[critical] A PURE FORMALITY

Ofyears part of the out of Cinema Paradiso, we conduct a retrospective on the filmography of the Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore.

A PURE FORMALITY contrasts with the traditional framework of the films of Tornatore. Far from his native Sicily, who had inspired him The Master of the Camorra and Cinema Paradiso, his first two films, the Italian director leaves aside the landscapes and the human dimension to the island’s lush and focuses on a new style for him : the polar.

Giuseppe Tornatore had used to beautiful scenery. How can I forget this magnificent ocean liner that is the Virginian in The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean or the magic of Cinema Paradiso. After that, it is sure that a small office of seedy campaign, the walls oozing moisture, and furnished with a furniture, to say the least outdated, it does not give off the same intensity. Taking foot against his nature of the aesthete, the director seems to want to bring to the surface the exact opposite, a universe of murky and sordid. Unfortunately, it does not, or only by sequences such as when Depardieu was locked in a bathroom and tries to make evidence disappear, a speck of blood that macule the bottom of his t-shirt, gulped it down.

Roman Polanski and Gerard Depardieu, two beasts of cinema to book a face-to-face crazy, spoiled somewhat by the volubility of the inspector, and citations are ubiquitous and not always useful. The two actors are magnificent. Polanski cop tenacious, grown to hide his disappointment of a career dude, Depardieu as Onoff, a writer tormented by his inner demons, and who writes in order to express his pain and loneliness, as the only alternative to its forfeiture.

“Frankly disappointing in spite of a game player mind-boggling tarnished by scenery bleak, replica fizzle out and end in a half-tint.”

Giuseppe Tornatore eventually lose ourselves in the mazes of his dialogues without end. The movie appears as a private detective and switches to verbal sparring. By its nature, A PURE FORMALITY tends inexorably towards a piece of theatre, never surjouée, however.

In the last seconds of the film is a sublime musical crescendo orchestrated by a master hand, by Ennio Moriconne (and on the shot it makes up a benefit overall pretty average). This sound thundering, finally delivers the verdict expected from the film, before giving way to a long moment of silence, only punctuated by drops of water plopping into buckets, such as to give us time to absorb the enormity to which we come to attend. To be honest, hot, I did not understand the end of the film, the image may be in front of my eyes, I hear the shot, see the body collapse, my subconscious has categorically refused to admit what he was seeing, feeling cheated and abused by many of the details that he was unable to perceive before. To this end, well that was absolutely not what I expected, is a relentless logic, and gives a tour again on the behavior of the characters.

Inspired by the famous film by Claude Miller, in Custody, A PURE FORMALITY is frankly disappointing in spite of a game player mind-boggling, tarnished by the decor dreary, the aftershocks that just fizzle out and end in a half-tint. My relatively low score is the result of a frustration deep of not being able to understand the construction story of the film. Maybe a second viewing will fix this feeling of incomprehension.