is never boring, but on this occasion doesn't quite add up.

Halliwell*: "Eccentric Grand Hotel-style compendium with many baffling asides presumably attributable to the director. One suspects that the audience is expected to be a detective too."

Maltin**: "The scenario takes a backseat in this talky, contrived film noir homage...The look and feel are uniquely of the director, but it's ultimately annoying, more a concept than a movie." 

King Lear (1987)

 

As the world recovers from the destruction of the Chernobyl disaster, William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth  attempts to restore the human race's great works of art.

Radically obscurantist contemplation on Skakespeare's classic play presents itself as a wild associative stream of images and sound, in a for Godard typically brilliant montage, but presupposes an audience of polymaths; for everybody else it is of limited interest.

Halliwell (no star): "Sheer nonsense doodled by the director with someone else's money."

Maltin*1/2: "Bizarre, garish, contemporary punk-apocalyptic updating of Shakespeare classic. Little to be said about this pretentious mess except...avoid it." 

 

Julie Delpy

Wiener-Dog (2016)

 

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.

As to be expected from this director this episodic film is downbeat, bleak and tinged with a dark humor, but more subdued, probably due to the shortness of each story; still, we get some great performances and enlightening moments, although the dog himself seems to be merely the unwilling observer of the events told.

On re-watching: indeed bleak, but fascinating to watch.

 

Julie Delpy

Julie Delpy

Trois couleurs: Blanc (1994)

Julie Delpy

Julie Delpy

(ph: Olivier Majerholc)

Wiener-Dog (2016)

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.

As to be expected from this director this episodic film is downbeat, bleak and tinged with a dark humour, but more subdued, probably due to the shortness of each story; still, we get some great performances and enlightening moments, although the dog himself seems to be merely the unwilling observer of the events told.

Julie Delpy

(ph: Stephane Coutelle)

Julie Delpy

(ph: Lyu Hanabusa)

Julie Delpy

 (ph: Stephane Coutelle)

Julie Delpy

Bio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Delpy