[critical] VALENTIN VALENTIN

Valentin is a young man BG*. Something in his eyes , his attitude, his weaknesses, and breaking ALL the women (and makes jealous men)

Valentin lives in a building full of life, or every inhabitant has a story more or less tragic, but to coexist in a simple happiness, with others.

Valentine wondered about the house in front of him, full of “chinese shadows”…

Valentin is a young man BG*, mysterious, all round curious, a lover, a dilettante, a frivolous.



However, Pascal Thomas begins his film with the discovery of the corpse of Valentine’s day !

Perhaps this is where the real problem of the film : Pascal Thomas seems to want to please everyone, by bringing together in Valentine’s day Valentine’s day, lightweight, free and brilliant, which made the charm of the Large Apartment, and these ingredients of Engrossing fun and bourgeois “to the” Agatha Christie, that he exploited in the trilogy of crime with Dussolier/Frot and The Zero Hour…

This first scene (the corpse of the famous Valentine’s day is seen from the eyes of a young girl), is like a warning, which it is absolutely necessary to take into account :

Pascal Thomas opposed from the outset, a certain naivety/innocence to a certain “mise-en-scene of the drama”. Exactly the ambivalence of his film, and by extension the duality of his filmography.

The sudden change of atmosphere can affect the global appreciation of the film. Set against the lightness of the gravity can work, but we prefer the balance and the mix between drama and comedy of a good Coen, the cleavage, marked by a transition slow and poor and off-topic of the Valentin Valentin of Pascal Thomas.

Let’s start our critique by the end of the film : the plot polardeuse.

We do not reveal anything for fear of fanning a mystery not much exciting or stimulating. It seemed to us quite badly led, in the sense that, as in any good engrossing, a number of characters we are presented and we, as viewers, need to identify among them the guilty. Except that the first party is not conducive to observation, but rather to let go !

And when Pascal Thomas takes us back to the very first scene, uneasiness invades us because we have never troubled to look for that might betray the guilty, too busy squealing of happiness before the exciting games of passions unveiled so far.

Another pitfall : a pan setting of this last part seems to be opportunistic – 3 films, for example, have this year used a similar argument, whose A Quiet Time last week !

All of this to end in a lack of surprises of the most damaging.

Let us therefore concentrate on the first hour of the film, that we were all the same particularly happy !

A voice-over literary and theatrical offers us instantly forget the gravity of the first moment, coming back suddenly in the life of the small neighborhood or lives in Valentine. What better way to do this, a session-photo with a cop, half-naked ?

The event, which will be reviewed by several people in the neighborhood, thus presenting subtly, many of the characters making up a cohabitation inter-generational. Pascal Thomas develops the idea that a respect for everyone, in spite of his faults and liabilities, allowing you to create a community space that is idyllic or it is good to live.

“Pascal Thomas tent in VALENTINE’s day VALENTINE’s day, the large gap between the engrossing and the comedy frivolous – two characteristics of his filmography.”

Valentine, him, is the pivot and the catalyst of the situations. His curiosity, his inertia, his charm trigger event at the start light – then more and more tragic, until a switch in the drama complete with the highlight being his own death.

Vincent Rottiers is here, an interesting choice, by the counter-employment. We know him as a young man rather crude (his diction), impenetrable, uncontrollable. Here, what is the idea to honour him with a character that is unprecedented, that of the seducer-in spite of him !

It works from the thunder.

It keeps, however, this part of the unfathomable mystery which actually makes him a character very appealing.

The women around him, will seek constantly to draw his gaze, the game of seduction of women to the insensitive Valentine’s day is delectable ! Each using his / her (its) charm(s) to seduce him… which will of course the various dramas of history.

Each actress (and actor) is so magnified by the camera of Pascal Thomas… But it is also used as a dump far from his previous roles. For example, Arielle Dombasle , in bourgeois fart-fart, or Louis-Do de Lencquesaing in avocado cultivated/bastard/pervert. Only one little surprise : Geraldine Chaplin, in a composition touching tale of a character at the edge of the abyss. The dialogues, intelligent and clever, compensate and fortunately this sense of déjà-vu, by administering to each a distinct personality, a lived to be credible.

The interactions between all the characters create a kind of bubble ideal or each exists in and out of the field, or the mise-en-scene wife the body, mood and communicates a real lightness to the viewer !

To choose from, it is in this element that we prefer Pascal Thomas.

The other outputs of the January 7, 2015