Keep It for Yourself
Jun. 16th, 2019 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhen the New Yorker published an article about A Claire Denis Car Commercial, Rescued from Obscurity, I was delighted - not so much with the film, but with the concomitant discovery of Le Cinema Club, a website which streams one film each week for free. A peek through the list of past films make it look like they showcase a deliciously wide variety; I’ll have to be sure to check in from time to time to see what they’ve got.
As for this particular forty-minute car commercial? If I were the car company that paid Claire Denis to make a long-form car commercial, and Denis returned to me a forty-minute film about a French girl moving to New York City to be with her boyfriend and somehow ending up with the guy that the boyfriend forces to drive a car as he steals it from a lot, I would have Strong Words about the stunning lack of car in the movie. We never even find out the make and model!
The plot is not a big selling point for this movie either; it’s interesting instead as a sort of slice-of-life picture of New York City in the early nineties. The film is dedicated “to Sara,” and I had just a moment to think “Wait, could it be…?” before the next screen thanks (among others) Sara Driver as an “inspiration booster,” so yes, it is that Sara.
Sara Driver was a member of the Downtown art movement (last year I saw Driver’s documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat that is also, more loosely, about the cultural scene that created that movement), and Denis’s film functions as a sort of offshoot of that movement: the long panning shots of the city streets, the stylish black-and-white cinematography, the interest in the city’s diversity. The heroine is a French immigrant; the extras come from all races and backgrounds; the heroine’s eventual love interest is Hispanic, and I think there’s something pointed about the fact that the car thief is a white guy while the man he threatens into driving the stolen car is a man of color.
Would I recommend the movie? I don’t know. It’s such an odd little film. But it’s only going to be available online for a week before it slips back into the gloaming (Denis thought the film totally lost till a Japanese VHS version turned up), so if you want to see it, get it while it’s hot.
As for this particular forty-minute car commercial? If I were the car company that paid Claire Denis to make a long-form car commercial, and Denis returned to me a forty-minute film about a French girl moving to New York City to be with her boyfriend and somehow ending up with the guy that the boyfriend forces to drive a car as he steals it from a lot, I would have Strong Words about the stunning lack of car in the movie. We never even find out the make and model!
The plot is not a big selling point for this movie either; it’s interesting instead as a sort of slice-of-life picture of New York City in the early nineties. The film is dedicated “to Sara,” and I had just a moment to think “Wait, could it be…?” before the next screen thanks (among others) Sara Driver as an “inspiration booster,” so yes, it is that Sara.
Sara Driver was a member of the Downtown art movement (last year I saw Driver’s documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat that is also, more loosely, about the cultural scene that created that movement), and Denis’s film functions as a sort of offshoot of that movement: the long panning shots of the city streets, the stylish black-and-white cinematography, the interest in the city’s diversity. The heroine is a French immigrant; the extras come from all races and backgrounds; the heroine’s eventual love interest is Hispanic, and I think there’s something pointed about the fact that the car thief is a white guy while the man he threatens into driving the stolen car is a man of color.
Would I recommend the movie? I don’t know. It’s such an odd little film. But it’s only going to be available online for a week before it slips back into the gloaming (Denis thought the film totally lost till a Japanese VHS version turned up), so if you want to see it, get it while it’s hot.
