Sunday, 4 July 2004
Immortel (ad vitam)
I think that people can define what is to be expected from them. There's one extreme: you can choose not to do anything, and never fail. Or you can try to do everything, and probably never succeed. The trick is finding the balance between setting the bar too low and setting it too high - and then, following through.
Immortel (ad vitam) is a perfect example of this philosophy. Enki Bilal is an amazing artist. He's best known for writing and illustrating bandes dessinées (larger-format hardcover volumes that come out every few years as opposed to the thin monthly editions that the U.S. calls "comic books").
His illustrations are nothing short of breathtaking at their best, a mixture of watercolor, ink and other media that give a surprising mount of texture and depth. He seems spellbound, if not obsessed, with possibilities resulting from the fusion of living beings (usually people) and inanimate objects (machinery, stone, metals, etc.).
Unfortunately, Bilal has never been much of a writer. His Nikopol trilogy is beautiful to look at, but its plot and storytelling are muddled at best. Egyptian gods live among a future human society, but aren't any more "special" than the multitude of alien species that walk among us. A cool idea - damn cool, to someone like me, big into both Egyptian mythology and science fiction - but his writing just isn't up to the task.
Sadly, Bilal's story doesn't fare much better to the screen. Setting the bar much too high for himself, he adapts his own books into a script and serves as the movie's director. The result is clearer, but not by much - and just as disappointing, given the visual aspect.
The imagery, on the other hand - oh, what visuals. The CGI work is pretty decent, and the computer-generated characters fit in extremely well with Bilal's human-hardware hybrid esthetic. The tone is appropriately dark for sci-fi noir, though some sets come off as flat (literally and figuratively).
The film is acted by virtual unknowns (aside from a slumming Charlotte Rampling), non who whom speak English as a native language. That knife cuts both ways: you have fewer preconceptions (at least, a French audience would - few Americans would know even the most famous French actors), and the odd pronunciations add to the just-slightly-odd nature of the future world (yes, sometimes even French films are done in English). However, it doesn't give you any more incentive to try to follow the plot's odd quirks that pass for twists.
This is Bilal's third, and highest profile, outing in the writer-director seat. The result is a rather faithful, but bland and muddled, adaptation of his rich bande dessinée sources. Just as in his solo efforts can't compare to his pairings with decent writers (the excellent Partie de chasse), Bilal should hand over the reins to someone more qualified and stick with his images. By trying to do too much, he ends up diluting his energies - and what could be mind-blowing images suffer for it.
3 / 5 - Bilal's latest foray into the Seventh Art reminds us that his movies are like his books: best poured over image by image, and most enjoyable when silent
Comments
I just saw this last week--it was part of a massive stack of DVD's which Roache's brother brought back from China (hmmmm).
I liked it overall, but it was a little bland. I didn't exactly appreciate the ccg stuff, but the look/feel of the film was very nice. My French is not good enough to have read the Band Desinee, although this particular one was stacked all over FInac when last I visited you!