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Review
When this review disk came in the post I thought it was going to be about World War II, revisiting some of the beaches with people that actually fought there all those years ago; combined with a good few then and now pictures to pull us into the documentary. However whilst it is a documentary about revisiting a place, it certainly has nothing to do with World War 2.
Nicolas Philibert is a French director, however back in 1976 Philibert was an assistant director working on Rene Allio’s film I, Pierre Riviere… That film was about a murderer called (Strangely enough) Pierre Riviere and he murdered three members of his family back in 1835. Allio’s film cast local farmers as some of the main characters in the film; Philibert’s documentary however was to track down these farmers 30 years later to see what had happened to them.
I’ve not seen the original film and I am not sure that even if I had there would be much advantage to gain in terms of working out why Philibert went and made this documentary. I guess the original film and/or the cast had a profound effect on him and now that he is a director himself he wanted to soak up a bunch of nostalgia surrounding a film he had a part in making some 30 years earlier.
I have to say that I didn’t really connect with the film; in fact I am only calling it a film because it is easier and shorter to write than documentary. This could be because I have not seen the original movie, or maybe because it is a foreign language piece, although I actually think it is more to do with the pace of the film and structure, it is mind numbingly slow with no real sense of direction or pace.
For example there is a scene at the beginning where there is a static camera filming a pig being born, I was beginning to wonder if it were a webcam as we hung on that scene for so long, I was also thinking what the hell is this all about, it is certainly nothing to do with a 19th Century murder. It was in fact to introduce one of the characters who starred in Rene Allio’s film, as that person is now a farmer.
The structure of it all is all over the place as well, we get scenes from everyday “modern” life, an interview or two then some excerpts from the original movie and for me it was just all too much, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to make it except as a personal nostalgic trips to satisfy the director himself and he has “allowed” us to come along and join him.
Overall:
I think this film would suit fans of the original movie, or for fans of the director but this is not for random viewing. I couldn’t cope with the snail like pace, the disjointed structure and just could not connect or get into it at all.
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