Clouds of Sils Maria (2015)

Wonderful Movie

Captivating movie !

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I ask relatively little of movies, but do expect to be entertained, informed or stimulated intellectually in a meaningful way.That said, I agree with other reviewers who consider this to be a self-indulgent film, apparently only about acting, by and for actors. Neither the plot nor the characters are compelling or even interesting. Therefore, the claimed subtlety, sophistication and excellence of the screenplay and acting are not apparent since I'm not engaged enough to care. In short, it is uninteresting, unimportant and unmemorable (Bo-ring).A movie is like a song. The music draws me in, and only then the words or message become of interest. Without appealing sound I could usually care less about possibly interesting content. Clouds of Sils Maria lacks the music.

Did the director of this movie have a plan when he built this pretentious and "décousue" story? Like most French movies that pretend to be artistic this one is terribly boring and one wonders why the writer/ director has Miss Binoche burst into laughing other than using Miss Binoche's famous laugh. Is this movie a story about ageing actresses or a biography of Juliette Binoche? We get it, actresses have personal assistans and photographers and pretend to live a glamorous life. The only thing interesting in this pitiful movie was the comparison of the ageing actress with the clouds that predict bad weather in the Alps chain. The actress is so into her role that she becomes her character, at the beginning Binoche looks attractive with beautiful hair and when she is rehearsing for her role she has short hair and a duller complexion and looks older. Although I did not enjoy the movie I watched it to the end, sometimes fastforwarding to make it less painful and to see if there was another point to the movie...but no...

To begin, this film is pretentious twaddle. Full of the kind of cultural self-congratulation that has disfigured so many weightless French films in recent years. Ten lines of text for a review of this bland and boring dog's breakfast? Not worth your time or mine to continue. But, according to IMDb's guidelines, I must go on. The director's attempts to set up little mysteries here and there with hanging plot-lines are ineffective to dispel the film's stifling air of inconsequentiality. He also trots out a number of special effects, with the occasional aim, I suppose, of showing a character's mental or emotional state. It is all rather pointless. This swamps whatever gifts of characterization the actresses try to bring to their roles. (The actors, by the way, rarely rise above the level of the so-so, and are soon forgotten.) But don't take my word for all this: go to Richard Brody's review in the New Yorker issue of April 16, 2015. There he lays out, for all to read, the film's many mediocrities.

The only reason to judge it as "intelligent" is so you, are your cliquey buddies, can feel superior to the riff-raff.If you read between the lines of the other reviews you'll understand what you're letting yourself in for with this bore-fest (translations provided).* It's "European" so has to be judged differently (it's all arty and no plot or action - and I'm European).* It is an "intelligent" film (we don't get it either but we pretend we do so can feel superior - my IQ is in the top 0.05% of the population so I'm not thick,just don't like rubbish)* Each person brings their own interpretation (we don't know what's really happening either but can discuss ad nauseam what it means to "us").* It has juxtapositions of scenes that take a little to adjust to (the editing is deliberately awkward to detract from the nonsense).* A meditation on fame, acting, aging, and acceptance, "Clouds" is a multilayered rapture on the subject of woman, performing (I can only marvel at this bit of utter drivel).* The director's longtime fans will find its pleasures virtually pornographic (more pretentious than the last piece of rubbish will give you more to pseudointellectually analyse).* A haunting film by Olivier Assayas about art, time, and irony (it's just full of art, time and the only irony is it's the blind arty types that can't see that).* Clouds Of Sils Maria. swirls with provocative ideas, but they're talked about more than dramatized (just about sums it up).All I'm trying to do is warn you what you're getting yourself in for, so if you're seeking pretentious nonsense to impress your Guardian reading metropolitan buddies then you've scored.