(Madman)

Is it ‘not very good’ or ‘far too French’?

Bucking the trend of Hollywood blockbusters being made out of older foreign releases (The Ring, The Departed, Star Wars and so on for eternity), Coeurs is a French film that took its inspiration from Private Fears In Public Places, originally a play written by England’s Alan Ayckbourn. Having never seen the original dramatic performance, I’m not here to tell you how Alain Resnais’ movie stacks up, but I will say how it stacks up to other general things in my collection. It doesn’t perform well, certainly no Dazed Or Confused, barely even Freddie Got Fingered. In a nutshell Coeurs tells the story of six distinct individuals and how their lives are unknowingly intertwined. Their is the overtly religious Charlotte who works for real estate agent Thierry who is looking for an apartment for Nicole and Dan, Dan is a recently discharged military man who spends his days at Lionel’s bar, Lionel’s father is ill and is tended to during the night by Charlotte… Yawn. It sounds like a tacky cop drama where they try so damn hard to create twists and turns in between all the sexy violence. And yet, for all its perceived complexities, Coeurs fails to move anywhere. The characters are cold and largely unlikeable, the dialogue at times seems inane (although this may be due to losing nuances in subtitles) and it ends in an anti-climax that wouldn’t even fly on a stage. It can’t simply be because ‘I don’t get French movies’ or ‘yes, but that’s how it’s supposed to be’. I read books, I understand fairly large words; if there are hidden conditions that are involved in watching a film, what’s the point?

**

MITCH ALEXANDER

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