Sophie Fillières has a place quite singular in the French comedy.
His films have in common a sense of the breakdown of your very pushed, in the service of a human which is part of a detailed description of the daily life.
The comical character of his films is absolutely not frontal but is located in the offset and in the melancholy of his characters. A sensitivity similar to that of Noémie Lvowski, but with a budget of achievement significantly lower, subjects as personal, but humour is more accurate but less verbal, less touching.
STOP OR do I go is no exception to the rule and presents us with Apple and Stone, couple quarantenaire in crisis.
Him, is cynical and whimsical, no longer has a passion for Apple, in all cases, show more, or does not know how to. One has the impression that the director hesitates between a look gender on men, or his own version of the other sex. Mathieu Amalric, fortunately, mitigates these doubts thanks to his interpretation mysterious this man’s perfectly unbearable. Because Sophie Fillières deals with a few all men in the same way, that is to say, making them indecisive, mi-I-foutistes, half-unintelligible. They don’t understand definitely not for women, and pose systematically the feet in the dish.
Emmanuelle Devos it, interprets Apple theatrically, as was his habit, with a host of tics of the game, sometimes most annoying, sometimes soulful. If Apple brings the same defects as Peter, the director, however, is in this character all his sympathy, as if he was a twin of itself. She created a lived probably a little “Life Of Shit”, her husband good-natured, ungrateful son, aging body. VDM, but quite common, in any case to the limit. Apple reacts violently to the crisis affecting her and her couple ; Sophie fillières took enough distance for not making her character a cliché of a woman strong and reactive.
The subject of the film is quite a classic, especially in the cinema of the French author : the crisis in the couple, the doubts about the evolution of the relationship.
However, Sophie Fillières developed with Apple, the fantasy of the “I thee fuck up !” a feminine manner rather singular. She takes and Apple and its film on a track adventurous, and quite refreshing because devoid of second degree of metaphor. Everything passes through the image, and the dialogues.
These are the great success of the film. They infuse an energy slightly comical, which works thanks to the misunderstandings they generate. Sophie Fillières we chisel a text of a finesse copy of which the main qualities are combined : triviality and precision.
”we could set STOP OR do I CONTINUE as a movie slightly a feminist, but enough offset to not be aggressive nor cliché.”
Thus, the characters describe their daily lives, their interactions with the world in minute detail, take the time to accurately describe a moment insignificant…
This accentuates the absurdity of the moment, because these things are, of course, too trivial to be told on film.
Simone : – “I have played (scrabble) alone, Roman does not like it, it mocks me, it pains me sometimes. (…) it was free, on the highway, a full 1.99€ I try to beat my own record : 617 points.
Apple : – This is good.”
or even, Pierre, phone :
– “It is not in the same radius, it is frozen… Not just ice cream ! and you know? for all these small sausages, and these all small bunches, one gets Sonia and her boyfriend tomorrow.” Etc.
It installs by an atmosphere enveloping and immersive, which is constantly the characters in the face of their own contradictions. A mystic atmosphere, highlighted by the actors in particular are Devos and Amalric.
And then aside total, it is always a pleasure to watch the French film when it is in a city other than Paris, here, Lyon.
A form of simplicity comes from the movements of the characters, interactions between them. The tone is different, like the differences, even within a genre, that one can feel between hollywood glamour and a european achievement.
In the end, you could set STOP OR do I CONTINUE as a movie slightly a feminist, but enough offset to not be aggressive nor cliché.
The film offers a bonus three interviews, with the director, Sophie Fillières, and the actors Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric.
The interviews reveal with precision the vision of the director.
Devos, who has worked a lot with Fillières is back on his journey with the director. Amalric explains his character quite at odds with us. He feels the love of the director for the men. Good.
The transfer of the DVD is mediocre, nothing to report from this side.
• Realization : Sophie Fillières
• Scenario : Sophie Fillières
• Principal actors : Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Brochet
• Country of origin : France
• Released : march 5, 2014, DVD release July 1, 2014
• Duration : 1h42min
• Distributor : Les Films du Losange
• Synopsis : Pomme and Pierre.
They are together for a long time. Too long ?
They are caught up in this scam that has become their couple, this discrete disaster, caught in this number, which is played almost in spite of themselves.
“Stop or I continue” the one as the other could say it.
They have the habit of long walks in the forest. During one of them, Apple refuses to return. No. Just no. That it file the kway, that he file the pull, that he file the bag, it remains…
It disappears into the thicket. Without crashing…