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October 4, 2008
The Pleasure is almost all mine, apparently
I'm a little surprised by how Josh Safdie's The Pleasure Of Being Robbed, which opened in New York last night, is being slaughtered in the press. Nick Schager's slam in Slant is particularly vicious, but also rather hilarious - on the one hand, he mistakes the gorgeous 16mm cinematography for DV, but on the other he suggests that the lead actress needs to be shot, which elevates any pan into the realm of extremely memorable invective. I can only hope I someday inspire such a response.
But that some critics are likening Safdie's picture to mumblecore movies makes me think that they're missing the point; that others only notice the twee surface makes me think they're missing a whole lot more. Andrew O'Hehir, one of the few who does get it, highlights in his review for Salon just how divisive getting it got back when the film played Directors' Fortnight:
Let's be honest: Pleasure of Being Robbed drove a lot of people crazy at Cannes, including people whose tastes I respect. I could flatter myself by claiming that they didn't get it and I did, but things are never entirely that simple. What I saw as a challenging, open-ended emotional and psychological journey with an exasperating but irresistible character -- something like a slacker-era blend of Bresson's "Pickpocket" and Godard's "Breathless" -- struck other viewers as self-indulgent pseudo-rebellion.
That psychological aspect he notes was one of the things that really made the film for me. As I wrote in my review (which Spout re-printed yesterday to coincide with the release), "the entire film feels happened-upon, which is why it’s almost a surprise that it ends up feeling so moody and repressed. There’s something seriously wrong with Eleonore, and while, in the narrative sense, the film exalts in her behavior, its very form acknowledges otherwise."
Whatever the case: if you're in New York, go see the film. If you're not, you can watch it via IFC On Demand. And if you don't have IFC On Demand, you can at the very least head over to the Red Bucket Films website and, in short order, watch a few of the short films that preceded this first feature length effort.
Posted by David Lowery at October 4, 2008 11:58 AM