grayspike

Thanks to the miracle of DVDs, I recently watched a couple of movies which had me wondering how far our skills in film making have eroded.

Both movies are French. A Very Long Engagement and Triplets of Belleville. The first is based on a novel, the second a feature-length cartoon Im guessing derived from Looney Tunes drenched in mescal.

Had A Very Long Engagement been an American production, it wouldve been a very bad picture.

With World War One as its backdrop, the story reveals undying love. A womans fianc is reported to have been executed for desertion. Official notification aside, she is skeptical. Determined to disprove the news, she instinctively searches for a man who should be dead.

Her quest exhibits her own fortitude as well as exposes mankinds ignobility during combat.

First the obvious. An American version wouldnt have presented a crippled heroine. Wartime deprivations notwithstanding, that chick wouldve been wholesome on the way to Vogue beautiful. Although we ourselves arent even close, we like the people representing us to be perfect.

Second, Americans at war are often portrayed as gallant. There are no valiant shirkers. No way we wouldve bought the nobility of reluctance or doubt of the just cause.

Especially now.

An American version of A Very Long Engagement wouldve been crowded with explosions and artfully riddled bodies. So much so it mightve diluted the effect of the horror and carnage. That couldve rendered the intent as hollow as George Bush speechifying about valor.

Other peoples certainly.

Triplets of Belleville also deals with love, loss and retrieval. But since its animated, there are fewer ambiguities.

The cartoons director decided to maximize the fun by exaggerating his countrymens quirks. Every nationality possesses them though usually these are mocked by strangers.

I leave it to others to decide whether magnifying such traits issue from high esteem or self-loathing. We Americans come in for a share of ridicule, too. Were projected as aimless, listless, corpulent, goggle-eyed human parade balloons.

Both the above movies are good examples of what the actress Isabelle Huppert claimed typical of French movies: subtlety and complexity.

A Very Long Engagement and Triplets of Belleville are two imports our studios are better off shying away from remaking. In our hands each would likely become another piece of mindlessly gorgeous crap.