I was furious not to have shoes

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#48 : Les Olympiades (Paris, 13th District)

The latest film from Rust and Bone director Jacques Audiard, here putting together a short story collection of sexual encounters and relationships in Paris’s 13th arrondissement, shot in tough black-and-white.

Hmmm.  French.  Black and White.  Sexual encounters and relationships.  I'm expecting some very artistically displayed breasts, a lot of talking and some scenes I wouldn't want to be watching with my daughters - all adding up to a film which ends with me scratching my head and saying "now, what exactly was the point to that?".

Oh, yes - the scenes unsuitable for watching with daughters don't take long to get going.  And there is a lot of talking as well.  It starts off focussing on Emelie (Lucie Zhang) who has a flat with an extra room - Camille (Makita Samba) moves in, they sleep together, they break up and Camiile moves out in quick succession.  Camille then meets Nora (Noémie Merlant, who was also in Portrait Of A Lady On Fire), they sleep together and they break up.  And Amber (Jehnny Beth) gets somewhat involved in there to based upon the most unlikely coincidence.  And round and round it goes.

There's actually an hour in the middle of this film where they forget to have sex or even show any breasts - I'm not even sure it's allowed to count as a French film if they're going to make such a heinous error.  But don't worry, there's still a LOT of talking about feelings and shit - and they certainly make up for the lack of nudity in the last half an hour.  And, credit where credit's due, it does have quite a nice ending - somewhat overwrought, but nice nonetheless.

It's all well acted - the four major characters are all well portrayed, although I think it's fair to say that Amber has less to do than the other three and Nora isn't exactly the best written character either.  My major problem was that none of the characters are particularly likeable (particularly at the beginning) so I struggled somewhat to engage with them - in that way, it reminded me of Closer, but updated for moderner times (and Noemie doesn't look all that dissimilar to Natalie Portman).

And whilst I have no problems with films with subtitles, I do find it annoying when I'm not really engaged with the film because I still have to concentrate on it, whilst at the same time thinking "I really don't care enough to have to do all this concentration".  I wasn't quite left thinking "what was the point to that?" at the end - but at the same time, I'd struggle to say I was fully engaged throughout.  It had some nice observations in places but was also utterly ridiculous a lot of the time.  I also think it jumped forward in time too much - some scenes were very brief and then "some time later" flashed up on the screen.

The black and white is completely unnecessary, but it also doesn't detract from the film and I have to admit it looks good with some beautiful arty shots involved.  Bizarrely, the film isn't 100% black and white - there is one scene done in colour and I have absolutely no idea about the creative thought processes involved in that decision.

I was surprised to see it was based on short stories by Adrian Tomine - I've read some of his stuff and it feels very American, whereas this feels (unsurprisingly) very French.  I'm guessing whoever adapted them was just good at their job - although I'd have to say I generally find Adrian's characters pretty unlikeable, so they didn't have to work too hard on that aspect.

Overall, I didn't hate this but I also didn't really engage with it - it felt like a very long 100 minutes, even if it did look pretty throughout.  But if you like a talkie French film with some artistic breasts then this will be very much up your street.  At time of writing, it's available to stream on MUBI (if you're one of the ten people in the country that have access to that), otherwise it can be rented at all the usual locations.  But personally, I wouldn't bother.

#49 - A very enjoyable film indeed
#47 - Not such an enjoyable film, but not without merit