Annette is a musical movie directed by Leos Carax and starring Adam Douglas Driver and Marion Cotillard, which premieres in France on July-June 2021 as the opening film of the 74th Cannes International Film Festival.
The musical movie tells the story of a star couple who fall apart after the birth of their child Annette.
The director was the first to go abroad, swearing absolute sovereignty over his films as a music producer, lost in fame, praise, capital, interests, inferiority, lost love, and eternal curse, in music, I feel that the soundtrack and lyrics can be done a little more, really not The film language and music are really intrinsically connected in the particularly good-sounding video, but it seems that it only occurs when musical instruments are present. The "dramatic treatment" of the musical movie itself not only occurs in the plot and opera form but also in itself. It seems to be an extension of a certain dimension of opera performance. The most exciting scene is when the conductor of the male supporting role is conducting the command work on the stage inside the movie, and on the other hand, he is explaining his inner activities to the camera. The transformation and combination of the two emotions are deeply and freely combined. And if the camera is regarded as another stage, then it can be seen from this paragraph that the whole film is not just trying to break the fourth wall, because, in the fourth direction of the original two-dimensional stage, there are two consecutive walls. be broken. In the other several stage scenes, the presence of the audience also expanded the dimension of the stage. The relationship between the performers and the audience's different identities, as well as the previous themes, which this film tries to discuss, seems to be extended to reality.
From the musical movie plot introduction alone, "Annette" still has a bit of the strange and tragic color of director Leos Carax's works. However, a strange story must be filled with three-dimensional characters to be exciting. In the past, the men and women in the director's works were always loved by their hearts, and they couldn't help falling into a crazy situation. In "Annette", Henry, the protagonist, is, of course, crazy, but the emotional starting point behind his actions is empty, so the whole story is just superficial and cannot move people's hearts at all. The thinness of the characters makes the twists and turns of the plot development lack the transition of succession and transformation, which is very jumpy; in addition, the performance clips inserted in the musical film will inevitably slow down the development of the plot, so the rhythm of the whole film is sometimes fast and slow. Was brought very confusing.
Despite the void of content, the musical movie's exploration of form is worth a book. At the beginning of the film, all the main creators, including director Leos Carax, screenwriter Mel Brothers, etc., all appeared on the stage, clearly telling the audience: Next, take the audience to a song and dance show. And after that, with Ann's opera performances and Henry's talk show performances, it became clear that the director was trying to blur the boundaries between film and stage representation. As for the song and dance elements in the film, it can only be said to be a disaster-level performance, neither the gorgeous dream of Hollywood's golden age musical film nor the fresh and mournful works of Leos Carax's compatriot and predecessor Jacques Demy. Most of the so-called singing passages in the musical movie are to sing the same line repeatedly in one or two tunes, and a small number of complete songs are not very pleasant; impression.