Film Review
Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy are definitely three names
to watch out for, judging by this, their first spirited foray into
cinema.
L'Iceberg has
to be one of the most original film comedies in decades, a bizarre
excursion into surreal burlesque absurdity which feels like a quaint
homage to the comedy giants of the silent era (Chaplin and Keaton in
particular) but is so much more: a love story, an epic adventure, an
existentialist fable...
Comédie
poétique is perhaps the most fitting epithet for this
beguiling and pretty unclassifiable cinematic oddity, but even that
seems hardly to do it justice.
L'Iceberg is not only
captivating, and frequently funny, it is also extremely daring - indeed
it is surprising that such an experimental film ever secured financial
backing, let alone found an enthusiastic audience so readily.
Taking its cue from the early silent comedies, most of the film
consists of static wide-shots within which the protagonists are
confined and compelled to generate all the activity to keep the film
alive and the audience interested. Most filmmaker's today
concentrate their effort on post-production - when editing and digital
effects offer so many possibilities, why waste time meticulously
preparing each individual shot? Abel, Gordon and Romy take
us to the other extreme, front-loading the effort so that what they
shoot is pretty much what we see - and the result feels refreshingly
honest and direct. The special effects that the team use appear
to be limited to some pretty basic back projection, which would have
looked terrible in any other film but works amazingly well here.
Much of the comedy has a deliciously dark hue to it, an acknowledgement
that life can be hard and, at times, pretty damn spiteful.
Fiona's quest for her identity comes about only after she has almost
frozen to death in a freezer and very nearly causes the death of the
two men who are closest to her, a hopelessly romantic (and generally
hopeless) husband and a deaf and dumb sailor. Fiona and
her husband find it virtually impossible to communicate with one another
(cue some very funny repeat gags) and yet their mutual dependency is
evident in just about every scene.
L'Iceberg expresses some very basic
human needs - the need for personal fulfilment, the need to be loved
and recognised, the need to feel that life means something - and it
does so by the unlikeliest route, via some pretty bizarre comic
flights of fancy. The film is a genuine cinematic innovation, and the
word has yet to be invented which can sum up its unique blend of charm and
magic. The best you can say is that it is a work of poetic
genius, and a highly entertaining one at that.
© James Travers 2012
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Fiona manages a fast-food restaurant in an average town and lives in an
average house, married to an average man. One evening, she
manages to lock herself in her restaurant's freezer room, and there she
must stay until she is let out the following morning. Not only
does Fiona survive the experience, it exhilarates her and arouses her
spirit for adventure. On the spur of the moment, she walks out on
her average husband and her two average children and heads for the
coast, where she meets up with a deaf and dumb sailor who instantly
falls in love with her. Just before Fiona and the sailor set out
on the latter's yacht, the abandoned husband turns up and pleads with
Fiona to return to him. Fiona knows she cannot go back, and so
begins her great adventure in the North Atlantic, on a little boat
named Le Titanique...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.