Film Review
Karim Dridi's follow up to his critically acclaimed urban drama
Khamsa
(2008) is an altogether different kind of work, a sprawling blockbuster
adventure-romance which, whilst visually stunning, lacks the passion,
intensity and inspired touch of the director's previous work. The
film stars Marion Cotillard (her first French film since her
Oscar-winning apprearance in the Piaf biopic
La
Môme) and Guillaume Canet, who are romantically linked
in real-life, although you would hardly guess that from their evident
lack of chemistry in this film. Cotillard and Canet had
previously appeared together in the off-the-wall romantic comedy
Jeux d'enfants (2003).
The film is a faithful
adaptation of the 2003 novel
Le Dernier Vol de Lancaster by the French journalist
Sylvain Estibal, which was inspired by the true story of Bill Lancaster
and his fiancée Chubbie Miller. The story certainly has the potential to make a sublime piece
of cinema but Dridi's adaptation is too mechanical, too classical for
his film to convey anything like the power and bleak romanticism of
Estibal's novel. The stilted dialogue and shallow
characterisation thwart Cotillard and Canet's best efforts, so no
wonder their performances are little more than lacklustre.
Throughout, the film can't help looking like a pale imitation of
Anthony Minghella's
The English Patient (1996).
For all its failings,
Le Dernier vol
still has one trump card - its breathtaking visual design.
Antoine Monod's cinematography is a feast for both the eyes and the soul, particularly in
the film's second half when it captures with a blistering intensity the
immense power and beauty of the desert location. The desert
becomes a key component in the drama, not just a pretty backdrop but a
protagonist that exerts a strange malevolence and sinister charm.
After a painful hour-long crawl, the film virtually redeems itself in
its last twenty minutes or so, as Dridi's flair for visual poetry
exerts itself and transforms a bland piece of melodrama into something
far more unsettling and profound.
© James Travers 2010
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Film Synopsis
French Sahara, 1933. Having set out to find the man she loves, an
aviator who went missing during an attempted flight from London to Cape
Town, Marie Vallières de Beaumont is forced to land her biplane
near to an outpost of the French Camel Corps. Here she meets
Antoine Chauvet, a lieutenant who is in conflict with his
superiors. Faced with Marie's determination, Antoine knows that
he has no choice but to help her in her desperate quest. The
unforgiving desert landscape presents a formidable ordeal, but in the
course of their mission Marie and Antoine discover a truth they could
not have expected...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.