Eric Atlan's dopey doppelganger movie, MORTEM -- in gorgeous black-and-white

I have noted elsewhere (but feel it bears repeating) that when the French get pretentious, none -- and I mean no one -- can outdo them. A particularly grand example of that pretention can be found in MORTEM, directed and co-written (with Marie-Claude Dazun) by Eric Atlan, and which I originally viewed during a Film Comment Selects series back in 2012.

When he first saw this film, TrustMovies imagined M. Atlan, shown at left, to be a young filmmaker. This is not quite the case. Still, why else would Atlan, he wondered, waste our time with such a silly and obvious story about a pretty woman on a motorcycle whose sort-of doppelgänger/double begins interacting with her at a very odd hotel in the provinces where the staff is weird and the guests even weirder?

Did I ask why? Well, for the hot lesbian sex scene that grounds the middle of the movie, of course.

Otherwise, this is a Philosophy/Religion/Psychology 101 crash-course that plays its hand far too soon and then has really nowhere to go. However, young film audiences may very well groove on this "new" idea about the "other" that they've not yet seen (as have we older folk) many times before. At least from Daughters of Darkness onwards.

Young folk may also love the fact that, like The Artist and the more recent Blancanieves, this movie has been filmed in that exciting new process known as black-and-white cinematography (by M. Atlan himself, and the photography is indeed quite beautiful). In fact, for those who love crisp, clear and gorgeous variations of black, white and gray, the movie is worth seeing for these alone.

Mortem, though made in 2010, opens here at last, via R Squared, in Manhattan at the Quad Cinema this Friday, April 26. You can see further playdates, with personal appearances, by clicking here.

SPECIAL TREAT: Director Eric Atlan will be present for a Q&A 

 following the 7:10pm show at the Quad on Friday, 04/26.

In Ty Hodges' YOU, ME & THE CIRCUS, love, lust and subtext battle to the death

A suggestion to the editors of all dictionaries published henceforth: When searching for an example of the word pretentious, look no farther than the straight-to-digital movie "musical," YOU, ME & THE CIRCUS -- one massive, unforgettable lollapalooza of pretension. From the opening circus "number" (TrustMovies uses that word loosely) -- during which the goddamn camera can't stay still, the reason being, as you'll soon figure out, that these performers are not really all that good at anything they are supposed to perform (songs, dances, acrobatics) and so all that camera movement and editing is meant to somehow stand in for legitimate talent -- to the "story" of one couple's love gone astray, even as another's never materializes, everything on view and within audible range is ploddingly, numbingly awful.

This is not necessarily the fault of the performers, either, as I have seen several of them previouly do good work. I hate to pile all the blame on just one fellow, but as the film was co-written (with Marlon Olivierre) and directed by Ty Hodges, who also has a starring role in the movie, I'm afraid that Mr. Hodges, shown at right, must shoulder the lion's share. The plot, such as it is, concerns two male and two female best friends, one female of which is about to break up with one male. She goes to his apartment to give him back the key, and there we stay for 96 minutes of whining and worrying, name- calling, and a little sex.

What makes all this so pretentious is that Misters Hodges and Olivierre have decided to intercut it with scenes that take place in this "cosmic" circus, above, where, according to the press release, "the subtext of each character's emotions are revealed." Hello, guys? Do you know the meaning of the word "subtext"? Because, for me at least, both the text and subtext here all looked pretty much alike. In any case, these circus scenes, usually set as musical numbers, don't give us much that's original or interesting.

Worse, the musical "interludes," with their especially bum lyrics, are mostly a chore to sit through. You keep waiting for them to end, but then, when they do, you're only back again with these boring, tiresome people. Most b&t of all is an actress I've previously enjoyed -- Anita Briem (above, right) -- as the whiny, obnoxious young woman who's breaking up with her guy. The screenplay gives her little of intelligence to speak, and so our interest goes to her guy, played with his shirt (and sometimes more) off almost throughout the film by the hunky Matt Dallas (above, left and below), who, along with Ms Briem, provides eye candy aplenty.

The other couple -- played by Melonie Diaz and Mr. Hodges -- at least have more interesting stuff to chat about, but the whiff of misogyny hangs over the movie rather heavily. Ms Diaz begins the film by literally hitting Mr Hodges with her car. Does she apologize, or even seem to feel sorry about this? Nope. Together with Briem's rather constant attitude of bitchiness, the women do not come off well, particularly when set against the two just-regular guys who act like they only want to connect with a nice girl and make her happy. Sure.

With the arrival of a pair of supposed policemen (Marlon Wayans and Columbus Short) things move from the merely prosaic to the really dumb. I am probably being far too hard on a little failed movie and its movie-makers who undoubtedly imagine that they are trying something different -- which we critics always claim to appreciate. But this isn't really "different." Instead it simply shows the lack of maturity and perspective our filmmakers possess.

This lack is not a deal-breaker regarding an entire career, as growth is always possible. But it is, so far as this particular film is concerned.  You, Me & The Circus is available now from GoDigital via all major digital platforms.

Johan Grimonprez's documentary DOUBLE TAKE explores Hitchcock and the "other"

Wow: a doc devoted to the master of suspense, "doubles," doppelgangers, doodling and... Donald Rumsfeld? Sure, why not? And while we're at it, Hitch's TV shows, their Folger commercials, birds, identity, paranoia, the Cold War and film-making itself. Sounds delectable, enticing? Don't get your hopes up.

For awhile DOUBLE TAKE functions as intelligent fun, forcing us to make connections fast and furiously, verbally and visually. It's all about twosomes in Hitchcock's work. Similar motifs in different movies. Birds airborne in The Birds and on the wall in Psycho. East meets west, and Soviet/U.S. competition. What has the Nixon/Kruschev "Kitchen debate" to do with those Folger coffee commercials (above) from Hitch's old TV series? You'll find out. (Seeing snippets of his fabulous introductions to those shows make one long once again for his humor, wit, and nonpareil presentation.)

And through it all runs this really rather nitwit story of the tale that Hitch is supposed to have told about meeting his own double and realizing that he would have to kill him -- or be killed. This is so silly and finally so tiresome that it's hard to imagine Mr. Hitchcock himself putting up with anything like this in his own films for more than maybe twenty second of screen time. Yet the filmmaker here, one Johan Grimonprez, at right, insists on returning to it again and again, as though he had discovered some Holy Grail.  Worse, he films it all in a manner that is boring and pretentious. TrustMovies can only imagine what Hitch himself would have had to say about that.

Grimonprez is intent on putting it all together for us -- while making sure that we do the heavy lifting. What he has done is to stick the puzzle pieces in front of us and ask us to do the jigsaw. But gosh, a number of those pieces are either missing or don't fit -- or don't matter: There may be a lot of extra pieces on the table, too, prob-
ably from some other puzzle he plans to make use of some day. Whatever.

The movie is full of double takes: from Hitch and Kruschev (both jocular, rotund and balding), to a portly fellow (above) who really does resemble Alfred, to 9/11 and an earlier airplane crash into the Empire State Building. For awhile all of this appears endlessly fascinating until you finally say, So what? Then it all begins to seem endlessly repetitive. M. Grimonprez is best, it turns out, at trying our patience. But, gosh it's good to see Hitch once again. And if this documentary sends anyone back to the master's films themselves, so much the better.

Double Take opens Wednesday, June 2, at Film Forum for a two-week run. Bring your own double (if you can find her or him).  But don't expect twice the fun.