by Owen » Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:59 pm
Disclaimer:
Since I've joined this fan forum without having watched FA, I wanted to catch on it. So, I have done now, but I ended up very disappointed by the difference between what is advertised and what I have seen. What follows is an angry rant, it was written immediately after my viewing, but actually I don't want to spread hostility, and am open to discussion. Besides, I didn't see another topic for criticism, so it may be used for it. But so far, I think I will be the only one with this point of view.
(I also used the subject for the sake of an exercise in writing in english.)
I repeat, I don't mean to insult your taste in movies, nor you. This is all IMHO.
I think that Fucking Amal, independently of its qualities, simply does not compare with Water Lilies. Besides some of the story, there is nothing in common, and even the story that matches works in opposite directions. See: in WL Marie does everything that she can to approach Floriane, while in FA Agnes does nothing, it's all contingent, Elin comes to her only because she is BORED and wants to get high. The first kiss is something that comes up in both movies too, but the build up is entirely different, and, I must say, definitely superior in WL, because it comes as the bitter conclusion to the one-sided story. I know that in FA the kiss is only the beginning, but it can't be really brought up to compare these films, because their functions differ, and the story is only similar. I will not give all the examples, because it would be too long.
Next, the stakes. In FA there are close to none. I mean, inside the story there are things that the protagonists do to get to some other things, but I see nothing to transcend this to another level, one that would be common to all audience. This is what I really expect from lesbian movies, to try to reach to all people who would watch, by putting a reading beyond "love lesbian story". FA fails in this, I think, because it is too grounded in 1998 Sweden, and, the biggest of all sins, that its characters are all SO STUPID.
First, I can't enjoy a movie where I just yell at what is happening on the screen. I didn't find anyone likable in this film, except maybe Elin's mother and Agnes' father (but they are secondary). Elin is inconsistent and impulsive (I think everyone will agree), and does stupid things one after another (in brief: when she lockes herself in Agnes' room to drink wine then LEAVE (instead of die of shame like I would do), when she kisses her for fun, when she kisses her again and promises to call back, only to change her mind and hook up with this moron Johan, then her projects about becoming whatever is in her mood). Her sister does not make any effort to understand Elin or to put her life in order (why of all things she is with Markus, when the boy she likes is Johan?). Johan is a retard, he can't decide jack, doesn't have any opinion, and puts Elin's photo in his wallet (yeah, so it can be really easily found... gg); I am sure he will blindly bend under the love pressure of Jessica. Markus isn't better, just as hollow. Viktoria isn't given much time to develop, I think there could be done something to make her more interesting, but we are left only with her as a friendless and unsympathetic girl; what are her motives? The rest represent for me the crowd in its worst: they can only mock, and provoke, but never question themselves. I was never like that in their age, and my entourage certainly did have more respect. It leaves Agnes, the main character, who could be also interesting (like Marie in WL) but instead draws such a caricature. At 14 she already knows that she is a lesbian (well, I can put this one out, as I don't know enough to generalise just like that), and so she is so lonely and mocked (mostly by that girl, whom you'd want to punch in the face several times) and so depressed; she complains all the time, and tries to kill herself (good luck with that razor...), and listens to Tokyo-Hotel like (or whatever this crap is) and writes a shitty girly insignificant journal (not even poems or something to precisely transcend her feelings). And, above all, she does nothing. She is only a side of the story, when she could be the much more interesting center. Instead of that, the film focuses on the lives of other girls, ones I don't care about, mostly because there weren't enough interesting treatment.
Second (yeah, I know, my first was long before): conceptually, I find it wrong. I mean I can't relate to a story where everything is so cliché and first degree (I lie, I can, but in action movies, not in dramas). It promotes homosexuality naively and that's about it. No connection to higher level. The characters never question themselves about their attitude (Elin bitching about getting high: this is NORMAL; or Elin going out with lots of boys just like that: this is automatic filling of her life with things everyone finds normal; or again Elin sleeping with Johan (well, I think that virginity, in every case, is worth more than that)). Most importantly, the movie never tries to make us feel that this story contains more than meets the eye. I mean, formally it feels like a TV movie. You can watch it, you can like it or not, but it does not stick in mind.
I will develop on this feeling: after watching WL, I was almost shaking, it transperced me with its emotional force, but at the same time I felt I was Marie when younger. I think many of the viewers who liked it thought the same, the story embodies something universal (or very common), and it doesn't matter that it is a lesbian film. It is secondary. Conceptually, I think that all lesbian films should try to achieve that, namely to detach themselves from the lesbian love to tell about something common to straight or homosexuals. Another film that does that is Room in Rome. It is about how sex does not necessarily make people closer, and how poetic are the transitory moments (among others things that I forgot).
I do not say that the homosexuality should always be removable, but the film must play on both grounds, and intertwine them to make them unseparable in the film, but separable to the viewer so he could relate to the universality of the story.
In FA, I don't see this, mainly because of the stupid decisions of the characters and the technical aspect of the film.
I will compare once again to WL. It seems that FA is all the things WL was before it was purified to leave only essence and the concentrate of emotions. In WL, there are no that much characters, no annoying pointless dialogue, WL is timeless and situated in an abstracted (almost fantastic, certainly dreamlike) world. FA is shapeless, while WL is perfected as much as it could have been. Look at the cinematography. What are these horrible close-ups? What are these zooms? No (or so little) space treatment. No good, clean shots. No atmosphere (none, this was one of the biggest dissapointments, as I knew of this movie only in comparison with WL (they said Swedish WL, but did they really understand what WL was about and what were its merits?)). Create an atmosphere alone could have saved this film in my opinion, because however insignificant the story is, if aesthetically and emotionally it moves the viewer, then it can achieve all it wants (see Drive). In WL the atmosphere is in every shot, and is magnified by the music too (a masterpiece, I think). I don't remember music in FA, except those rock intermedes, each dissonant with the scene that came before.
That's all that I wanted to say for the moment.
The theory about the ground of the story and the universality that it must convey is of course not the only way meant for all movies. It is only what I expect to see in a film about lesbian love.
Even not only in a film, because I remember being struck when, even in their first album, t.A.T.u was already not only singing about revolt against a society that don't accept difference, but also about the end of love, rupture and its consequences. In the second album they went even further. (Yeah, I love t.A.T.u.)