[CRITICAL] EVOLUTION

Movie atmospheric, succession of tableaux more or less successful, or dive into a depression, EVOLUTION has anything to disturb the public used to combine the fantastic genre with the notion of suspense. The viewer visit EVOLUTION as a foreign country which gives him the codes via photographs, instructional or dialogues of exposure. So yes, there is a history in the first sense, but no plot, whose twists are in general likely to entertain us.

Invite to contemplation, to the detriment of the narrative is a bias of art that we absolutely cannot criticize either. A lot of directors emeritus are progressively stripped of all the tricks plot to focus on the transmission of a visual impression, own to move the spectator without the filter of a story is formatted. We think, in bulk, Dead Man for Jim Jarmusch, the whole of the work of Tarkovsky, the immense It is hard to be a God, or even the documentary films poetic as Samsara.

But this posture also comes with a certain pretension to elevate an art historically popular above the masses, who often call for the cinema to be entertained (even intellectually). Claim which is never far from a disdain rather unpleasant. However, in front of the masterpieces, this feeling disappears to leave place to the admiration.

However, this level of film, Lucile Hadzihalilovic has that intentions. She never realizes the promise of making us travel in a world of fantasy and poetry is that the cache-misère, slow, useless. His lack of scenario – yet co-written with Alanté Kavaïté (Summer) -, direction of actors or real about could still pass if he was captivated by its staging. It is at this level that the film by Lucile Hadzihalilovic , is beyond mediocre, but playable. One feels that the director claims it for his film, a status of the work, iconoclastic, although it falls in a ultra-classic. This gap between ambitions and results, still remains the bitter taste of to be taken high. Yet, not a single argument realization that would support the feeling of superiority that the author wants to exercise on the viewer.

At the sight of the claims of formal destruction of narrative one would expect that Lucile Hadzihalilovic revolutionizes completely the staging, delicate choreography between actors and camera. On the contrary, the director only plans, fixed that record flatly dialogues, poor players still. In any case, this can always prove to be rewarding (include Tarkovsky with Stalker ), but the composition of Lucile Hadzihalilovic is often bland, without any harshness or originality. By the time, an image very licked arises from a continuum of visual poor. These beads appear as intuitions great, what are to be credited to the director or to the chief operator, who never enroll in a overall consistency.

The worst for me is the cut. Understand by this term when the director decides to cut to switch from one plan to another. Here, she reproduces systematically the rule of the field in contrast, in an extremely conformist. In the scenes where few actions could increase the about actors, they are systematically set apart. People talk, and then they move on, never at the same time. The characters are disembodied, closer to the drama of Brecht and performance of the realistic expected at the cinema.

“The poetry of EVOLUTION is that the cache-misère, slow, useless.”

EVOLUTION is, therefore, a film artificially complex, a smoke screen designed to make you believe that you understood nothing, so it must be awesome. Nothing is more false, there is only a lack of work blatant to make it accessible, the about. On the form, the film has nothing to innovative. At the festival international du film fantastique de Gérardmer, EVOLUTION has yet won the critics ‘ prize and the prix du jury ex-aequo with Jeruzalem. Disguised under the aspect of experimental cinema, it is a pity that this expression of social distinction is still illusion with some criticism. The work of these latter, however, is the difference between the complexity fruitful and ambition sterile.

EVOLUTION, and its success is critical, credence, unfortunately, the idea according to which the cinema of the French author is elitist and incomprehensible to others who have not done good studies. However, there is no obstacle, a priori, to imagine a real cinema inventive AND popular, it is accessible to at least a level of reading for each. EVOLUTION is part of these works are produced for museums, such as the monochrome red dot, and in front of which the “aware” public can not help but squint his eyes and declare that it is “interesting.” While at the bottom, it’s just boring.

This article has been written in the framework of the Festival International du Film Fantastique de Gérardmer, in which I have participated, in the name of the Blog of the Film, as a juror of the Prix Syfy (handed over to The Witch) in partnership with Syfy and Canalsat.

Thomas Coispel

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