Jonathan Byers Reviews

Raoul Ruiz is not really well known here in listal but he is actually a quite interesting director. He actually died in 2011 but he had a productive career, directing more than 100 movies. Even though he was Chilean, most of those movies were made in France as he fled his home-country from Pinochet's dictatorship. Anyway, I heard a lot about the guy so I was really intrigued by his work and when I finally got the opportunity to get acquainted, I was rather thrilled. Even though I don't think this movie was really amazing, I still think it was pretty good. Indeed, first of all, you have a very good cast (Marcello Mastroianni, Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Arielle Dombasle, Smaïn) and I especially enjoyed the late Marcello Mastroianni who was definitely one of the best actors ever. I also enjoyed the story which was pretty surrealistic, a trademark in Ruiz work. Still, even though the story was all right, I missed a lot of the symbolism (I'm not smart enough, I guess...) and I thought the pacing was rather sluggish but it is inherent to the genre, I'm afraid.  To conclude, it is a pretty good surrealistic flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.