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By: Martyn Pedler
Date: 5th Aug 08
Format: Festival
Mood: Whimsical
What:
MIFF - Frontier of Dawn
When:
Sun Aug 10, 11am
Where:
The Forum
Book tickets:
Here
Watch the (unsubtitled) trailer:
Here
Win:
We have 2 dbl passes to give away! To enter, email win@threethousand.com.au with the subject line 'Frencher even than fromage'
When even a MIFF audience leaves the cinema muttering that a film is "too French", you know it must be very French indeed. A tortured romance by post-New Wave director Philippe Garrel - and starring his dreamy son, Louis - Frontier of Dawn's languid predictability didn't fare so well at Cannes.
God knows it ticks every expected box: bedroom eyes, tangled relationships, black and white smoky cinematography, and philosophical pillow-talk peppered with occasional bon mots about the Holocaust. But how do you tell a love story without clichés? Even the most sincere "I love you" is always a quotation. (Oh, Umberto Eco, you sweet-talker you!)
Frontier of Dawn is billed as homage to Jean Cocteau and Georges Franju, but the most compelling thing about it is how it avoids all ironic winking or movie in-jokery. Clichés regain their power presented as if they're brand new. You never feel close to the characters; like theatre, you can only watch them rise and fall from afar.
Besides: haven't the dreamy aesthetics of French romance been hijacked by perfume commercials for far too long?