Pierre Étaix's As Long as You've Got Your Health was deliberately divided into four short films. So the fairest way that I can think to review the film is to look at all four parts individually.
Insomnia
A man tries to fight his insomnia by reading a vampire novel. But the novel begins to bleed into real life as he starts to jump at simple things like his wife shifting positions in bed. It's a sweet, gentle segment that gets credit for not having the kind of twist ending that I thought it was going for.
The Movies
Étaix goes to the movies and after a series of unfortunate events gets pulled into the world of a never-ending commercial. I'm still not sure how he ended up in the commercial, but I don't care considering the shtick in the first part of this sequence wasn't very inspired. But the actual commercial segment contains some of the best slapstick and visual gags in all of Étaix's oeuvre.
As Long As You've Got Your Health
At first a kind of rally against industrialization, this segment has some of the most bold and ambitious effects I've ever seen in a quasi-silent comedy. I loved the bits about the clock hands malfunctioning and the music notes falling off the sheet because of the vibrations from street construction. Then it becomes a low-key Orwellian nightmare as all of the inhabitants of the besieged city try to keep themselves from going insane by either perpetually smiling or seeking the advice of an increasingly beleaguered doctor.
Into the Woods No More
I don't have much to say about this one. It's the weakest of the four segments and can basically be boiled down to a handful of characters mince about the countryside for a while.
The overall film is not more than the sum of its parts. But the good parts more than make up for the lackluster ones.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment