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Poll

What's your favorite film by Laurent Cantet?

Haven't Seen Any
8 (47.1%)
Don't Like Any
1 (5.9%)
Les sanguinaires
0 (0%)
Human Resources
0 (0%)
Time Out
4 (23.5%)
Heading South
0 (0%)
The Class
4 (23.5%)
Foxfire
0 (0%)
Return to Ithaca
0 (0%)
The Workshop
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 17

Author Topic: Cantet, Laurent  (Read 1487 times)

1SO

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Cantet, Laurent
« on: April 23, 2014, 07:12:48 PM »
Most people will know him from The Class, but I know Lobby has seen and liked Foxfire and there are many who might have seen Time Out or Human Resources and not realized they're all from the same director.

1SO

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2014, 10:08:50 PM »
Time Out
* * * 1/2

Aurélien Recoing plays Vincent, a businessman who has lost his job and deals with it in a very unique way. Rather than face his friends and family with the truth, he creates this fantasy existence where he has a new job, a better job. He puts an upbeat spin on his future, which has never been more uncertain. The happiness of his new job makes the truth even more crushing, while details from his imagined life start to get away from him.

Though overlong, this is mostly a compelling film because Laurent Cantet treats it like a slow burn thriller. There's constant tension because while Vincent is intelligent, he's not the talented Mr. Ripley. Cantet leaves open a lot of possible directions and pushes down a path that skirts several genres without derailing into anything by-the-numbers. By the end, this reminded me a lot of Borzage's Moonrise. In its odd plotting of an everyman on the road less travelled it also reminded me of Krzysztof Kieślowski's White. The final scene is especially satisfying, providing a great deal of psychological motivation I didn't know was missing.

1SO

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2014, 10:09:38 PM »
1. Time Out
2. The Class

Totoro

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2014, 03:34:55 AM »
THE CLASS (Entre Les Murs) is alright.


goodguy

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2014, 08:53:16 PM »
Entre les murs (The Class)
Foxfire

valmz

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2014, 02:54:14 AM »
Time Out is one of my favorite films. There are several extended scenes of not much happening which achieve an odd double-purpose of building the tense atmosphere and build on the inscrutability of the protagonist. I say odd in that most of this is done when he is alone, and there isn't much to emote to one's self, but once it matches his behavior in situations of human interaction then the reflection makes him all the more opaque - if he gives nothing away in conversation, and nothing away alone, then the only answers available are found in suppositions and in guesses, and in reconciling the jagged edges borne of each. It doesn't help that it is surely not a given if or when he has answers to any questions along the way. That he is believably inscrutable and not merely a blank slate keeps things interesting within the very-real seeming world, as opposed to an artificially blank surface. Then, to pair with this bit of atmospheric character/mood styling, there is a wealth of character and family and outside-world detail which both lays the table for all of the film's plot developments as well as creates additional nooks and crannies for my suppositions and guesses to explore. Perhaps most of all, I appreciate how slippery all of the characters are, slipping from kind to judgmental to affectionate to indifferent to open-hearted, in various degrees at various times, always avoiding the proportions of melodrama. Finally, as the film finds its way to what seems an inevitable heap of just that - a slippery sequence of events I hadn't expected and still can't quite grasp fully.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the ending, 1SO, as I didn't find an ounce of psychological motivation (par for the course) or satisfaction in the ending. I thought it was quite slippery.

Heading South is quite similar to Time Out in tone and style, and in that way it gives me immense respect for the man's talent in making each small detail so fascinating, but the subject is just so inherently bizarre that I couldn't ever quite wrap my head around anything.

The Class is basically nothing like the other two that I have seen, and it is interesting in none of the same ways. I don't prefer it to either of the others, perhaps inevitably because the idiosyncrasies of the other two that so fit my tastes are absent here, but I was glad to see that his success would afford him new opportunities... I still don't believe that he can make a bad film. Perhaps I should not watch Foxfire.

1SO

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2014, 12:50:21 PM »
I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the ending, 1SO, as I didn't find an ounce of psychological motivation (par for the course) or satisfaction in the ending. I thought it was quite slippery.

The ending could've been a defeat for Vincent. A return to the mind-numbing day-after-day work routine. However, his downtime was filled with challenges and adventure, so he comes into the job interview with a cheerful attitude and confidence. He says he spent the down time "prospecting" to find a job that would fully satisfy him. Reflecting in the moment. His initial motivation might have been avoidance of the reality of his situation, but it ended up making him a better person and he looks back on the experience as one with a lot of positive change. So much so, it now is looked at as the right thing to do. (He is interviewing for a job with more status and power than the one he held previously for 11 years) I wouldn't say this was his plan all along, but the look on his face hints that he came to this personal revelation long before the final job interview.

roujin

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #7 on: August 13, 2014, 01:14:09 PM »
1. The Class (2008)

Corndog

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Re: Cantet, Laurent
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2016, 02:07:25 PM »
1. The Class (3.5)
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."