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Jan 26, 2007
"The swimming pool" : drowning by silliness. (3/3)
The result is so ridiculous that, while, in « Sous le sable » we came to accept as normal a physical impossibility, we now reach the opposite conclusion and decide that what we see on screen cannot be real, but must be the insane product of Sarah Morton’s perverse imagination.
Even if such is the case, it resolves nothing : fantasies too need a structure, at least in a movie.
In « Comment j’ai tué mon père », Anne Fontaine entices us to challenge the reality level of what we see on screen, but the exercise is meaningful because she had taken care to provide us with a consistent story and finely drawn characters.
There are too many factual contradictions in Ozon’s story to allow entertaining mind-games.
We are served a micro-wave reheated version of the stale « film within the film », or « book within the film » story line : is Sarah Morton’s book imitating « reality » or « reality » imitating her book ? and which book is it, as Julie’s arrival has prompted her to put away her new Inspector Dorwell novel to focus on the teenage girl ? And is it really Sarah Morton’s book or Julie’s diary ? or Julie’s fantasies in her diary ?....
The borders become blurred, we enter a hybrid universe where several levels of fiction possibly cohabit, while silliness and futility provide the story’s sole consistencies.
Some reviewers have lent critical credence to this uninspired mess under the heady pretext that it would explore the mysterious ways of inspiration and creation. What does stimulate a creator’s imagination ? Is Sarah Morton Ozon’s double ? Did the director need this pathetic film to clean his creative pipes ? Are we the unfortunate witnesses of a creative oil change ?
The result leaves us as perplexed as Charles Dance, as he reappears in the closing scene without a clue as to what Sarah Morton tells him and offers the same judgement about her book as we would pass on Ozon’s film : neither for him to publish, nor for us to watch.
Maybe we should join forces with the publisher : we saw the movie, he read her book ; put together, who knows ?, they might make sense.
It is unlikely. Anne Fontaine leaves her movie open to interpretation. Ozon asks us to create one from the mess scattered on screen.
We shall become Sarah Morton and François Ozon, launch our own investigation and produce the thriller they were unable to write and direct successfully.
Why not welcome the challenge and try and reconstruct the film jigsaw ? Because it is all too obvious that the bits, pieces and clues Ozon gives us belong to several different jigsaws and that no set is complete.
The film final half hour lines up story twists like a series of hairpins on a road across flatlands.
All are arbitrary, only motivated by the urgent need to pack the highest amount of thrills, however artificial and cheap, before the closing credits.
They do not stem from the story but jump out of nowhere, called upon by a desperate director like poorly inspired « Dei ex machina ». As they return where they came from, they take the film with them.
Ozon seems to expect from his viewer the same level of involvement as from a video game player, who co-creates his unique version of the game as he searches his way through its virtual universe of enigmas.
But cinema is no interactive medium : we are restricted to a sitting and watching passivity, which we actually relish, as it is the core pleasure of every film experience.
There is only one way to enjoy « The swimming pool » : to watch the film trailer. It is excellent and therefore dangerous : in its case, conventional wisdom is painfully true, initial impressions can indeed be very misleading. Beware.
(Initially posted on November 3, 2006)
08:05 Posted in Ozon | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this