Comments on: Cannes Review: Bruno Dumont’s ‘Hors Satan’ Is Devilishly Dull

By: jkundra

jkundra — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

A totally clueless review. I wouldn't know how to begin to respond to Mr. Jagernauth – any more than I'd be capable of describing colors to an individual who has been sightless from birth.

By: nipon

nipon — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

oh my god, dear kevin, i think you hate movies, i think you hate Pialat and pasolini
your article is so poor and so out of the subject, yes the tempo of this masterpiece is slow and yes there is no bank robbery or nuclear blast, it's a film about mankind, you know the thing you too are deep deep down inside
please keep learning about the real cinema dude !

By: Jon_B

Jon_B — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

I feel sorry for you, Kevin. You\’re clueless.

By: Kevin Jagernauth

Kevin Jagernauth — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

Let me just say this, the one person who I managed to find who liked the film admitted it was boring as fuck. And they also interviewed Dumont who they revealed to be kind of a douche who thinks anything that isn\’t arthouse cinema, isn\’t worth talking about. This film is wilfully obtuse to no real discernable effect except to trump \”mainstream\” notions of filmmaking. Too bad Dumont doesn\’t bring anything new to the table.

By: AR

AR — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

\”Cool, next time I’ll just say “your mother” instead of…\”
What a douche!

By: zatopek

zatopek — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

You\’re right that Dumont can be compared to Dardennes and Haneke in that sense that they\’re all indebted to Bresson, but I think it\’s wrong to say that Dumont is unsuccessful Haneke or Dardenne, because he\’s still aiming for a different target than either of those two.

But either way, you didn\’t appreciate L\’humanite or Twentynine Palms which I find powerful works, so clearly Dumont is not for you.

By: Christopher Bell

Christopher Bell — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

Cool, next time I\’ll just say \”your mother\” instead of actually stating an opinion and backing it up.

As for one size fits all, check out reviews on \”Uncle Boonme,\” \”A Serbian Film,\” \”The American,\” \”Fast Five,\” and \”Chloe\” and try to argue that they all look at the films from the exact same angle.

By: zatopek

zatopek — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

Flanders is the only weak Dumont film so far. He\’s not trying to \”pretend to be Haneke or Dardenne\” – you seem to have one-size-fits-all criteria for certain type of art house films after all.

By: Christopher Bell

Christopher Bell — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

I agree that there should not be a one-size-fits-all way to approach criticism; but I also don\’t think Kevin did that.

Dumont has done this before – he\’s pretended like he\’s Haneke or Dardenne, feigned philosophical insight, and come out the other end with not only an excruciatingly dull film, but an empty one. He seems to still be unsure when to pull back on certain things and when to really dwell on others. While some of his ideas are good, he often falls into overly sentimental or narrative tricks (Flanders is chock full of them) that she should probably know better about by now.

That said, I do very much enjoy \”The Life of Jesus\” and \”Hadewijch,\” and the latter I was hoping to be a sort of return to form…

By: JD

JD — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

Hasn\’t Bruno Dumont earned a more respectful review at this point in his career? If \”dull\” and \”pretentious\” is as deep as you\’re willing to go, do you really have any chance of appreciating anything Dumont has to offer? More importantly, if the film\’s challenges to conventional audience engagement are intentional — as they always have been in previous Dumont films — how can you use that as the basis for mocking derision? I don\’t mean any of this as a defense of the film (which I haven\’t seen), I\’m just challenging this one-size-fits-all approach to film criticism. There really is no sense in reviewing a Dumont film like you\’d review a conventional narrative film.

By: swell

swell — Fri, 13 May 2016 14:33:03 +0000

\”He forms a friendship with an unnamed girl (Alexandra Lematre) who looks like a ugly cross between Ellen Page and Noomi Rapace…\”

Jesus, its starting to become apparent just who the trouble writers at Playlist are. You just keep turning up the volume on being unnecessarily douchey while mistaking your dickishness for humor. Its not even clever clever dickishiness.