« Finished | Main | The Monster Child »

June 21, 2007

Watching L'Intrus In The Afternoon

The longer I left that last post at the top of the page, the more I started to feel as if I were basking in the glow of my own smug self satisfaction. I need a new topic!

So I'll talk about how I finally took a break this afternoon and sat down with some iced Yerba Maté to watch Claire Denis' L'Intrus. What a frustrating, fascinating bit of cinematic friction this films is! In Beau Travail, Denis stripped a story down to its thematic core and turned those themes into images, and I loved it. Here, she begins with the themes and works backwards, exploding the philosphical ideals of Jean-Luc Nancy's memoir into sharp, jutting physical form. And I wasn't quite sure what to think. I can't say I loved it, and I can't say it's not great; my opinion now is that I simply need to see it again. And write more about it.

* * *
I've started to keep a physical journal. A little black Moleskine, with a good pen. Part of the reason is to catalog the films I see, so that I might remember them better - an idea sparked by a post over at Girish's blog. I left in the comments there an exchange between Paul Thomas Anderson and Lars Von Trier that struck a chord with me when I first read it several years ago.
PTA: Do you remember movies well? I never remember movies well, but I can remember the ones I love, and which meant something to me. I remember Breaking the Waves - I was in the middle of editing Boogie Nights, and I was by myself and it was a Sunday night, and when I saw it, it was really like the clouds opening up - suddenly the sun started to shine, as gray as that movie was. But I don't remember details of that movie.
LVT: That is because what you like and what I like in a film is not a whole. We look at films differently than most people, and that's why we don't remember the whole thing properly.

I've always had trouble recalling details in films. The progression of events, the lines of dialogue. I mostly remember how they make me feel. Together with those feelings I hang onto a few stray details: shots, sometimes, and often juxtapositions or camera movements, or expression on actors' faces. And I remember the experience of watching them with a great deal of exactitude. In a sense, I feel like I hang onto what matters most - at least, what matters to me. But I want some of the concrete details, too, and I feel that writing about them - and not just simply expressing thoughts, but spending the time to physically put pen to paper - will bind them to the feelings they provoked.

So that's part of the reason I started this journal. The other is so that I can let whatever I write there spin off into personal territory. As it inevitably will and already has. Breaking off into tangents and reminsciences and ideas and other things I don't want to forget, and don't want to share.

* * *

The people downstairs are watching The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. I can hear it through the floor. The Tiger Shark just showed up.

Posted by David Lowery at June 21, 2007 04:45 PM

Comments

I really enjoyed this film as well... More of my own thoughts
HERE

Posted by: Tom at June 26, 2007 03:29 PM

That's a beautiful essay, Tom, and it makes me glad I haven't returned the film to Netflix yet - your thoughts make me want to sit down and watch it all over again.

The film really got under my skin. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I saw it last week.

You mention the footage that looks like it was shot on Ektachrome. I had assumed it was footage from an earlier film starring the same actor (as Soderbergh did in The Limey), and as it turns out, I was partially right. From an essay at Image Facts:

"Somewhere in L’Intrus (another intruder perhaps?) are a series of clips from a filmed adaptation of The Ebb Tide starring the actor who plays Louis (Michel Subor). When Denis approached Subor after a lengthy location scout through the South Pacific, she told him about the strange off-the-beaten-path places she had encountered. Subor surprised her by claiming familiarity with many of these extremely out of the way villages and islands. It just so happened that years ago he had starred in a filmed adaptation of a novel that takes place in the South Seas that had never been completed. This film ironically employed many of the locations that Denis’ character eventually makes his way to in L’Intrus. After a three year search she found one copy of this unfinished film and decided to use some of its terrifically grainy footage in L’Intrus. The effect of this intrusion is haunting."

Posted by: Ghostboy at June 26, 2007 03:57 PM