Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
Friday Night
February 19th 2010 04:34
By David O'Connell
David O'Connell writes the website Screen Fanatic as well as contributing to InFilm Australia. He lives in a house weighed down with thousands upon thousands of film scores and VHS tapes slowly dissolving to dust. His favourite directors iclude Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg. He also greatly admires French and Swedish cinema (even the ones without rude bits).
A tender, anonymous one-night stand that forgoes a need for dialogue for much of its length, Friday Night (2002) has the effect of an exotic, impulsive dream. Directed by Claire Denis, one of world cinema’s most widely lauded auteurs, the film takes place over a single night in a gridlocked Paris, the streets congested with cars because of a transit strike (apparently not an uncommon occurrence in the city).
In the opening scene we glimpse the city's spires from the apartment of a woman, Laure (Valerie Lemercier), packing her belongings. Labeled boxes are stacked everywhere in anticipation of a move to her boyfriend’s house. Heading out to have dinner at a friend’s place is a far from simple endeavour as she quickly becomes ensnared in the stagnant assembly line of vehicles.
From the moment Laure enters her car our view becomes filtered through her eyes. The streets seem poorly lit; every face is lingered upon for its fascinating ambiguity. Denis’s pacing is measured but alert, tiny details emerging from just beyond the edge of Laure’s vision, producing a kind of mosaic effect. So much of the narrative of the film’s first half is composed of minute subjective inferences: the foggy glow of a neon night, a stranger’s bored glare, an argument breaking out ahead, a radio announcer’s voice. There’s an intimacy created in the way the city’s landscape becomes blurred - often deliberately out of focus - limiting perception to the foreground.
Encouraged by a radio host to carpool wherever possible to alleviate the traffic crush, Laure has little hesitation in admitting a stranger, Jean (Vincent Lindon) who asks for a ride and immediately falls asleep. As they continue their crawl through the streets very little passes between them in terms of verbal exchanges. But a strange connection is formed, a kind of magnetic force pulling one toward the other as time is whittled away. Laure drops Jean off but finds herself following him on foot before revealing herself again.
So much depends on the actors’ inflections; on reticence and suggestiveness; on the way they convey emotions with furtive glances and unanswered questions. The energy that prevents them from parting may be indefinable but it’s also outlandishly plausible in the context of this long night with its sinuous proportions of a dream in which anything can happen.
The second half of this alluring, romantic tale isn’t quite as compelling, elongated by a detailed examination of the couple's liaison. Again, few words are spoken, as if touch and sight alone are the only means of communication necessary to sustain the hypnotic mood. There's an attractive, soothing gentleness to these scenes, though they become overly meticulous. Even to the point of the dulling the impact of this mystifying aura the couple creates in one another’s presence whilst the outside world continues to fade away like an artificial construct beyond them.
Denis has a minimalist, understated style all her own, as evidenced by her recent film 35 Shots of Rum (2008). Friday Night is sure to test the limits of patience for many, but it's rich with rewards for those attuned to Denis's idiosyncratic perception of the world. A first impression might accuse her of favouring style – elegant though it is - over substance, but there’s much more going on here than meets the eye. Dickon Hinchliffe’s debut score is a heady mix of wistful, low-key melodiousness which, miraculously, never feels like an intrusion and is a wonderful asset.
It takes two special actors to breathe life into this unconventional scenario. The minimal dialogue may give the impression that neither is doing much of note but everything depends on satisfying the irregular needs placed on them by their director. Both Lemercier and Lindon are up to the task and truly exceptional. All the way to the film’s final frames when the first faint signaling of dawn seems to break the spell, both of night and the intoxicating compulsion that causes two lost souls to become bound for the length of a single Parisian night. Friday Night is a model of restraint and subtlety, and as beautiful as it is abstract.
David O'Connell writes the website Screen Fanatic as well as contributing to InFilm Australia. He lives in a house weighed down with thousands upon thousands of film scores and VHS tapes slowly dissolving to dust. His favourite directors iclude Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg. He also greatly admires French and Swedish cinema (even the ones without rude bits).
A tender, anonymous one-night stand that forgoes a need for dialogue for much of its length, Friday Night (2002) has the effect of an exotic, impulsive dream. Directed by Claire Denis, one of world cinema’s most widely lauded auteurs, the film takes place over a single night in a gridlocked Paris, the streets congested with cars because of a transit strike (apparently not an uncommon occurrence in the city).
In the opening scene we glimpse the city's spires from the apartment of a woman, Laure (Valerie Lemercier), packing her belongings. Labeled boxes are stacked everywhere in anticipation of a move to her boyfriend’s house. Heading out to have dinner at a friend’s place is a far from simple endeavour as she quickly becomes ensnared in the stagnant assembly line of vehicles.
From the moment Laure enters her car our view becomes filtered through her eyes. The streets seem poorly lit; every face is lingered upon for its fascinating ambiguity. Denis’s pacing is measured but alert, tiny details emerging from just beyond the edge of Laure’s vision, producing a kind of mosaic effect. So much of the narrative of the film’s first half is composed of minute subjective inferences: the foggy glow of a neon night, a stranger’s bored glare, an argument breaking out ahead, a radio announcer’s voice. There’s an intimacy created in the way the city’s landscape becomes blurred - often deliberately out of focus - limiting perception to the foreground.
Encouraged by a radio host to carpool wherever possible to alleviate the traffic crush, Laure has little hesitation in admitting a stranger, Jean (Vincent Lindon) who asks for a ride and immediately falls asleep. As they continue their crawl through the streets very little passes between them in terms of verbal exchanges. But a strange connection is formed, a kind of magnetic force pulling one toward the other as time is whittled away. Laure drops Jean off but finds herself following him on foot before revealing herself again.
So much depends on the actors’ inflections; on reticence and suggestiveness; on the way they convey emotions with furtive glances and unanswered questions. The energy that prevents them from parting may be indefinable but it’s also outlandishly plausible in the context of this long night with its sinuous proportions of a dream in which anything can happen.
The second half of this alluring, romantic tale isn’t quite as compelling, elongated by a detailed examination of the couple's liaison. Again, few words are spoken, as if touch and sight alone are the only means of communication necessary to sustain the hypnotic mood. There's an attractive, soothing gentleness to these scenes, though they become overly meticulous. Even to the point of the dulling the impact of this mystifying aura the couple creates in one another’s presence whilst the outside world continues to fade away like an artificial construct beyond them.
Denis has a minimalist, understated style all her own, as evidenced by her recent film 35 Shots of Rum (2008). Friday Night is sure to test the limits of patience for many, but it's rich with rewards for those attuned to Denis's idiosyncratic perception of the world. A first impression might accuse her of favouring style – elegant though it is - over substance, but there’s much more going on here than meets the eye. Dickon Hinchliffe’s debut score is a heady mix of wistful, low-key melodiousness which, miraculously, never feels like an intrusion and is a wonderful asset.
It takes two special actors to breathe life into this unconventional scenario. The minimal dialogue may give the impression that neither is doing much of note but everything depends on satisfying the irregular needs placed on them by their director. Both Lemercier and Lindon are up to the task and truly exceptional. All the way to the film’s final frames when the first faint signaling of dawn seems to break the spell, both of night and the intoxicating compulsion that causes two lost souls to become bound for the length of a single Parisian night. Friday Night is a model of restraint and subtlety, and as beautiful as it is abstract.
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Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Mountain Fog
I love the way they manage to completely immerse the viewer with the barest minimum of dialogue, to then spit out exchanges at rapid machine gun fire...
great review, David, I feel compelled to see this!
cheers
fog
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
This is a classic example of a film using everything but dialogue to tell a compelling story that has a hypnotic mood about it. Every frame of this has been meticulously crafted.