Well, I’m writing my second piece, and it turns out I was correct about energy conservation. The script-writing was all I could do mentally, and now that I’m in break phase, I can do other things. Mentally! Writing on that level meant not writing this, which is fair since this, paying nothing, pays more.

In the spirit of preserving precious brain power (despite all the sugar I feed it), I’m going to make a rule. 2019 is terrible, the worst year in cinema history (as we see with the critics praising the not just horrible, but straight-up shitty filmmaking of The Irishman and Once Upon a Time… In Retro Ellipses!).

So the rule, which is true and observational, and in no way an exhausted attempt to sense of the impossibly non-sensical, is that 2019 is an inverted year. This is because the only great film of the year Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, is about Breton women. Female led films set in Brittany (La Fille de Brest, et Fleur de Tonnere) are always bad, but in 2019, they’re wonderful.

That doesn’t mean you can make films about killing dogs and getting away with it. I wouldn’t even be saying this to tempt you, but it’s December 11th. Fassbinder’s dead; you can make a movie in 10 days, but you’ll never have the ad space in time.

In reviewing my notes, since it’s been a while, the film is great, but does not start well. Like its inferior – Heaven’s Gate – is best understood as a graph over time.

Remember, Chronicle, with the slight alteration, this counts as parody, and is protected free speech. That being said, I’ll give up all amendment rights if it meant going up in readership.

Starting at the end and flashing back to years earlier, I felt in trouble, and the films takes an unnecessary while to get to the first turn; the artist (Mme. Noémie Merlant), hired to paint sig.ra Valeria Golino’s daughter (Mme. Adèle Hænel) as a wedding present, burns her first product, because of how it is received by not by her patron, but by the daughter, her subject.

It’s a nice reasoning, irrational and believable. We wake up. It’s kind of all uphill from there. This is especially in light of two things: one, the unfortunateness of what is being singled out, see above. This film was at Cannes, assholes, and you couldn’t mention it? It wins the award that counts – best screenplay – but you singled out Parasite and not this? And two, it came out four days ago in the US. For my readership (note that I did not say readersship), I will try to avoid talking about it too much and just recommend the film vehemently.

Well, it’s finally happened, they’ve updated to ticket machines so the tickets suck. Also, they have these massive portrait touchscreens, so you have to choose films in front of everyone. What if you wanted to see… Right. The title of the blog.

The story works, and I cried three good times. The graph is here to tell you to stick with it, yet another reason I try to see films in the theater. There are things (like Mme. Hænel’s running away for screenwriter’s reason) which turn out to pay off.

Beyond the story, there’s an unveiling of an unseen and richly populated world. Even at the beginning: the simple act of getting somewhere by boat (the wonderful Saint-Pierre Quiberon, come out and see it!), and the fact that it could kill you. Or getting pregnant, and the fact that it could kill you.

It reminds me – as much as Dorothée hates the film – of Sisters’ Brothers, in that it’s a glimpse into a – this time women’s – world of that era. There’s no sense of underlining of issues or how it should be, because it knows showing the horror and the characters’ calm and sad acceptance is the politics. And, from a film watcher’s point of view, the power of it. It does what it sets out to: fuck up your chance of enjoying museums.