Band of Outsiders
I give it:
Jean-Luc Godard hits the crime genre once again after his success with his film Breathless. Seemingly reinventing the crime genre every time he films it. And Band of Outsiders has to be my personal favorite of all the films I've seen him make so far.
And I believe this movie was based off the novel, "Fool's Gold".
Quentin Tarantino later named his production company after this film.
The french name of this film is Bande A Part, Tarantino just changed the name around a little bit to A Band Apart.
There is also a resemblance to Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in this movie. Such as the dance scene with Uma Thurman and John Travolta came out of this film.
In this film two would-be criminals, (Arthur and Franz) are searching for a way to make a big score. When Franz meets a beautiful girl named Odile from his english class, she later informs him that her aunt keeps a large amount of cash kept hidden away in her dresser at her house, and that the room with all this money is always unlocked. When Franz informs Arthur about the situation the two men quickly devise a plan to steal the loot for Odile's aunt's house. And make her an accomplice in crime.
Arthur and Franz, all the while forming this plan to steal the aunt's money, are almost at competition to see who will be the man who ends up dating Odile. So a romantic subplot forms, between Odile and Arthur most of all. Which makes the film seem both more entertaining but at the same time sad because it shows this naive and, for the most part, innocent young woman who just falls in love with the wrong guys. She continues to try and please Arthur as a girlfriend. But it seems the only thing Arthur is interested in has nothing to really do with her, but rather his interest is in her money.
The two men quickly convince Odile to see how much cash her aunt has. And when Odile gets to her house she sneaks into her aunt's room and searches the dresser, which happends to be full of money. But while investigating the dresser, and her aunt calls to her so she quickly puts the money away. But she accidently forgets to put anouther a sweater that was covering the money. So when her aunt investigates the room. She knows somethings out of place.
So when the day comes that the Arthur and Franz decide to rob the place. The locks have already been changed and they have no way to get into the room with all the cash. And so there plans seem to fail one after anouther to get the money. Eventually it their plans become a little more serious when Odile's aunt arrives on the scene of one of their failed robberies.
Anyone who is interested in foriegn films or for that matter crime films will definitely enjoy this movie. And as I've said many times before, if your a fan of Tarantino I would recommend you check out Jean-Luc Godard. Especially with Godard's Breathless and Band of Outsiders both films you can see heavily influenced Tarantino's earlier work of Reservior Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
Godard directed this film wonderfully and the scenery around this film is something to take notice of. The acting is well done of course and it's one of those films I just found myself falling in love with at the very beginning.
French films seem to deal with romance better than we do here in America. In America, we think of romance in a film to be some sort of chick-flick ideal:
Sensitive guy meets a nice girl, but they have problems being in a relationship and eventually come up with a sissy way to help solve their problems together.
That's not how the french deal with romance in films. Rather they deal with it in a more interesting fasion. For example in this movie:
Naive girl falls in love with a criminal who manipulates her love for him just to get her aunt's money.
See the difference?
This film gets better everytime you watch it as well. Which is anouther reason why I like subtitled foreign films. The first time you watch it you get a basic just for the film. The second or third time around to watching it you get the film even more, plus the fact this time around you can take in the visual artistry of the film.
Some parts in this movie I thought where a bit lame but regardless i was still enjoying myself very much so. Godard is the director's director, and he's shown both the audience and the hardcore movie goers that his films are experiments of both greatness and error made to study from.
4/5 Stars.
I give it:
Jean-Luc Godard hits the crime genre once again after his success with his film Breathless. Seemingly reinventing the crime genre every time he films it. And Band of Outsiders has to be my personal favorite of all the films I've seen him make so far.
And I believe this movie was based off the novel, "Fool's Gold".
Quentin Tarantino later named his production company after this film.
The french name of this film is Bande A Part, Tarantino just changed the name around a little bit to A Band Apart.
There is also a resemblance to Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in this movie. Such as the dance scene with Uma Thurman and John Travolta came out of this film.
In this film two would-be criminals, (Arthur and Franz) are searching for a way to make a big score. When Franz meets a beautiful girl named Odile from his english class, she later informs him that her aunt keeps a large amount of cash kept hidden away in her dresser at her house, and that the room with all this money is always unlocked. When Franz informs Arthur about the situation the two men quickly devise a plan to steal the loot for Odile's aunt's house. And make her an accomplice in crime.
Arthur and Franz, all the while forming this plan to steal the aunt's money, are almost at competition to see who will be the man who ends up dating Odile. So a romantic subplot forms, between Odile and Arthur most of all. Which makes the film seem both more entertaining but at the same time sad because it shows this naive and, for the most part, innocent young woman who just falls in love with the wrong guys. She continues to try and please Arthur as a girlfriend. But it seems the only thing Arthur is interested in has nothing to really do with her, but rather his interest is in her money.
The two men quickly convince Odile to see how much cash her aunt has. And when Odile gets to her house she sneaks into her aunt's room and searches the dresser, which happends to be full of money. But while investigating the dresser, and her aunt calls to her so she quickly puts the money away. But she accidently forgets to put anouther a sweater that was covering the money. So when her aunt investigates the room. She knows somethings out of place.
So when the day comes that the Arthur and Franz decide to rob the place. The locks have already been changed and they have no way to get into the room with all the cash. And so there plans seem to fail one after anouther to get the money. Eventually it their plans become a little more serious when Odile's aunt arrives on the scene of one of their failed robberies.
Anyone who is interested in foriegn films or for that matter crime films will definitely enjoy this movie. And as I've said many times before, if your a fan of Tarantino I would recommend you check out Jean-Luc Godard. Especially with Godard's Breathless and Band of Outsiders both films you can see heavily influenced Tarantino's earlier work of Reservior Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
Godard directed this film wonderfully and the scenery around this film is something to take notice of. The acting is well done of course and it's one of those films I just found myself falling in love with at the very beginning.
French films seem to deal with romance better than we do here in America. In America, we think of romance in a film to be some sort of chick-flick ideal:
Sensitive guy meets a nice girl, but they have problems being in a relationship and eventually come up with a sissy way to help solve their problems together.
That's not how the french deal with romance in films. Rather they deal with it in a more interesting fasion. For example in this movie:
Naive girl falls in love with a criminal who manipulates her love for him just to get her aunt's money.
See the difference?
This film gets better everytime you watch it as well. Which is anouther reason why I like subtitled foreign films. The first time you watch it you get a basic just for the film. The second or third time around to watching it you get the film even more, plus the fact this time around you can take in the visual artistry of the film.
Some parts in this movie I thought where a bit lame but regardless i was still enjoying myself very much so. Godard is the director's director, and he's shown both the audience and the hardcore movie goers that his films are experiments of both greatness and error made to study from.
4/5 Stars.
__________________
"I don't think there's anything to be afraid of. Failure brings great rewards -- in the life of an artist."---Quentin Tarantino
"I don't think there's anything to be afraid of. Failure brings great rewards -- in the life of an artist."---Quentin Tarantino