Reprise

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Damien
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Post by Damien »

Precious Doll wrote:I have no idea what the reaction from critics in the US has been to Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven but if it's the same as the international response it's in with a chance too.
I was thinking the same thing about Edge of Heaven, Precious. I just saw it todayand althought it's just a tiny bit too schematic, it's a beautiful, clear-eyed, intelligent and affecting film.
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Post by Precious Doll »

Given that 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days was not eligible for any prizes from the New York Film Critics last year, it's the most likely winner of the Foreign Language Film Prize for 2008.

Subject to release dates Laurent Cantet's Entre les murs or Abdel Kechiche's La Graine et le Mulet (aka The Secret of the Grain or Couscous) could very well give 4 Months a run for it's money awards wise.

I have no idea what the reaction from critics in the US has been to Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven but if it's the same as the international response it's in with a chance too.

I'm surprised at the response to Reprise. I saw the film some time ago and don't remember, or for that matter care to remember, anything about the wretched thing. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing a decent film from Norway since the very late 1990's (Junk Mail & Elling come to mind).
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Post by rain Bard »

It may be a long shot choice for critics' prizes, but I think enough are likely to think of it as a slightly stale property (it debuted at Sundance a year and a half ago) that something picked up for year-end distribution at the recent Cannes or upcoming Venice is more likely to get named.

My favorite scene in Reprise was the parade, an outstanding bit that set the stage for the rest of what happens in the film. Otherwise I was fairly lukewarm on it and its hipster-pitched tone.
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Post by Mister Tee »

It's disheartening, and surprising, that the film flared out so quickly, despite overall very good reviews (which got me there) and especial boosts from Manohla Dargis and Roeper and whichever sidekick he had that week.

It's obviously early, but I'd say the film has to be the leading contender for the NY Critics' foreign film prize -- unless they, like the Academy, forget things as the year goes on.
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Post by Sabin »

You're right but I can let that slide.

I yearn for 'Reprise' to find acceptance, niche, and favor amongst youths.
"How's the despair?"
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Post by Mister Tee »

The scene you reference, meeting Dahl at the event and having the moment ruined, is, I think, the most universally heart-rending in the film. You can feel him wanting to scream "No; I'm not like this careerist asshole -- your work MEANS something to me". On the other hand, the character is plenty thoughtless in other areas of his life, so it's almost deflected karma.

Conversely, I'd say the one thing that really doesn't work for me in the film is the way his boorish friend and the publishing lady fall into bed. "If they argue alot, they must want to bone real bad" is a dreadful cliche (and not true enough in real life, at least in my experience).
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Post by Sabin »

I've finally gotten around to writing something about this joyous film.

"I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies - thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us."
D.H. Lawrence

There are few phrases in the lexicon that conjure such wistfulness as "the follies of youth". Much has been written of it being wasted on the young and its haunting capacity for too much or too little in its due time. And yet the most joyous films about youth often times have an overwhelming sorrow to them even as they unravel unpresuming. Reprise is one of those films, a gloriously alive treatise on living in the past or the future in lieu of the moment. Neither Philip nor Erick who set out to change the world with their writing entirely make that connection by the film's end, but their quest for idealized literary revolution is perverted and they find themselves in a new world with many years spent in a place of their dreams that does not exist.

The film begins much as it ends, with early twentysomethings Philip and Erick on the brink of dropping off their manuscripts for submission; and not unlike those tumbling envelopes, writer/director Joachim Trier deviates into a world where Erick has second thoughts, and the film falls into prelude, a rapid-fire reshuffling of what is to come and how it is affected by this decision. We are given the entire movie before the credits, more or less, only this one doesn't happen. Why does Trier indulgently segue like this? Because sweetly indulgent maybes are what make up Philip and Erick's lives. We begin with the world that might have been and we end with the world that might have been. They are both the future imperfect even though they have not happened and they are already in the past. The follies of youth...

Erick does submit his manuscript and it is rejected, whereas the far less level-headed Philip's is accepted and burdened by success, falls into a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt that even the love of a beautiful woman (Viktoria Winge's Kari, in the film's most beautiful performance) cannot salvage. Erick is there to pick up his pieces six months later and bring him back home but Philip finds he cannot write. Instead, Philip spends most of his time focusing on his relationship with Kari who cannot understand why he is so shrewd about their possible future together. Instead, quite masochistically and not incidentally recalling Vertigo, Philip brings Kari to Paris, not to rekindle their relationship to be rewrite it as painstaking in detail as a Kubrick film. In the film's saddest moment, he forces her to pose exactly how she did even though it is not a remotely comfortable pose.

Whereas Philip is drawn to recreating the past, Erick continues to write for the future and gets a work published that may not live up to the expectations he has drawn for himself. Already, he keeps everybody at an arm's length including his girlfriend with whom he has already long-since made plans to break up with. He surrounds himself with boorish friends because he can elevate his sense of superiority but also because they are safe and even as his career threatens to take off through the stratosphere, he maintains his status quo as if he is biding time until he becomes the legend he thinks he is. Ironically in his most singularly tragic moment, he meets a legendarily reclusive Norwegian author at a function, a moment he has dreamt of all his life, and he is in the company of one of his friends who renders Erick a boob in the legend's mind through association.

Reprise isn't the first movie to focus on the pain of youthful artists but it is the first one in a long time to warrant such an indulgent pastiche. The lessons conveyed in Reprise aren't incredibly deep but rather imminently relatable, and Trier directs his film with such energy and panache. Reprise slips in and out of time (and tense) so that we are never entirely sure if what we are watching is happening now or years prior in the case of Philip and Kari's Parisian excursion. It is a sad film ultimately but one that feels as alive and not just in the moment but in all moments, just like the characters.

There is something very telling about the fim's poster with Philip staring ahead presumably at nothing (or it is the future) out of focus, with Kari staggered behind him, gazing at him concerned, and very much in focus.
"How's the despair?"
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