Louisiana Story Reviews

(OK) Surprisingly good ol Flayerty making amneds betwenn an oil driller and nature, there's no ecological dimension here, just friends and animals, an poetic framing of nature...

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect from this movie but since it was on the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' list, I thought I should check it out. Basically, it is a really obscure flick and it is something that many complain about this list but, for me, it is just the opposite. Indeed, I think it is really intriguing to watch a very old and rather forgotten feature. In this case, I really liked the black and white photography and there were some amazing shots. Unfortunately, I saw it online streaming on archive.org and the quality of this video was really poor so it was rather frustrating to watch this blurry black and white feature. So, it took me a while to get into it but I sure liked it. Basically, it is not really a fiction and it is not really a documentary either, it is some kind of really sober and realistic account of the life of a young boy living in the Bayou. Not surprisingly, I found out it was one of Robert Bresson's favorite movies. So, there is no plot, no good guy, no bad guy and I thought it was really refreshing. It is never really clear what the director tried to achieve here but it was definitely intriguing. For example, at first sight, you might assume that this young boy is really ignorant but there is also something rather angelic about his behavior and instead of ignorance, you might call it pure innocence. To conclude, even though I wasn't completely blown away by the whole thing, I still think it was a very interesting feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.