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"Thirty-six characters in search of a story," or: Sonata for Sarajevo ("whore of the Occident"). Except for "slight symphonic variations," Europe now is the same chaos as in the Thirties, Camus' granddaughter (Madeleine Assas) illustrates Juan Goytisolo's comment by leading some youngsters into Bosnia for a staging of Musset. The Europe of the Sixties (of Les Carabiniers and Weekend, specifically) is also visible, Scheherazade is a Muslim maid (Ghalia Lacroix) along for the ride. The travelers wash their laundry in the river and dodge mortar shells, captured they are forced to dig their own graves, the stripped heroines are lined against the wall and readied for violation: "Oh, what we take up the ass." Elsewhere, the sagging filmmaker (Vicky Messica) holds auditions for a new project (The Fatal Bolero) and complains that the windy beach setting doesn't have enough water. Art cannot stop the world's horrors in Jean-Luc Godard's grave and quizzical fugue, it can only ward off nihilism with its fusion of sensation, humor, and grace. Poetic crankiness sets the tone: Messica's opus achieves "a saturation of glorious signs bathing in the light of their absent explanation," still no match for Terminator 4 at the box-office. Marivaux, Fernando Pessoa, John Ford, Victor Hugo. "Cinema replaces our gaze with a world in harmony with our desires... Something essential is renounced." Eye-rolls for Descartes' most famous dictum, sang-froid for pornographic transcriptions, double-takes for the peruke-wearing Mozart himself at the piano. Pages are turned as the real spectacle begins, the exhausted auteur sits outside, smokes and listens (42nd Street, French Cancan). With Berangère Allaux, Frédéric Pierrot, Harry Cleven, Michel Francini, Sylvie Herbert, Cécile Reigher, and Dan Thorens.
--- Fernando F. Croce |