Customer Reviews

Mélo

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Alain Renais' brilliant reworking of a melodramatic 1920's play is a highly creative act of directorial experimentation. Taking a largely vacuous story of a love triangle between a concert violinist and his friend's wife, Renais is able to transcend the limitations of his material through the brilliance of the performances and the exquisite mise en scene. This is a true masterpiece of form, and a genuine testament to the filmmaker's considerable talent.

I like A.Resnais' films.They always deal with the issues that interest me - love,passion,memory,conscience.For me "Melo" is one of his best,with outstanding performances from S.Azema,P.Arditi and A.Dussolier.It's a painful story about a love triangle between good,old friends and it's tragic consequences.Great playing,nice cinematography,taut and viewer-friendly (A.Resnais is famous for his rather complicated narration) script makes this movie a real pleasure to watch.Highly recommended.

producer Marin Karmitz explains in the utterly fascinating featurette available in the Kino DVD how the movie came about - how he enjoyed the 1929 stage play by Henri Bernstein - but needed to make a movie on a meager budget

the result is a totally (or almost totally) set bound movie - but brilliantly rendered natural by the use of theater motifs - eg - a program like you would get at the theater is used for the credits - and relatively large leaps of time are indicated by shots of a closed curtain - there are even some obviously fake backgrounds in the first scene

i kept expecting the camera to backup and reveal an audience - but it never did

the story is a formula love triangle - the dialog is 1929 melodramatic - often spelling out in overwrought terms that would nowadays be left for the audience to fill in - still for me - outside those moments - it was a fascinating character study

the actors helped - Resnais' usual suspects - Sabine Azéma - André Dussollier - Pierre Arditi - and in a smaller role - Fanny Ardant - all acquitting themselves very well

as usual - it's a visual treat - but more intense than usual for Resnais thanks to the old fashioned play - while i didn't enjoy it as much as other films these people made - it did keep me wondering and caring how things were going to turn out