The fifth wheel of the wagon… –
Among the recent cinematographic representations of the Morvandelle region, we were able to highlight the rustic and strong earth color. Mort-Bois, childhood of Jean Genet (2019 short film co-directed by Frédéric Labonde and Frédéric Bonnet, editor’s note) and above all strange Ogre By Arnaud Malherbe, a tale with fantastical resonances, both hopeful and generally disappointing, published last year… A dangerous, mysterious and figuratively fertile region, the Morvan seems to be a huge creative and imaginative breeding ground for a certain number of new directors. The locations that will serve as physical premieres for their films: from lush forests to quaint little villages literally inhabited (or viewedas a certain Victor Hugo liked to write…) Burgundian lungs never stop deploying their chromatic range according to the seasons and inclement weather, moiré echoes alternating between spring and autumn or winter frost, followed by summer torpor…
This typical pastoral grandeur, along with obvious seasonal variation, remains one of the main thrusts of David Depesseville’s first feature film, which answers to its enigmatic, even sibyllic title. Astrakhan Appearing in our dark caves from Wednesday 8th February: an a priori interesting and fascinating film with great cinematic promise, but, alas for us, completely unsympathetic from one end of its story to the other… That’s why Astrakan, which tells the evolution of Samuel (an aid child from Morvandelle to a host family, editor’s note) over several months, with as many different atmospherics as it is visually, is one of those films that truly amazes. startling, too far-fetched to be truly believable, and at least not fleshed out enough to charm…
From the beginning, David Depesseville demonstrates a hybrid cinematographic form and as beyond time and space, playing on the contemporary cues he has distilled while infusing his film with a good dose of more or less palatable obsolescence; as final and grand Sahin lake The director was chosen by Charlotte Le Bon for the shoot Astrakhan At 16 mm, the curtain curtain and completely charming and permissive to please horsehair lovers… And the shoe pinches furiously from this point of view, because here the object in question stands out for its constant formal artificiality. grapes to be true and too “nice” to close our disciples…
Apart from a strictly contrived scenery, which is very difficult to adapt from the first minutes, the content is also difficult to appreciate, because David Depesseville seems to be a prisoner of his references and seems very incapable of any spontaneity… The most successful films about childhood and its imagination are often the most direct and the most immediate, succeeding in capturing the moments experienced through the virginity of any girl, and their simplicity, in the entirety of the adolescent and young or innocent professionals. prejudice and any form of intellectualization… And if Samuel is “in preparation” from the age of 13, his interpreter Mirko Giannini is so unpleasant and unattractive that we see more of the bitter side here. Naked Childhood Just great by Maurice Pialat 400 shots by François Truffaut.
So, Astrakan obviously never tries to be sympathetic in the eyes of his audience, like this ugly duckling with this ugly and indifferent exterior… Nothing or almost nothing in this over-theatrical chronicle. what does not deceive. , other symbols are very rarely present in favor of the famous mutual friend in charge (the term refers to a stillborn black sheep from Eurasian regions, and here it seems that the figure of the unloved Samuel, nldr, is identified with alleged subtlety). Even Bastien Bouillon and Jehnny Beth – highly and accordingly highly rated 12 Night Dominic Moll and Olympics By Jacques Audiard, and on this occasion, he plays the adoptive parents of a young teenager – who can’t get out of a film game that rings false and lacks authenticity on both sides. in the end.
Cinema has always been, is and always will be a matter of registration and feeling; Astrakhan could delight and even charm us because it had something going for it: the luxurious natural setting, the quality film format, the existential paintings of a rejected and misunderstood childhood, the pearly and symbolic use of music at the end of the film… Unfortunately – and voluntarily – all immersed in a cheesy film device, within the confines of a precious cinema dedicated to beguiling pedants of the stripes. A clear disappointment.
