5 x 2 (Cinq fois Deux)

[Johann]

Francois Ozon's new film hits theatres Sept. 1 and the trailer is available at his website.

The film details the lives of a couple (Gilles and Marion) at five different stages in their relationship.

www.francois-ozon.com

[arsaib4]

Unfortunately, U.S still remains the only territory without a distribution deal.

[oscar jubis]

Indeed, the film opens in France and Belgium on September 1st. Ozon's last three films got distributed here. 5x2 will hit North American screens, eventually.

[Johann]

Thanks for your great posts, arsaib.

5 x 2 is a film I'm eagerly anticipating. Ozon is a modern master in my view.

THINKfilm sounds like a reputable co.- Mondovino was a film that played here at the VIFF but I didn't get a chance to see it.

[Chris Knipp]

Ozon does indeed reincarnate himself with every film. Unfortunately -- not to put a damper on your euphoric anticipations; my disapproval may simply whet your appetites -- I didn't like this incarnation very much when I saw it in Paris in September. Its failure to find a distributor doesn't surprise me, not that it isn't worth seeing, because of course it is, but because it isn't as glossy or enjoyable as his other recent films. I reviewed it on my website, focusing on reverse chronology as a recent theme in pictures:

Backward chronology may be on the way to becoming a chic cliché since Christopher Nolan's Memento, a status secured by Gaspar Noé's controversial and disturbing Irréversible. The latter begins with two violent scenes, first of a brutal murder, then the rape and beating which it avenges, and then in the rest of the movie goes on to the calmer events that led up to this very ugly opening double "finale." Memento, as most people know by now, leads through a series of nervous, dreamlike noirish episodes from a death to a moment (not seen) where the main character's wife was murdered and he determines to avenge this. François Ozon's 5 x 2 (Cinq fois deux or five times two) has quite a different sort of subject, though it too has a kind of consensual rape early on. The purpose of this film is to recount the failure of a marriage in five major sequences – backward from the divorce agreement verbally conducted in a lawyer's office to a pleasant idyl at a resort at the film's end, where the couple first meet, though we already know that the husband is going to have an affair. (Compared to the other two movies, 5 x 2's law office opening is awfully flat -- in fact the whole movie seems rather low on fun; hence perhaps the need to spice things up with the ugly sex scene that follows, i.e., immediately precedes it in time.)

FOR THE COMPLETE REVIEW GO HERE:

http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=353

[arsaib4]

Just to clarify, the quote I used was from Mark Urman, Head of U.S distributon for ThinkFilm, but yes, I agree with him for the most part. I prefer his earlier films like Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes, Sous le sable and Regarde La Mer much more than his previous two which most people seem to like (including you from the look of things). Those were surely glossy but I didn't find them enjoyable simply because they kept spinning in their wheels and from what I've read in the French papers and from talking to a few friends, his latest seems to be a move in the right direction.

[Chris Knipp]

No, I absolutely do NOT prefer his three previous films. I prefer the earlier ones, like you. Did you think "glossy and enjoyable" were my terms of highest praise?

True, many of the prominent French reviews of 5 x 2 -- you can review this quickly as you know on Allocine -- were favorable, which the Italian review Primissima said is a sign of how strong an emotion nationalism is in France, since most of the other European countries have not been welcoming. And even in France such hip voices as Les Inrockuptibles and Cahiers du Cinema also were not. The reviews I've found online in Italian and so far in English (I can't decipher German or Dutch) were certainly even more mixed, with "insipid" and "uninvolving" words that came up often and only a few really warm comments overall.

Whether 5 x 2 is a step backward, a step forward, a return to form, or simply a dull film -- views differ on this. 5 x 2 is very, very dry. It's Scenes from a Marriage with all the human emotion drained out. I think it's simply a dull film, but as Motherwell said, artworks that aren't successful are necessary stepping stones to ones that are, and this may be a bridge to more adventurous and less bourgeois-glossy work.

[trevor826]

Not Ozon's finest hour, these were my comments:

5x2 - Ozon
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Oh dear, where to start on this one.

5 scenes covering a relationship from inception, marriage, pregnancy, meltdown, divorce.

The film copies the broken, reversed style of Memento, Irreversible, 21 Grams etc but without any rhyme or reason, seems like a case of jumping on the boat except the boat has already left port.

We open with the divorce and the couple meeting in a hotel room after for some post marital sex? during which the wife says "no, stop!" The man stops but within seconds he has pressed his ex wife flat to the bed face down and he rapes her. After, the woman has dressed and cleaned herself up, she tries to leave the room and her ex husband comes out with a truly pitiful remark like "can we try again".

You can't feel anything for the characters because they are vacuous and shallow, why did they marry? who's baby is it? what are the causes of the disintegration of the relationship? At the end/start of it it's more a case of who cares!

Reviews for the film are very mixed and unfortunately I must side with the negatives on this one.

[Chris Knipp]

We seem to be on the same page on this one, Trevor, maybe on a number of things -- don't go away! There will be some more local feedback because it's going to be shown at the San Francisco Film Festival in a couple of weeks. My young movie freak friend wants to see it but I declined to accompany him for that; once was enough for me. 5x2 struck me too as cold and uninvolving. Yet on the Metro later I peeked over a young guy's shoulder and he was intensely into penning comments on 5x2, doubtless admiring ones. It appeals to a certain mindset.

A new tricky film (new here anyway) is Dot the i, but I think the reverse chronology trick and the Rashomon re-viewing devices have worn quite thin -- though somebody brilliant could always breathe life back into them.

[oscar jubis]

I'm more of a fan of Chereau, Assayas and Noe (well, he works in France) but Ozon's Sous Le Sable was superb and I plan to watch his 5x2 when I get a chance.

[Chris Knipp]

If you read arsaib4's and my exchanges, we wouldn't necessarly go to see Ozon's latest on the strength of Sous le sable. We're all "fans of" one director or another, but we try to give them all an even chance, don't we? It might be best if we'd not seen anything by a director before, when it comes to rating their latest work. Then having arrived an an evaluation, we can bring in our previous knowledge to discuss the movie in the complete context of the other stuff the director's done.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by trevor826
5x2 - Ozon
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You can't feel anything for the characters because they are vacuous and shallow, why did they marry? who's baby is it? what are the causes of the disintegration of the relationship? At the end/start of it it's more a case of who cares!

I couldn't agree more with your comments. I'm still in disbelief that Ozon has made a film which is so hollow at its core. (Chris wrote something similar, "... one can't help wondering, Why: What's the point?") I think the positive remarks have come from those who are willing to let their minds run amok during the space Ozon doesn't allow us to access. I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt here because I don't see any reason why I should. Unlike Ozon's previous two efforts, 5x2 can't even hide behind any genre conventions.

[Johann]

Even though Ozon is my man and his films have made me a lifelong fan, I gotta admit that I don't really know why he chose this story.

Chris & Trevor ask "why?" and so do I.

I still haven't seen it. Thanks for the reviews.

I think it played here one week at the Fifth Avenue and then vanished. Couldn't get my ass over to Kitsilano in time I guess..

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