Actuakers
One of my all time favorites.
Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Brenda
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
Vonia
Something in the Air (French: Après mai) (2012) Coming-of-age tale,
Based on Assayas's life,
Dream-like graceful camera,
Gorgeous shots of Italy,
The youthful zeal is catching. French high school students
Art, film, drugs, love, politics,
Unfocused story,
More a nostalgic film than
One that can be loved by all. Somonka is a form of poetry that is essentially two tanka poems, the second stanza a response to the first. Each stanza follows a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern. Traditionally, each is a love letter. This form usually demands two authors, but it is possible to have a poet take on two personas. My somonka will be a love/hate letter to a film? #Somonka #PoemReview
runamokprods
Almost 20 years later, Assays returns to his own adolescence, which he examined expertly in 1994's "Cold Water". As if to make it clear that he is coming full circle the main character (clearly based on Assayas himself), and one of the key supporting characters bear the same screen names as their counterparts in "Cold Water". This grew on me considerably on 2nd viewing. Because I knew not to expect a straight- forward plot, but something much more episodic and tonal, I stopped focusing on the story, and took in all the details, and the mood. I found the film much funnier the second time, catching Assayas' gentle mocking of the over seriousness of these petite-bourgeois youth, at the same time that he captures the sad beauty in adolescence's naiveté and out sized passions. "Something in the Air" focuses on politics, art and sex, taking place 3 years after the May 1968 riots, as the high school kids of that moment try to live in the spirit of revolution that was already starting to fade into factionalism (some of the film's best humor documents the absurdly intense rivalries between groups who mostly share common goals, and the insane parsing of every word and idea to examine if it was the 'right' thing to foment revolution). There are some truly great sequences. An early scene of the kids battling the cops is exciting, raw and immersive. And there's a sequence at a party that's pretty breathtaking. Throughout, Assayas uses perfect music from the period, without using the same 6 songs every film about the late 60s/early 70s seem to fall back on. If the film isn't quite a masterpiece it is touching, funny and worthwhile work from one of the most interesting voices making films right now, one who can go from the near operatic "Carlos" to the quiet and intimate "Summer Hours", bringing each their own unique style. Assays is a true auteur, but he hasn't let that trap him into a single style or tone.
tieman64
"The uncomfortable truth of the matter is that if there is no future for a radical mass movement in our time, there will be no future for humanity, because the extermination of humanity is the ultimate concomitant of capital's destructive course of development." - Ivan Meszaros "The majority is always on the side of routine and immobility, so much is it unenlightened, encrusted and apathetic. Those who do not want to move forward are the enemies of those who do, and unhappily it is the mass which persists stubbornly in never budging at all." - Gracchus Babeuf Olivier Assayas dedicated a 2005 Cahiers Du Cinema article to the widow of Guy Debord, the famous French Marxist philosopher. In the article, Assayas discusses the post 1968 revolutionary vanguard and his involvement in it. Assayas' films have themselves become increasingly political, moving from trashy meditations on global capitalism ("Boarding Gate", "Demonlover", "Summer Hours") to bio-pics on political terrorists (2010's "Carlos").Inferior to all these films is Assayas' "Something in the Air". Evocative of Bresson's "The Devil Probably", Godard's "Le Chinoise", Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point", Bertolucci's "Dreamers"/"Before the Revolution" and Fassbinder's "The Third Generation", the film watches as a student named Gilles finds himself caught up in the political turmoils of 1960s-70s France.Like most of the aforementioned films, "Something in the Air" is about political disengagement. Whilst radicals, students and workers take to the streets, young Gilles heads off into other directions. But Gilles doesn't simply disengage from politics, but sees such disengagement as the ultimate manifestation of his own free-will, freedom of expression and personal identity. This "identity" is mostly aligned to sex, wistful longings for past lovers, paintings, a desire for celebrity and trashy B movies involving Nazis and dinosaurs. For Gilles, activist movements impose their wills, doctrines and mantras too forcefully upon him. They leave no room for deviation, which Gilles, an artist, finds constricting."Something in the Air's" Gilles character was based on the defining years of Assayas' own adolescence. Early scenes watch as he mingles with radical film-makers (resembling Godard's Dziga Vertov Group), whilst others see him drawn to both the romance of revolution and the revolution of modern romance. But he's unable to commit to either, interested only in dabbling in things in the spirit of youthful experiment. Assayas encapsulates Gilles' personality early by having him scratch an "anarchist" symbol whilst a teacher delivers a lecture on orthodox Marxist history. The point? Gilles is his own man. An individualist! Assayas doesn't condemn or praise this, but the film nevertheless makes it clear that the "thing in the air" has shifted from breathless excitement to nothing less than the death of radicalism, the next generation torn between solidarity and personal ambition, selflessness and self-obsession. As French philosopher Regis Debray would say: "the Great Day has been and gone." 7/10 – Like Bruno Dumont's "Hadewijch", Assayas' film owes too much to Bresson's "The Devil Probably". See too Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy". Worth one viewing.
Laura B
I was excited for this film as it started. I could genuinely feel the angst and tension as they rioted and was eager to learn why and root for them or at least watch them engage in something passion-driven. Long story short, despite this being the least clear/focused/pointed film I've seen in a decade, how&why I forced myself to finish it is the only real mystery. It felt longer than most six hour trilogies, than twelve hour miniseries all watched in one marathon take, than reading War and Peace which while grueling at least had meaning and moved me. Save yourself. If you feel it slipping, not gripping you, don't waste your time. Once it starts losing focus it never comes back. I even rewound it a few times to be sure I hadn't missed anything as my mind inevitably felt like I was on opiates, not the film's experimental lost souls.Before the first thirty minutes were over, I was feeling TIRED. How I went from energetic and engaged to feeling like someone was looping a distorted electric guitar note as people walked, sat, stared blankly, showed each other random "art" for praise, discussed anarchy in the most tedious, passion-void way imaginable, and drilled more dull monotonous drivel into my ears than I ever should have accepted-I had thirty other choices on hand AND the web for thirty thousand more, yet I devoted two criminally slow hours to it and left entirely unfulfilled-annoyed that this director took beautiful scenery and great filters to NOTHING meaningful, inspiring, or insightful. I felt a sheer void-like they'd tossed a year of brain-slowing medication in me and caused my own neurons to feel slurred in moving signals across synapses. I felt mentally drunk as if I'd just given the brain devotion I'd expect solid art to deserve-concentration similar to when I perform music or use higher mathematics to solve complex problems or even the level to assess and respond to social input and inquiry with reverence for others and ideally some depth--only to have drab and dreary versions of Teletubbies fed to me. Maybe there is some point beyond how trite, confident, undeservedly self-assured and ultimately stupid we tend to be, especially as teenagers. Maybe I wasted two hours watching them ultimately jack off to their own egos which only affirms the bad traits of humanity without granting an ounce of resolve that great films usually have or at least PRODUCE (the characters can find no resolve but still be meaningful to the audience, but these were just wealthy bratty white French youth spoiled and too like entitled Americans I cringe at too often--nothing in this film I can't find browsing deviantart and reading comments on Ron Paul related videos-was THAT why I chose it, to put a pretty set of faces on apathetic rich kids without any real hardship and with no real conviction either, to see another set of conformists who rebel together to fit in?) I guess my real issue is that in highlighting the morally decrepit youth here, this film never bothers to show distress beyond knowing what career path or what girl or guy to sleep wit-poor babies. So many films out there genuinely move me-from all places and mindsets and languages come brilliant works. Clearly the guy can shoot something very pretty. I wish he'd make a greater effort to share something very rich, evocative, conflict-bearing, etc. As is I cannot stand the idea of more pretty nothings with bland speech and bland vague jump-around story lines that never give me what an issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine can't provide.(I put the disclaimer in case someone may be frustrated at anything I've included about what I got from it or more aptly did not get, but I don't think this film can exactly be spoiled unless you totally feel it is wrecked when someone tells you generic dude is with a blah girl them follows other generic dude to Italy and shacks up with blah girl two because other blah girl left him for older generic dude in London-it lacks a story so what's to spoil besides your hope of it being enchanting?)
