movie reviews The evils of money revealed using a half dozen gay fashion models as the main characters.Bresson seemed to have an eye for gay thin young men.... even all the extras the police etc all fit the same mold. Which makes the only interesting characters the women and men over the age of 20. (not gay bashing since I am just a fact).The actors don't appear unemotional as pseudo-intellectual fans of this claim but rather very self conscious of the camera.Bresson (I looked this up on line) was 82 when he made this last film.I only watched it to time travel and remove myself from the here and now....I also speak French for others I don't recommend. There are an infinite amount of better French cinema...in fact almost everything.How great that Siskel and the Ebert Chicago Reviewers praised this to high heaven.....their praise of movies along with the Oscars and other film awards are usually meaningless....in fact usually I view as a mark against the film at least the Oscars---good old boy and PC gimmicks win them.DO NOT RECOMMEND

FilmCriticLalitRao Robert Bresson's last film is based on a short story by great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.L'Argent is not at all a direct adaptation of Tolstoy's work of literary production "Faux Billet".It is a film for which Bresson infused some of his own ideas in order to create a different narrative.It was made in 1983 thanks to personal intervention by French minister of culture Jack Lang whose daughter Caroline played an important role in it. L'argent is a Christian story of redemption about an innocent man who is doomed due to the carelessness of reckless people.We see that due to class difference and power struggle Yvon is condemned to hell.L'argent throws light on misfortunes associated with money.It depicts that many people from good backgrounds are involved in wrong doing.In L'Argent, we primarily see a simplicity of actions,gestures,sound and images. Bresson achieved this effect by creating a film in which events happen in quick succession.It is expected that the audience will remain focused in order to appreciate its sequence of events.One would be surprised to note that even violent acts are shown in a cold,detached manner.L'argent is recommended as a good film which is a good example of perfect collaboration between a filmmaker and a writer.

MacAindrais L'Argent (1983) ****This is a hard film to rate for any number of reasons. It is challenging for one, and not really a movie for another. L'argent is more a philosophical essay on celluloid than anything else. This could be said for any or all of Bresson's films for that matter. His style of film-making is not really cinematic. It is philosophical and, to quote Paul Schrader, transcendental. L'Argent is a tale about the evils of money and materialist ideology. Bresson has been spoken openly about his shock and fear at the ever increasing materialism in society. The film begins as a spoiled school boy is refused the necessary money by his father to repay a debt. He goes to a friend who gives him a counterfeit bill, which they then go off to spend. They go to a photo shop, and buy something cheap so as to get as much real change as possible. The woman sees that it is fake, but accepts it anyway so as to make the sale. Her husband, the owner, scolds her for it, but does not report it, and instead passes it off to an unsuspecting oil delivery man, Yvon. He then goes to a restaurant and tries to get a drink, unknowingly using the fake bill. He is arrested, and the shop owners and their cashier refuse to acknowledge the man not only got the bill from them, but was ever in the shop to begin with. From this incident Yvon's life spirals out of control. He is let off without jailtime, but the scandal costs him his job. He turns to a life of crime to make money. He gets thrown in jail, his wife leaves him, and his child dies. From here the film goes really out there, as Yvon becomes an axe murderer upon his release. It is certainly far fetched, but I think that may have been Bresson's point. The movie is a damnation of the costs of money (no pun) replacing the sense of God. Bresson once said that today there is no more God in the world, there is only money, which has become God. The film's total disregard for a plausible narrative and sense of restraint is frustrating. It is a short film, and it feels that way, as Bresson wastes no time getting from point A to point B. That is not to say that the film is not well directed though, it is superbly directed with the care and hands of a great master of the medium. It is difficult to comprehend why Yvon does what he does once released from jail by following any logical reasoning of the narrative, but that is the point Bresson wanted to make - the lust for money and material possession and the alienation and disenfranchisement from a purposeful existence causes people to do illogical and irrational things. Bresson uses this extreme (and i do not mean that lightly) example to highlight this. Bresson accomplished exactly what he was trying to do with L'Argent, and it is difficult to criticize him for that.

tedg This is only my second Bresson, the first being "Balthazar." That was rewarding in a sort of intellectual Norman Rockwell sense. This is not.If you don't know Bresson, he's celebrated in some film communities for his economy, his approach to cinema that supports one view of what it means to be cinematic. I happened to see this on a day I also saw a Matthew Barney project and within near remembrance of a Tarkovsky. Watching Bresson gives the same reward as reading one of those stories that omits any use of the verb "to be," or perhaps disallows a certain consonant, or maybe more radically forbids punctuation. You're impressed by the extent to which the artist understands the medium, well enough to negotiate his way around certain conventions. But the art isn't in the artifact, its in the method, the approach, the philosophy.So if you watch this lucidly, you'll be confronted with that philosophy, and whether you really go along with it. Really, this is serious business, because such questions are the stuff out of which we define who we are not. Sure, its cinematic, but how is what matters.Its a matter of taking away instead of adding, of closing instead of opening, in some way of the small, the slight — but in that, colored by the influence of the insignificant. Intimacies are always small, but loves can be big. Here, it is small, and gentle.Make your choice.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.