Console
best movie i've ever seen.
Baseshment
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
MusicChat
It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.
petesherratt
This movie has as its central character the weirdest copper in the history of film. We observe him more or less constantly for the full 148 mins laconically investigating a murder in the area which his force is responsible for (a small police station in a rural area) and being the gooseberry to the couple who live next door on various excursions (the seaside, a restaurant, etc.). He is always withdrawn and introverted but is he crushed by guilt or merely childlike? Is he obsessed by the couple next door (who seem to be noisily shagging at all hours of the day) or are they just a breakwater for his loneliness? This ambiguity is the films real achievement: De Winter is a tabula rasa on which any prejudice (of the viewer I mean) can be projected. The film certainly is one that either you will love or hate judging by the previous reviews - check out "What the hell is this?", "150 minutes of suffering, only for stubborn art movie fans with a high boredom threshold level" and "Is life really this boring?". I very much enjoyed the film mainly for Emanuelle Schotte who is fascinating to watch as he ambles aimlessly through his character's empty life.
causticjones
This is a thoughtful and original film and the polar opposite of any Hollywood movie. It's slight plot is not what the film is about, it is in many ways a mood piece. The opening image of a vast landscape a lone figure running along the horizon is accompanied only by the sound of the heavy breaths of the runner, and sets the tone for the entire film.The film is character driven and contains long periods of near silence and beautifully shot landscape. Its basic plot, the investigation into the rape and murder of a young girl, would suggest it is a thriller but this film is about it's characters first and foremost.Our hero Pharon is a policeman who lives at home with his mother He has suffered the loss of his wife and child, how we never find out. The crime he investigates pushes him into a state of utter despair. This despair is not shown to us with any overblown emotional fireworks but with a heavy and quite sorrow which he carries throughout the film. He is portrayed by Emmanuel Schotte who justly won the best actor award at Cannes, and was unjustly booed for doing so. This may have something to with the fact that he is retired accountant rather than an actor. His face expresses the sheer anguish is a man at the end of his teether, by expressing nothing at all save for thin smile that seems to come not from joy but to stop him from crying.The center of the film is Pharon relationship with his neighbor Domino played by Severine Caneele who won best actress and boos at Cannes to. She is also untrained and delivers a wonderful performance.The investigation moves at a snails pace, and probably offers a more realistic look at police work than most films as witnesses are questioned and requestioned.It is a slow and beautiful film and reminded me strangely of Hal Hartly's work, in that the charters and actors seem to be doing very little but are expressing so much.
Claudio Carvalho
In France, in the small-town of Bailleul , the weird, melancholy, lonely and widow police superintendent Pharaon De Winter (Emmanuel Schotté) is investigating the brutal murder of an eleven years old girl, who was raped while returning from school. Pharaon lives with his mother, and spends most of his leisure time with his neighbor Domino (Séverine Caneele) and her fiancé Joseph (Phileppe Tullier). Pharaon feels a kind of platonic love with Domino. The police department staff is being pressed by Lille and Paris to solve the crime and a strike of the workers of a factory. This French low budget movie is developed in a too slow pace and has very human characters. I liked it a lot, but I recognize that audiences only used to watch American movies will not like 'L' Humanité'. In Hollywood, this 142 minutes running time film would be an American 30 minutes short story. But lovers of cinema as art will certainly appreciate this simple but well directed story. The trauma with the character of Pharaon, being consumed by his grieving for the death of wife and daughter, by his repressed love for Domino, by the scene of the brutal death of the child and by the pressure of the command of the police, is amazingly performed by Emmanuel Schotté. I did not understand the kiss of Pharaon in the lips of Joseph in the end of the story. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): 'A Humanidade' ('The Humanity')
photomac
This film has been praised as shocking, fascinating, and hypnotic; and I can only conclude that I'm not easily shocked, fascinated, or hypnotized. I was lulled to sleep several times, and watched the film over the course of several days. The film is quite sedately paced. An example:You get a shot of Pharoan looking at his boss's collar. The shot of the collar holds long enough for you to think "Hm, he sweats a lot." The shot holds long enough for you to think "okay, I got that, thanks. He sweats a lot." Then it holds long enough for you to think "All right already! Go wake up the editor."A sequence like that would not be a problem when the cinematography is particularly good, except the cinematography in this film is not. It is competent, straightforward, unstylized, perhaps even dull; in other words, the cinematography serves the story perfectly.The sedate pacing might not be a problem with different cinematography, which would affect the story for the better: the film is a psychological exploration, yet the people we're meant to sympathize with are typically shown in long shots or in closeup but with largely unchanging expressions. If something is going on behind the eyes, we can only guess what it is; and from the slack-jawed expression, we guess that what it is might not even be particularly profound. Wounded, yes, sad, yes, but we've seen that before and better, and it's nothing new. We need a reason to care *this time*, and for many people that reason won't be there.The main character is a cipher, perhaps deliberately so, but the result is a film that doesn't tell you anything, and doesn't even tell you why it doesn't tell you anything--not the nihilism or the weary practicality of some noir films, but merely a bloated anecdote with an obscure or missing point. Unfortunately the anecdote, aside from being quite slow, is also almost completely humorless. The result is a film only for people with extraordinary patience and good will.
