After The Summit of the Gods which had been noticed in our columns As in Annecy last year, it would seem that the air of the mountain and the virtues of mountaineering inspired more than one after months of confinement, recaptured in Paris. Let's not go four ways, The Mountain has everything a Parisian film, directed by a Parisian, designed for Parisians. After Vincent has no scales, The Mountain is the second feature film by Thomas Salvador, where he camps the role of Pierre, an unworked character in search of meaning. Doublely awarded the jury prize as a critic to Gérardmer, the film did not know provided convince your two reporters, caught up in the most sincere boredom. Video explanation of a film missing the tick, between city clichés, product placements and praise of the slowness to the benefit of boredom alone.
Our criticism of The Mountain
The hallucinated mountains
Pierre is a Parisian engineer and travels to the Alps for his work. "Irresistibly attracted to the mountains, he settled a bivouac at altitude and decided not to go down again" breaking with work and his old life. Up there he met Lea (Louise Bourgoin) and discovers mysterious glows. This is the synopsis of the film that will not evolve from an iota. Apart from the fact that the fantastic bias is invoked in a very clumsy way, The Mountain sink into an endless slowness. A platitude of all time, this silent character who only lines hollow words - after long moments of embarrassed silence - left us with marble. A regret all the more marked as Brice and I are above all passionate about alpine escapes. A peak for the pyrenean wolf and the inveterate walker who sleeps in me.
If Gérardmer's 2023 selection was widely authorized, one can validly question the relevance of the jury's prize and the criticism in the context of a festival dedicated to the fantastic first thing. The latter is used almost to counter-use with a metaphor barely veiled of the imperative need to "reload its batteries" in a society in which the constant speed and the loss of meaning every day renewed by the alienation to the desired work as useless by essence in our atomized societies. While critics often like to see poetry in the hollow of words, the minimalism of the film serves its purpose with a concern both of writing and of incarnation of an ordinary character and inherently terribly boring.
Do you win the mountain?
What about these insipid dialogues that sound false and these secondary characters as charismatic as PNGs of a bad RPG poorly doubled? If you don't misunderstand, contemplative films can be fascinating, but La Montagne does not belong to this category or to road movie. Far from the splendor of the evocative power of a Paris Texas, the film is sinning by its academicism in terms of formal realization as well as of narrative as a telefilm to French. It is sometimes felt that the film follows a decathlon brochure in terms of script. From the Quechua tent to the Millet bag and Scarpa shoes, everything goes in terms of product placements. It's all the more amusing that the critics who praised the film would be the first to denounce this type of practice in a Hollywood film if it were Coca Cola or any other brand of great capital.
From an inertia to any test (even when it comes to embarking on an expedition), it is more like seeing Pierre operate in an amusement park around the few tourist stands in the Alps, rather than a real escape. From the shopping list, to the café and the shoe-washing, every scene of life with Louise Bourgoin confuses poetry of ordinary and daily scumbags. Only one scene was missing. slow sex who fortunately has been spared us... One cliché to another, the film is rooted in inextricable slowness for almost two hours. That's endless. Don't rely on his trailer that crushes you with praise to qualify The Mountain. It is like wine: when there is written "superior quality"on the label, there is a lie about the merchandise...
Thomas Salvador, director and actor
Both filmmaker, screenwriter and actor in his own films, he first directed six short films, awarded at many festivals. His first feature film, Vincent has no scales, released in 2015. His second film The Mountain won the jury and critic prize for the thirtieth edition of Gérardmer's festival.
Filmography
- 2022 The Mountain
- 2014 Vincent has no scales
Trailer of The Mountain
Subscribe
Connection
0 Remarks
oldest
