The 88-year-old Alain Resnais’s latest film, WILD GRASS, shows him remaining true, all these decades later, to the principles of the French “Nouvelle Vague” of which he was a leading proponent: anarchy, whimsy, visual antics, nonlinear and nonsensical story lines, abrupt endings, randomness and deliberate artifice. Although many of these devices, so revolutionary in their time, have now become part of mainstream film vocabulary, in Resnais’s hands they are played full-force, making his work unlike anything else made today.
It’s hard, or at least feels beside the point, to give a plot summary of a movie in which plot—which is also to say, any ethical underpinning—matters for little. Suffice it to say a lost wallet incites a meeting between the world’s least likely dentist, the wildly flame-haired Marguerite (the elegant Sabine Azéma, Resnais’s muse and companion in real life) and the dour, possibly homicidal and unemployed but somehow wealthy Georges (André Dussollier), whose yellow chickie fluff hair somehow makes his deeply lined and frowning face appear even more sinister.
Aided by a deeply humanistic policeman (Mathiu Almaric, in my favorite performance in the movie), the two connect and reconnect in a wobbly spiral of obsession, fantasy, and counter-transference.
While the idea of the “buddy cop” film has lost it’s luster here in the States since Riggs and Murtaugh hung up their guns, the sub-genre has taken on a whole new life over in France. Back in 2004, writer Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Taken, The Transporter Trilogy) brought the worlds of buddy cop films, action, and parkour together. The film was a hit across the globe, and the team is now reuniting to do it again.
The trailer for District B13: Ultimatum gives us a glimpse of the awesomeness that we can look forward to, including leaps from skyscrapers, driving through the second floor of a building, and outrunning a car on foot. Of course, we don’t recommend watching this film in it’s dubbed form over it’s original French dialogue, but you may not have a choice when the movie gets an American theatrical release.
Check out the first new trailer for the film after the jump, with no dialogue, cocky narration, and yes: lots of jumping and explosions. Expect to see District B13: Ultimatum in your local multiplex on February 5, 2010.
We’ve posted quite a few things about Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming World War 2 romp here on the site, from clips of angry Nazis to awesome new posters, but it looks like this newest one has to be the best, and it was only released in France. The trailer shows the film in a new light, making it slightly less dark and more comedic, with lots more Brad Pitt talking about “Nat-zee Scalps”.
The 88-year-old Alain Resnais’s latest film, WILD GRASS, shows him remaining true, all these decades later, to the principles of the French “Nouvelle Vague” of which he was a leading proponent: anarchy, whimsy, visual antics, nonlinear and nonsensical story lines, abrupt endings, randomness and deliberate artifice. Although many of these devices, so revolutionary in their time, have now become part of mainstream film vocabulary, in Resnais’s hands they are played full-force, making his work unlike anything else made today.
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