Ah - I guess he didn't tell you
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2023
#39 : Passages
A gay man cheats on his husband with a straight woman in Ira Sachs’s fiercely sexy and heartbreaking tale of young Parisians.
Oh good - another French(ish) film!
As you might have guessed from The Guardian's introduction, we're following the trials and tribulations of a gay married couple - Tomas (Franz Rogowski) and Martin (Ben Whishaw - well, I wasn't expecting him to pop up). I'm not sure things were going particularly well for them, but then Tomas meets Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and things start to go considerably less well.
Hmmm - Is there anything else I need to tell you? Oh yes - Tomas is an utter shit and throws a tantrum if things aren't going his way. He also wears some horrible, horrible outfits. Right - you're fully up to speed now.
It is a French film but most of it's in English - but not all of it because it's set in Paris and the French people in the film all speak French to each other so you have to have the subtitles on if you don't want to miss some reasonably important elements of the plot (but only every so often). Yes, it's that kind of film - heavy going and determined not to make things easy for you. It also contains bits where the most pointless action (often singing or sex) is dragged out waaaay longer than necessary - I was very pleased that I was able to play it at double speed.
It is well acted and shot, assuming that you want to watch one very unpleasant individual wind up two wet dishcloths to the point that even they've had enough of him. It's Ben's fourth appearance on the list - he's previously popped up on posts for TV, film and an album (ten points if you remembered the album!) and Franz's second (it appears he has a thiing about doomed gay relationships). Adele is probably best known for Blue Is The Warmest Colour, which was another film I found dragged things out way longer than necessary - it's a French thing, it appears.
I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why anyone would want to watch this film - it's a boring tale featuring people you soon give up caring about. Obviously The Guardian and plenty of other critics disagree with me (Franz got a lot of praise and some awards for his performance) - but who are you going to trust on this? If you decide to go with the obviously wrong people who do this sort of thing for a living, then it's available to stream on MUBI or to rent in all the usual places - but don't come crying to me when you find out I'm right!
Comments
Post a Comment