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Pola X Actors: Guillaume Depardieu, Yekaterina Golubeva, Catherine Deneuve Director: Leos Carax Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Color, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 134 minutes Studio: Fox Lorber Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2001-04-10 Buy from Amazon |
 "Darkly Amazing"POla X is not for the weak of heart. THis movie is dark and dramatic. IT is based loosely on a Herman MElvile NOvel and the similarities between the stories are good. Additionally if you enjoy dark, intense films this is a perfect movie for you. IT deals with the disallusionment that young people encounter as they discover more about their lives. Discovering grace sometimes isn't a pleasent experience, sometimes it is violent and life-changing and that is what this movie is about. The acting, and directing are superb as well as the directors use of color and characters. I have never seen an American movie this good ever! IT is not euro-trash or pompus [waste]. IT is excellent film making. The movie never once looses sight of the fact that it is supposed to be artistic. Movies should be art, not fast hack written plots and if you are a serious art lover this movie is a must see.  "Over-rated Psycho-drama"i was looking for a movie with a lot more visual and sensual appeal. sure i enjoyed seeing catherine deneuve topless but the movie itself is a disjointed final climax in insanity. there was very little sensuality also.  "Hmmmm"This was a very strange story about a privileged youth who rejects his wealthy lifestyle and willingly self-destructs with the help of a shell-shocked, miserable refugee from Bosnia. I felt badly that this young man's Bosnian half-sister had suffered so much brutality in the war. However, she did not have to inflict her pain upon her half brother. Her misery and numbness and the brother's willingess to wallow in this misery and numbness destroys both of them in the end. They both would have been better off having several sessions with a good shrink. The half-brother could probably afford to hire the most expensive shrinks available. That kid was rolling in dough! I am not a prude or I wouldn't have rented this movie in the first place. However, the totally explicit sexual scenes were not exactly necessary and not really even sexy, just rather cold and clinical. (And to be honest, closeups of aroused genitals are not always the prettiest sights around.) It was impossible to empathize with anyone in this film because everyone in this movie was completely self-absorbed, leadenly serious, and joylessly masochistic. About an hour into this movie, I longed to watch a Looney Tunes cartoon so that I could be reminded that there is such a thing as humor and fun. The only good thing about this movie was the acting and the photography which were both outstanding. And the DVD clarity was excellent as well. "A SHOCKING BEAUTY OF A DVD FROM FOX LORBER/WINSTAR!"This DVD is truly shocking all across the board. Leos Carax's film is a study of willful descent into madness by a perfect and dewy blond young Guillaume Depardieu and he informs this film with an understanding of ambiguity and existentialism that I think only the French can express somehow. Carax is masterful! How he got Catherine Deneuve to bare her breasts, I cannot imagine! Also, pleasureably shocking is how perfect the picture quality and sound on this DVD is. Fox Lorber has often had trouble getting their material up to the standard that DVD can display but this DVD shows they have turned it around. Never again would I hesitate to buy from them - I'll do it gladly! The color saturation and detail of the picture truly preserve the gorgeous original photography. Lastly, this DVD contains the most emotionally honest commentary track I've ever heard by Guillaume Depardieu. If you're buying any Catherine Deneuve or Leos Carax film, buy this. "CONDEMNED TO SWIFT EXTINCTION ......+then some."It should not be necessary to read the book ["Pierre, or the Ambiguities"] before seeing this work, but "hint,hint" Melville had a nervous breakdown after publishing it in 1852, even 1952 moralites have dated this one! Who knows why auteurs choose works [Kubrick and Schnitzler], but it's called focus. This time we're out of that. Our hero [stunning Guillaume Depardieu deserves an apology] dumps golden girlfriend [Delphine Chuillot] for dreary, drab, unwashed, Gypsy-vagrant [whiningly intoned by Yekaterina Golubeva]. There is NOTHING to like or admire about this woman, an anachronism in this century. Just does not make sense, and perhaps there are a few missing frames, WHY Depardieu would just "up and leave" the belle existence. The movie vaccilates between breathtaking country chateau sequences, unreal, etherial [Carax does have that going for him!] and the Kafkaesque drabness of converted facist [?] factories. This movie seems to deplore the indecision of cultured European youth, pity! DVD quality is superb [video/audio], but there are just a few strange scratches on the negative [too new for this!] Art direction is excellent so is the costume choice by Esther Walz, the clothes enhance, they do not detract, well done! Now about THAT scene? [I forget, originals or doubles? Brave for doubles and potentially damning if the real stars "partook"]. Problem is - it's totally unnecessary, unless I've missed another point, it's detracting and repulsive. Bad, bad taste - would have loved to have been in the the Cannes audience when THAT popped up! [Now, if its a love scene you want, see "Don't Look Now" Nicholas Roeg, with Sutherland and Christie, still enthralls, and NOT explicit, that's good taste!] Deneuve, not sure what she was in the movie? Mother/Sister? Jeanne Moreau would have been an alternate choice - would have added THAT touch. Deneuve does bare it all though - also unnecessary. Bring Guillaume Depardieu stateside for a remake with Streep, Jolie and Paltrow, or better still do a "making of"! |
