list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Pierrot Le Fou on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Pierrot_Le_Fou/26708/default.aspx Title: Pierrot Le Fou
Year: 1965
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Plot: Pierrot le fou (1965) is Jean-Luc Godard's sixth film staring Anna Karina, his first wife. It is the story of Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Karina). They meet when Ferdinand's wife hires Marianne as a baby-sitter. As he drives Marianne home, Ferdinand decides to run away with her. The couple get caught up in a mysterious gun-running scheme involving Marianne's brother (Dirk Sanders). With Pierrot le fou Godard returns to the story of A bout de souffle (Breathless): the tale of a couple on the run. But in the six years between the two films Godard developed a more complex and often difficult style. Pierrot le fou incorporates musical numbers, references to the history of cinema and painting, and quotations from literature. The film features Godard's most extended use of color to that point, as the shots are filled with blocks of bright primary colors. Pierrot le fou is a catalogue of cinematic inventions and of gestures made by couples in love. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 3
Number of Lists: 15
Number of blog posts: 8
SpoutRating: 4
]]>Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:00:54 GMTPierrot Le Fou1965Jean-Luc GodardPierrot le fou (1965) is <a href="/players/P____91804/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jean-Luc Godard</a>'s sixth film staring <a href="/players/P____96782/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Anna Karina</a>, his first wife. It is the story of Ferdinand (<a href="/players/P____81306/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jean-Paul Belmondo</a>) and Marianne (Karina). They meet when Ferdinand's wife hires Marianne as a baby-sitter. As he drives Marianne home, Ferdinand decides to run away with her. The couple get caught up in a mysterious gun-running scheme involving Marianne's brother (<a href="/players/P____62944/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Dirk Sanders</a>). With Pierrot le fou Godard returns to the story of A bout de souffle (<a href=/films/4398/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Breathless</a>): the tale of a couple on the run. But in the six years between the two films Godard developed a more complex and often difficult style. Pierrot le fou incorporates musical numbers, references to the history of cinema and painting, and quotations from literature. The film features Godard's most extended use of color to that point, as the shots are filled with blocks of bright primary colors. Pierrot le fou is a catalogue of cinematic inventions and of gestures made by couples in love. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide3Slightly Tagged (1-5)1584http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/u51787qcqyj.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Pierrot_Le_Fou/26708/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/8/12/43499.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 8/12/2009 2:00:54 PM
Body: Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs‘ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago) gets kicked out of his school and transfers to Maru’s, he introduces himself via faking his own hanging at a talent show. The girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally leave home for real that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References –– here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do!” There the screen fills with her notebook-scrawled ephemera about romantic destiny! But Naranjo has made Maru more than the beautiful mystery that embodies the typical Godard woman. This girl is a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown-up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer.” even if she puts out in the name of love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de siecle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility. Once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance ––the first love will be the last love–– and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique, and genuinely tragic, about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time-out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. This review appeared in slightly different form during the 2008 New York Film Festival. I’m Gonna Explode premieres tonight at the Film Society at Lincoln Center and screens there through September 18. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:00:54 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog8/12/2009 2:00:54 PM Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs‘ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago) gets kicked out of his school and transfers to Maru’s, he introduces himself via faking his own hanging at a talent show. The girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally leave home for real that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References –– here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do!” There the screen fills with her notebook-scrawled ephemera about romantic destiny! But Naranjo has made Maru more than the beautiful mystery that embodies the typical Godard woman. This girl is a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown-up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer.” even if she puts out in the name of love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de siecle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility. Once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance ––the first love will be the last love–– and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique, and genuinely tragic, about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time-out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. This review appeared in slightly different form during the 2008 New York Film Festival. I’m Gonna Explode premieres tonight at the Film Society at Lincoln Center and screens there through September 18. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/8/12/43497.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/12/2009 2:00:39 PM
Body: Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs‘ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago) gets kicked out of his school and transfers to Maru’s, he introduces himself via faking his own hanging at a talent show. The girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally leave home for real that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References –– here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do!” There the screen fills with her notebook-scrawled ephemera about romantic destiny! But Naranjo has made Maru more than the beautiful mystery that embodies the typical Godard woman. This girl is a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown-up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer.” even if she puts out in the name of love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de siecle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility. Once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance ––the first love will be the last love–– and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique, and genuinely tragic, about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time-out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. This review appeared in slightly different form during the 2008 New York Film Festival. I’m Gonna Explode premieres tonight at the Film Society at Lincoln Center and screens there through September 18. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:00:39 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/12/2009 2:00:39 PM Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs‘ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago) gets kicked out of his school and transfers to Maru’s, he introduces himself via faking his own hanging at a talent show. The girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally leave home for real that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References –– here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do!” There the screen fills with her notebook-scrawled ephemera about romantic destiny! But Naranjo has made Maru more than the beautiful mystery that embodies the typical Godard woman. This girl is a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown-up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer.” even if she puts out in the name of love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de siecle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility. Once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance ––the first love will be the last love–– and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique, and genuinely tragic, about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time-out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. This review appeared in slightly different form during the 2008 New York Film Festival. I’m Gonna Explode premieres tonight at the Film Society at Lincoln Center and screens there through September 18. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/9/30/35714.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 9/30/2008 12:01:09 PM
Body: Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs’ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician gets kicked out of his school and introduces himself at Maru’s suburban Mexico school via faking his own hanging at a talent show, the girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally really leave home that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References––here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do”! Here the screen fills with her notebook scrawled ephemera about romantic destiyn!––but maybe Naranjo’s greatest invention is that, unlike the typical Godard woman, Maru is not a beautiful mystery, but a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer”, even if it’s for love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de sicle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility––once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance––the first love will be the last love––and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique––and genuinely tragic––about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:01:09 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog9/30/2008 12:01:09 PM Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs’ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician gets kicked out of his school and introduces himself at Maru’s suburban Mexico school via faking his own hanging at a talent show, the girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally really leave home that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References––here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do”! Here the screen fills with her notebook scrawled ephemera about romantic destiyn!––but maybe Naranjo’s greatest invention is that, unlike the typical Godard woman, Maru is not a beautiful mystery, but a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer”, even if it’s for love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de sicle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility––once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance––the first love will be the last love––and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique––and genuinely tragic––about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/30/35712.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/30/2008 12:00:56 PM
Body: Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs’ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician gets kicked out of his school and introduces himself at Maru’s suburban Mexico school via faking his own hanging at a talent show, the girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally really leave home that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References––here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do”! Here the screen fills with her notebook scrawled ephemera about romantic destiyn!––but maybe Naranjo’s greatest invention is that, unlike the typical Godard woman, Maru is not a beautiful mystery, but a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer”, even if it’s for love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de sicle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility––once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance––the first love will be the last love––and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique––and genuinely tragic––about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:00:56 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/30/2008 12:00:56 PM Voy a Explotar (I’m Gonna Explode) is the contemporary Mexican teenage Pierrot le Fou. It knows this, and it wants you to know it, and it doesn’t care if this makes you hate it on principle. The third feature by Gerardo Naranjo (director of Drama/Mex, co-writer and star of Azazel Jacobs’ The GoodTimeskid), it’s the rare love letter to influence that’s infused with enough personal style and sentiment to transform the stolen into something thrilling and moving. 15 year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps) is a prep school bad girl with a mangy mane of hair and, apparently, a drinking problem. When Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the spoiled little rich boy son of a right-wing politician gets kicked out of his school and introduces himself at Maru’s suburban Mexico school via faking his own hanging at a talent show, the girl is instantly besotted. “He exists, but I also made him up,” she writes in a letter to a friend which doubles as internal monologue. “The best part is that he’s angry.” Roman is equally smitten, and soon the pair are scheming to run away together. Or so they want their parents to think; really, they’re camped out in a tent on the roof of Roman’s father’s mansion. Maru’s hysterical mother and sister come over to the house to become part of the rescue effort––which, under the oversight of Roman’s distant dad, consists mainly of drinking tequila and waiting for clues to come to him. With a stolen cell phone, Roman calls daddy’s security detail with false leads to get the grown ups out of the house so that he and Maru can crawl downstairs and collect provisions. It’s only when the pair decide to finally really leave home that their saga starts to hew to the traditional tropes of love-on-the-run. Explotar is so blatantly indebted to Pierrot le Fou that it’s tempting to play Count the References––here Maru clomps around singing “I don’t know what to do”! Here the screen fills with her notebook scrawled ephemera about romantic destiyn!––but maybe Naranjo’s greatest invention is that, unlike the typical Godard woman, Maru is not a beautiful mystery, but a loud-mouthed firecracker who vacillates between unguarded passion for Roman and brittle rejection of his advances. In cutting off her hair to become Roman’s “twin”, Maru reveals that her attraction to Roman is actually a kind of jealousy. Deluded as she is about most elements of the real world and grown up life, she knows her power over Roman ends the moment she becomes a “put outer”, even if it’s for love, and there’s a resentment there. She’s the kind of realistically conflicted girl almost never seen on screen. The sex scenes between the two teenagers are surprisingly sexy, not because of what you see but because there isn’t much to see at all. Though the nudity is borderline frank in that Euro, “teenage breasts=freedom” sort of way, it’s not overtly titillating so much as it’s recognizably real, from the nervous twitching leading up to it to the lack of assuredness that runs throughout. Maru and Roman’s romance is brittle and tentative at first, but then the floodgates open, at which point, with an almost fin de sicle spirit, it gushes. The peak of Maru and Roman’s relationship coincides with the puncture of their invincibility––once they cement that they are one another’s “perfect accomplice,” as Maru puts it, the time comes to pay the bill for their rebellion. This is the essence of teenage romance––the first love will be the last love––and thus, it’s something we’ve seen on screen before. What feels unique––and genuinely tragic––about Explode’s denouement is not that shit gets violent and people get hurt, but that Maru and Roman, like most kids, clearly never really wanted to get in trouble at all. Mouthy and lazy but ultimately uninterested in any kind of criminal nihilism that would take them too far away from the womb of parental-funded modern comforts, Maru and Roman went looking for a Ferris Bueller-style charmed but temporary time out from mundane responsibility, and end up bumbling into Bonnie and Clyde. In these climes of quirky indie romantic lessons learned, the punishment of starry-eyed delusion feels not only refreshing, but almost like a corrective with political implications. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/4/9/27147.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 4/9/2008 6:00:55 PM
Body: Perhaps Karina gave adequate attention to Jean-Paul Belmondo recently with her review of the Pierrot le Fou Criterion DVD (though she mainly focused on Anna Karina), but the actor turns 75 today, and according to David Hudson at GreenCine, he’s not getting enough love on this monumental occasion. So, here’s a fun clip of him duking it out with Alain Delon in Jacques Deray’s Borsalino. My introduction to Belmondo was with Pierrot, and that is still my favorite of his films (I would love to paint my face blue in his honor today). Yet I chose this scene from the lesser known and lesser regarded film because Belmondo and Delon equally co-represent the epitome of cool in French cinema, but I prefer Belmondo’s more rubber-faced, gangly, comical kind of cool guy. And while the fight ends in a draw, I think Belmondo gets in the better blows. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:00:55 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com4/9/2008 6:00:55 PM Perhaps Karina gave adequate attention to Jean-Paul Belmondo recently with her review of the Pierrot le Fou Criterion DVD (though she mainly focused on Anna Karina), but the actor turns 75 today, and according to David Hudson at GreenCine, he’s not getting enough love on this monumental occasion. So, here’s a fun clip of him duking it out with Alain Delon in Jacques Deray’s Borsalino. My introduction to Belmondo was with Pierrot, and that is still my favorite of his films (I would love to paint my face blue in his honor today). Yet I chose this scene from the lesser known and lesser regarded film because Belmondo and Delon equally co-represent the epitome of cool in French cinema, but I prefer Belmondo’s more rubber-faced, gangly, comical kind of cool guy. And while the fight ends in a draw, I think Belmondo gets in the better blows. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/2/13/25095.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 2/13/2008 2:20:10 PM
Body: Criterion is about to release a beautiful new edition of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou. I’ll have my own review of the two-disc set (which includes a new interview with Anna Karina, as well as a documentary about the actress’ relationship and work with Godard) next week, but others have already begun to weigh in. Glenn Kenny sets to work dissecting the film’s literary references, both direct and indirect. At the A.V. Club, the less-enamored Nathan Rabin blames those references in part for making the film feel “at worst…like the product of a man rapidly losing interest in anything beyond politics and ideology.” Rabin cites the famous scene embedded above, in which Samuel Fuller reduces cinema to “one word, emotion!” as “bitterly ironic” because “it would be hard to imagine a film with less visceral emotion than Pierrot Le Fou.” I have not watched my screener copy yet, but in art school I wore out a VHS copy of Pierrot Le Fou by watching it over and over again, falling obsessively in love with a film for maybe the first time, so I’m eager to watch it again and with Rabin’s assessment in mind. Still, after reading Rabin’s piece, I went back and took a second look at Kenny’s, and noticed that Kenny has very little to say in terms of an assessment of the film’s actual quality, or how it makes him feel??????which is fine, neither is necessarily the goal of this particular piece??????but it seems safe to assume that one doesn’t undertake such trainspotting in regards to a film that they could take or leave. Maybe the passion Pierrot inspires is more of the obsessive reference-catching and decoding variety; maybe that’s just not Nathan Rabin’s thing. In any case, I’m anxious to unwrap the DVD to see if it’s still mine. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » karina
]]>Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:20:10 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog2/13/2008 2:20:10 PM Criterion is about to release a beautiful new edition of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou. I’ll have my own review of the two-disc set (which includes a new interview with Anna Karina, as well as a documentary about the actress’ relationship and work with Godard) next week, but others have already begun to weigh in. Glenn Kenny sets to work dissecting the film’s literary references, both direct and indirect. At the A.V. Club, the less-enamored Nathan Rabin blames those references in part for making the film feel “at worst…like the product of a man rapidly losing interest in anything beyond politics and ideology.” Rabin cites the famous scene embedded above, in which Samuel Fuller reduces cinema to “one word, emotion!” as “bitterly ironic” because “it would be hard to imagine a film with less visceral emotion than Pierrot Le Fou.” I have not watched my screener copy yet, but in art school I wore out a VHS copy of Pierrot Le Fou by watching it over and over again, falling obsessively in love with a film for maybe the first time, so I’m eager to watch it again and with Rabin’s assessment in mind. Still, after reading Rabin’s piece, I went back and took a second look at Kenny’s, and noticed that Kenny has very little to say in terms of an assessment of the film’s actual quality, or how it makes him feel??????which is fine, neither is necessarily the goal of this particular piece??????but it seems safe to assume that one doesn’t undertake such trainspotting in regards to a film that they could take or leave. Maybe the passion Pierrot inspires is more of the obsessive reference-catching and decoding variety; maybe that’s just not Nathan Rabin’s thing. In any case, I’m anxious to unwrap the DVD to see if it’s still mine. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » karina http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/2/13/25094.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 2/13/2008 2:19:47 PM
Body: Criterion is about to release a beautiful new edition of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou. I’ll have my own review of the two-disc set (which includes a new interview with Anna Karina, as well as a documentary about the actress’ relationship and work with Godard) next week, but others have already begun to weigh in. Glenn Kenny sets to work dissecting the film’s literary references, both direct and indirect. At the A.V. Club, the less-enamored Nathan Rabin blames those references in part for making the film feel “at worst…like the product of a man rapidly losing interest in anything beyond politics and ideology.” Rabin cites the famous scene embedded above, in which Samuel Fuller reduces cinema to “one word, emotion!” as “bitterly ironic” because “it would be hard to imagine a film with less visceral emotion than Pierrot Le Fou.” I have not watched my screener copy yet, but in art school I wore out a VHS copy of Pierrot Le Fou by watching it over and over again, falling obsessively in love with a film for maybe the first time, so I’m eager to watch it again and with Rabin’s assessment in mind. Still, after reading Rabin’s piece, I went back and took a second look at Kenny’s, and noticed that Kenny has very little to say in terms of an assessment of the film’s actual quality, or how it makes him feel??????which is fine, neither is necessarily the goal of this particular piece??????but it seems safe to assume that one doesn’t undertake such trainspotting in regards to a film that they could take or leave. Maybe the passion Pierrot inspires is more of the obsessive reference-catching and decoding variety; maybe that’s just not Nathan Rabin’s thing. In any case, I’m anxious to unwrap the DVD to see if it’s still mine. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:19:47 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com2/13/2008 2:19:47 PM Criterion is about to release a beautiful new edition of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou. I’ll have my own review of the two-disc set (which includes a new interview with Anna Karina, as well as a documentary about the actress’ relationship and work with Godard) next week, but others have already begun to weigh in. Glenn Kenny sets to work dissecting the film’s literary references, both direct and indirect. At the A.V. Club, the less-enamored Nathan Rabin blames those references in part for making the film feel “at worst…like the product of a man rapidly losing interest in anything beyond politics and ideology.” Rabin cites the famous scene embedded above, in which Samuel Fuller reduces cinema to “one word, emotion!” as “bitterly ironic” because “it would be hard to imagine a film with less visceral emotion than Pierrot Le Fou.” I have not watched my screener copy yet, but in art school I wore out a VHS copy of Pierrot Le Fou by watching it over and over again, falling obsessively in love with a film for maybe the first time, so I’m eager to watch it again and with Rabin’s assessment in mind. Still, after reading Rabin’s piece, I went back and took a second look at Kenny’s, and noticed that Kenny has very little to say in terms of an assessment of the film’s actual quality, or how it makes him feel??????which is fine, neither is necessarily the goal of this particular piece??????but it seems safe to assume that one doesn’t undertake such trainspotting in regards to a film that they could take or leave. Maybe the passion Pierrot inspires is more of the obsessive reference-catching and decoding variety; maybe that’s just not Nathan Rabin’s thing. In any case, I’m anxious to unwrap the DVD to see if it’s still mine. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2007/7/9/13551.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/9/2007 7:00:29 PM
Body: Chicago: Nothing cuts through a mid-summer haze like the sound of Isabella Rossellini warbling a Bobby Vinton song. My alma mater the Art Institute of Chicago is sponsoring a month-long festival of David Lynch films. This week offers three chances to see Blue Velvet in the gorgeous Gene Siskel Theater. And what luck! If you prefer your Italian women to keep mouths shut, there's an Antonioni retrospective in the very same theater complex. Via ScreenGrab. Seattle: Quick, go home and change--you've finally got an audience for that Ruby Keeler impression you've been practicing. Cineoke starts tonight at the Jewelbox Theater at 8pm. Sponsored by the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Cineoke is basically karaoke set to your favorite scene from your favorite movie musical. The organizers say they have hundreds of songs to choose from, but you're also welcome to bring your own DVD or cued-up VHS. More info here [via Wes Kim]. New York: You have just four more nights to catch what is essentially the New York cinephile sequel event of the summer. Though not a literal sequel to Army of Shadows by any means, Le Doulos is another re-release of another Jean-Pierre Melville masterpiece, and it's again packing a single screen at the Film Forum screen. Jean-Paul Belmondo (all dressed up like Bogart two years before Godard went there again in Pierrot le Fou) sneaks his way around a world where every criminal dreams of gathering some money and a girl and retreating to "a place with no cops and no hoods." In a film flooded with casual violence, Belmondo's character uses his charisma as his most efficient weapon. I'd see it ten times between now and Thursday ... if I didn't have anything else to do. See more at FilmForum.org. To have your event included in a future Cinephile Calendar, please send info to Karina AT Spout DOT com. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:00:29 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/9/2007 7:00:29 PM Chicago: Nothing cuts through a mid-summer haze like the sound of Isabella Rossellini warbling a Bobby Vinton song. My alma mater the Art Institute of Chicago is sponsoring a month-long festival of David Lynch films. This week offers three chances to see Blue Velvet in the gorgeous Gene Siskel Theater. And what luck! If you prefer your Italian women to keep mouths shut, there's an Antonioni retrospective in the very same theater complex. Via ScreenGrab. Seattle: Quick, go home and change--you've finally got an audience for that Ruby Keeler impression you've been practicing. Cineoke starts tonight at the Jewelbox Theater at 8pm. Sponsored by the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Cineoke is basically karaoke set to your favorite scene from your favorite movie musical. The organizers say they have hundreds of songs to choose from, but you're also welcome to bring your own DVD or cued-up VHS. More info here [via Wes Kim]. New York: You have just four more nights to catch what is essentially the New York cinephile sequel event of the summer. Though not a literal sequel to Army of Shadows by any means, Le Doulos is another re-release of another Jean-Pierre Melville masterpiece, and it's again packing a single screen at the Film Forum screen. Jean-Paul Belmondo (all dressed up like Bogart two years before Godard went there again in Pierrot le Fou) sneaks his way around a world where every criminal dreams of gathering some money and a girl and retreating to "a place with no cops and no hoods." In a film flooded with casual violence, Belmondo's character uses his charisma as his most efficient weapon. I'd see it ten times between now and Thursday ... if I didn't have anything else to do. See more at FilmForum.org. To have your event included in a future Cinephile Calendar, please send info to Karina AT Spout DOT com. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/love/MemberTagFilms.aspxlove
Number of films tagged: 12478

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