Chaos
I'm told that this movie was booked at the Brattle after being a hit at the New England Women's Film & Video Festival (or some such; at any given time, the Boston area has two or three programs calling themselves "Film Festivals" going on, so it's hard to keep them straight). Certainly, you wouldn't choose it for entry at a "Men's Film Festival"; probably the most sympathetic male character in the movie is an elderly john who comes across as merely pathetic. (Well, okay, there are some professional but personality-free police detectives)
And yet, despite the charicatured portrayal of men, the somewhat skimpy looking production values, and the more-than-occasional overacting, this is still a very watchable movie. Why is that?
Well, in part, because it crams a lot of movie into it 109-minute runtime. It seems like a silly thing to say, but there's not a minute that goes by in this movie without something happening; writer/director Coline Serreau at times seems like she's afraid you'll lose interest and change the channel or walk out.
While she's heaping events and characters on the viewer, though, she keeps it quite easy to follow. Many thrillers will set up elaborate achronological structures, but
Chaos tells its story pretty much in order, except for a sustained flashback sequence that is set aside with narration. So while there are a lot of plot twists and side stories here, there's very little reason to look back at any specific part afterwards and say "what was
that about?"
The film's big weakness, I think, is that it looks amateurish at times. Many of the recent French films coming to America feel very polished (consider
Brotherhood Of The Wolf,
He Loves Me/He Loves Me Not,
8 Women), but
Chaos is often grainy, and with lighting that seems just a bit off. The acting, too, is often on the border of hammy.
But it's entertaining. The story starts out straightforward enough - on the way to a party, Paul and Hélène come across a prostitute running from pursuers. Paul callously locks the doors of the car even as the girl screams for help, and leaves her for the police to find while he goes to a carwash to have the blood washed off his windshield. A few days later, Hélène helps Paul avoid seeing his mother, only to see her own son Fabrice's fiancée do the same, and this jolts her out of her complacency, and makes her see what a lout Paul is and how their son is becoming just like him. She looks for the girl, eventually finding her in a coma at a local hospital, and resolves do what she can to help this "Noémie". Soon, she's spending far more time with Noémie than with her own family, and finds herself involved in an adventure when Noémie's pursuers appear again.
That's the first fifteen minutes. After that, things get complicated.
One of the issues an American audience may have is with how this movie is billed as a "comedy-thriller". Humor often doesn't translate well, and some of the "comedy" fell somewhat flat to me. I mean, "guys not knowing how to do dishes" jokes in the twenty-first century? I guess the movie is exaggerating for effect (although when a man makes a movie as disdainful of women as this movie is of men, it doesn't get much critical acclaim), but I was often laughing more at the clunkiness with which a joke was made than at how funny it actually was.
Still, the central idea of this movie, women retrieving their pride and self-respect from the men who are determined to take it from them, is worthwhile. It's also just plain fun, using what Roger Ebert described as the "one damn thing on top of another" story structure - stuff happens to Hélène and Noémie, then
more stuff happens, and so on until it ends.
Kind of simplistic, but also quite entertaining.
¼