Heartbeats - Fail

Sorry for the much too long break! I didn't stop watching movies but I spent most of the time watching documentaries, not fictional movies. I struggle with getting documentaries into the bedchel test because the whole approach and set-up of them is so different. If anyone got any ideas of how to make documentaries fit the criteria or how to include them, please tell me!

I changed the way of the "formula" of the test, too. Hopefully it is a bit easier on the eyes now!

Title: Heartbeats

Original Title: Les Amours imaginaires

Genre: Drama /Romance/ (Comedy)

Country: Canada

Year: 2010

Director: Xavier Dolan

Starring: Xavier Dolan, Monia Chokri, Niels Schneider

Plot: The two friends Marie (Chokri) and Francis (Dolan) get to know Nicolas (Schneider) at a friends' dinner party and get along well. The next weeks they spend more and more time together, until they eventually both fall in love with him. While Nicolas is flirting heavily with both of them (or at least, this is how they perceive his actions - and any sane person would) they get more competitive and their friendship disintegrates. When they confess their love to Nicolas they are both rejected and are left in a horrible lonely state. Eventually Marie and Francis rekindle their friendship.

Bedchel Test:

At least 2 Women? Besides Marie there is Nicolas' mother, Marie's friends at the dinner party and several other girls at Nicolas' birthday party.

Talking? The only point where we get any women talking is at the dinner where Marie and Francis meet Nicolas for the first time.

...About something other than men? No. They're talking about Nicolas.

Opinion:

While the movie features almost no women at all, I don't hold it against this movie, because here it mostly makes sense. Heartbeats is less about love than it is about obsession. Marie and Francis are obsessed of the idea of being with Nicolas and therefor hardly talk about anything else and don't focus on anything else.

There are quite a few slow motion scenes of Nicolas, that might look ridiculous if you take them at face value, but if you recognize them as the idealised portrayal of two people obsessed with the idea of that "perfect being".

It's also interesting to note that the object that is "perfected" in their heads, that is superficialised and even partly reduced to his body (regarding the focus on his youthful beauty) is a man and not a woman. It was in interesting twist on the old-fashioned "femme fatale"theme.

I enjoyed the way that the sexuality of both was not put in question, that their lust and love for Nicolas was not portrayed in any different light "according" to their gender. There was one small thing that irked me, but it was put forward in an amusing way so I'm not critiquing it, just questioning it: In between the movie there are short sequences of men and women talking about their failed love affairs with (presumably) Nicolas. One man says the old and clichéd and still often heard assumption that being bisexual clearly means you're not able to decide between men and women, and that you must know! When you're in a supermarket you either look at penises or at breasts!

Obviously this assumption is not endorsed by the director or the film as such, but it's just put out there with no critique to it, either. It irks me because you get to hear this stuff so many times as a bisexual. The latter part irritated me the most, but maybe that's just me being strange: When I'm looking at people their sexual organs tend not the be the first or only thing I look at. Not to be going all "spiritual" on you, but I'm never ever attracted to someone, man or woman, if the person as whole doesn't fit together. Of course appearance is a big part of who someone is, but merely one part of that appearance? But hey, maybe that's just me not getting all horny by breasts or penises without bodies to go with them.

Back to the film: it had a very European vibe to it, and was clearly heavily influenced by French cinema. I'm not just talking about the characters' habit of constantly smoking but a lot of slow motions, long visual scenes with little direct "story content" to tell. I enjoyed that, especially because it seemed very consciously chosen and ironic. In the same way that these Francis-obsessed two people focusses so much on their appearance and small things (Francis hugging them! Francis being cute to them!, etc) the movie did, too. It was a great approach to make the viewpoints of the two characters more understandable.

All in all it's an enjoyable, amusing and definitely entertaining drama, that is less about love as it's about the tragic of peoples' obsession with it.

69/100

Verdict: Fail & Recommended

Holes - Fail

Holes (2003, USA) is the movie adaption of the wonderful children's book written by Louis Sacher who also wrote the screenplay to this. It was directed by Andrew Davis and released by Walt Disney Pictures.

Stanley Yelnats IV (portrayed by Shia LaBeouf) blames his bad luck on an old family curse that strike all male family members. He is wrongfully committed for stealing shoes and is sent to a brutal detention camp where he has to dig holes in the desert. No one will tell him the real reason why they need to dig those holes, so he has to find out for himself.

While the book was entertaining, thrilling and thought-provoking, the movie version lacks all of this. It counts on cheap slapstick comedy and goofy acting which take all the serious atmosphere out of the movie and give the whole thing a very stale taste.

The movie fails the Bedchel test completely.

There are a few women: There is Stanley' mother, who doesn't have any role except serving food and sitting at the table while the men discuss the family curse.
There is the girl in the flashback of the family history, a dumb but pretty girl who doesn't want to marry Stanley's forefather for petty silly reasons.
There is Madame Zeroni, the lady to cast the family curse, who is seen in the flashback story. The same goes for Kate Barlow, a local school teacher who is in love with the black local onion seller Sam. When Sam kisses Kate, she is seen by a man she previously turned down. He leads several townspeople to burn the school down and kill Sam. In anger and frustration Kate kills the local sheriff because he had refused to intervene, beginning her career as an outlaw named "Kissin' Kate" who kisses the men she kills.

The only time two women are seen on the screen at the same time are when the female warden (Sigourney Weaver), a cruel and corrupt woman who only cares about money and doesn't mind seeing the boys suffer, and Stanley's lawyer Carla Morengo meet.
If not before at least here a conversation between two women would not only be possible, but would make a lot of sense! In fact, it's rather strange to see the lawyer not address the warden but her two male employees all the time. When she asks no one in particular for pen and paper, the warden tells Mr. Sir to hand those to the lawyer, yet not speaking, nor looking into her direction.


Verdict: Fail & Not Recommended