Customer Reviews

Late August, Early September [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Some will say french melodramas are too understated and long winded but i found myself thoroughly enjoying this character-driven gem. Editing is reminescent of Godard with its jump-cut scene transitions and non-static camera movements. If you like slow character-evolving films without the overt freudian-analysis and preaching, go check out the film at a rental before purchasing.

Late August, Early September is a gem. If you like Rohmer, but need more 'character complexity', this film will satisfy your need for intellectual stimulation, poignancy, and reality.

This film is to cinema what Kundera is to literature.

Unlike Ozu films that are named after the time of year in which they are set, this absorbing film by French director Olivier Assayas refers more to a time of life and the feelings that accompany the awareness that one's youth is over and one's aspirations have remained unfulfilled. The title's reference to a cusp between seasons also reflects the film's interest in "in-betweenness." Characters are in between relationships, in between commitments, in between an unsettled present and an undetermined future.

The plot of the story (if it can be said to have one) is apparent mostly in retrospect, as the death of one of the characters has an impact on the lives of friends and associates. But it's not plot you enjoy in this film. Instead it's the often self-absorbed characters, on whom life's lessons are gradually dawning - we don't always get what we want, and we're not good at anticipating what will make us happy. Attempts to get our lives in order rarely pan out. Relationships to those closest to us are often conflicted by competing desires - or the dying of desire itself. In a way, the film is high-class soap opera, but as it unfolds, it manages to articulate its share of truths. Great cast and believable performances appropriately captured in a kinetic style of cinematography and editing. The DVD includes a brief interview with the director.

A lovely, delicate wisp of a film, following moments over the course of a year in the lives of a small group of

20 and 30 something friends, and the sickness and death of the oldest among them,

their unofficial mentor, a writer who never quite succeeded.

There's no real plot, and the emotions are never intense, but there's a lot of interesting fragments that add together to give a portrait of friends and lovers struggling to grow up and find their place in the world and with each other.

A lovely, delicate wisp of a film, following moments over the course of a year in the lives of a small group of 20 and 30 something friends, and the sickness and death of the oldest among them, their unofficial mentor, a writer who never quite succeeded.

There's no real plot, and the emotions are never intense, but there's a lot of interesting fragments that add together to give a portrait of friends and lovers struggling to grow up and find their place in the world and with each other.

This is your typical slow evolving character development film that tries to capture a slice of life. More down trodden than up lifting and not really reflective of my life or anybody elses that I know which is typical of most French Films.