Humanity

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11/27/2013 year s/b 1999 not 1998 c'mon people let's get it together See more 12/03/2009 Now this is one of the more effective movies you will ever see. All because of two images you will probably never see in an American production let alone elsewhere. Philospher-turned filmmaker Bruno Dumont shocked the world with his second film that is long and tedious, yet captivating and masterful. The story is about Pharaon De Winter, the police superintendent of a small French town. Right from the get-go he is running away from something. He has witnessed something awful and this image will haunt him throughout the duration of the film. He is investigating the rape-murder of an 11-year-old girl. Dumont doesn't hesitate with this material. He gives it to us raw and directly, graphic images of the cadaver affect us as an audience as well as our already vulnerable main character. Pharaon awkwardly lives his normal life as well as his police life while trying to deal with these images. He is a shy man, a man who has love to give to his friend Domino, who is sexually active with her boyfriend Joseph. These three form the triangle of main characters and it is their actions we follow, however Pharaon is the main star of the film. Many people will be bored to death of this film. Mainly because their perceptions are not ready for what they are about to experience with this film. It is a neat introduction to Bruno Dumont's style and his direct approach to everything. Long shots of nothing represent everything, it is a very demanding movie. And those who can manage to sit through the 2 and a half hour runtime while getting something valuable out of the plot and overall message will not be disappointed. This is a magnificent film in that it shocks and leaves its audience in awe. See more 06/27/2009 Painfully long and slow, the idea of it works, but it's not entertaining as a movie. See more 06/27/2009 Painfully long and slow, the idea of it works, but it's not entertaining as a movie. See more 03/18/2009 Dumont is a philosopher and film-maker, but not a cinephile, so the tempo of the film is more likely down to his own "genuflections to ontology" than any Tarkovskian influence. The combination of astounding realist performances from non-actors, commensurate to the oddity of Dumont's characters, written half-formed and surreal, has the somnambulistic effect of bringing us closer to their reflection on horror and its relation to care (the being of Dasein) than to their factual predicament. The plot is sparse and quite as realist, while the film-making technique is formalist and quite fine. Probably better enjoyed in the cinema for this reason. Pharaon's bicycle ride is breathtaking. The film demands a meditative stance from the viewer, and it needs to wash over you, rather than be interrogated hermeneutically. It demands patience and an openness to experience. It probably helps to have, or to have known someone who has, seen a death, particularly of such horror, in order to pick up how effectively the film does capture humanity. Dumont does not make films "to entertain", but to provoke. This is a suitable goal, because I don't think he has it in him to entertain. The man spent ten years filming charts and graphs, CEO speeches, production lines, factory machines. He has a great formal skill, and has exercised his ontological muscles enough to find the emotion in the experience of seeing a mechanical operation. Good art? Yes, "a provocative, if slightly puzzling experience." Not fun. See more 03/11/2009 The portentous title should have been a clue, but good god, watching nothing happen for 2h 20 minutes (even when interspersed with occasional vaginal close ups) must try the patience of even the most devout arthouse beardstroker. It's not that it's badly done, it's just... why do it at all? I guess 'cos it's a lot easier to make this than it is Die Hard. See more Read all reviews

Humanity

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