Wednesday, June 29, 2005
5X2 (2004)
Director: Francois Ozon
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Awful, absolutely awful. So awful I can barely bring myself to write an intelligible analysis.
5X2 is an exercise in how much you cannot wait for a film to end. It is an exercise in how much we can hate a mundane character. It is an excise in how pissed-off you can be for how long of a time in a movie theater. Its story is about showing us how awful and abusive its main character, Gilles, can be to our other main character Marion, his enfeebled, gutless wife. The awful abuse in 5X2 is not instructive, edifying or even extraordinary – it is mundane, functional cruelty. Ozon, perhaps, is providing a look behind those real life relationships that are mildly abusive in public; showing us how terribly abusive they may be behind closed doors. If so Ozon offers no redemption, no justice, no insight of any kind into such masochism. And I am still pissed-off thinking about watching this film.
There is so much that disappoints in 5X2. Perhaps atop of the heaps and heaps of disappointments, frustrations and anger is the simple disappointment that this is an Ozon film. What I have loved most about Ozon’s films is his abundant love for women, women of all ages, (especially beautiful women of all ages), and the wonderful roles he has created for them in Under the Sand, 8 Women and Swimming Pool. He is woman’s director and I have loved him for that. And to have him throw this horrid film at us where his main female character is such a wimp, so willing to take abuse without a fight, is absolutely maddening. (I can feel the pissed- off-ness rising in me again as I write about it now.)
The opening sequences sets off the infuriation (and offers more than enough vileness to walk out of the theater). The first scene shows Gilles and Marion sitting before a lawyer who is reading the lengthy terms of their divorce. Cut to a hotel room. They have decided to have one last sexual encounter before going into their new divorced lives. Once there, however, Marion decides she does not want sex after all, and in an infuriating scene Gilles rapes her – rapes with hardly a fight from Marion. I still cannot shake the grotesque image of Gilles grip around Marion and her half-hearted, ineffectual struggle to stop him. Ozon does not play this scene as a violent, crazed struggle where Gilles eventually overpowers Marion after a significant fight. What is infuriating is Marion barely exerts herself, a few half-hearted, feeble pushes and a flaccid ‘no’ is all she can muster. Worst still,( yes it gets worse), after the rape Marion goes into the bathroom, changes and comes out to talk with Gilles about when he will be picking up their son. What the fuck!! You wanted her to pull out a gun a blow his head off and instead she is chatting about visitation. I have never recovered from this repulsive wrongheaded scene, and I am still infuriated.
The film than goes back in time so we can see all the other ways Gilles was abusive to Marion, and all the other ways in which she takes it without a struggle.
There is no good reason for this film to exist unless you want a cold-eyed, un-redemptive view into a masochistic, abusive relationship.
And I am still infuriated.
Should you see it? You should gather every copy of the film and burn them and make believe Ozon never mad this horrible, horrible mistake.
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Awful, absolutely awful. So awful I can barely bring myself to write an intelligible analysis.
5X2 is an exercise in how much you cannot wait for a film to end. It is an exercise in how much we can hate a mundane character. It is an excise in how pissed-off you can be for how long of a time in a movie theater. Its story is about showing us how awful and abusive its main character, Gilles, can be to our other main character Marion, his enfeebled, gutless wife. The awful abuse in 5X2 is not instructive, edifying or even extraordinary – it is mundane, functional cruelty. Ozon, perhaps, is providing a look behind those real life relationships that are mildly abusive in public; showing us how terribly abusive they may be behind closed doors. If so Ozon offers no redemption, no justice, no insight of any kind into such masochism. And I am still pissed-off thinking about watching this film.
There is so much that disappoints in 5X2. Perhaps atop of the heaps and heaps of disappointments, frustrations and anger is the simple disappointment that this is an Ozon film. What I have loved most about Ozon’s films is his abundant love for women, women of all ages, (especially beautiful women of all ages), and the wonderful roles he has created for them in Under the Sand, 8 Women and Swimming Pool. He is woman’s director and I have loved him for that. And to have him throw this horrid film at us where his main female character is such a wimp, so willing to take abuse without a fight, is absolutely maddening. (I can feel the pissed- off-ness rising in me again as I write about it now.)
The opening sequences sets off the infuriation (and offers more than enough vileness to walk out of the theater). The first scene shows Gilles and Marion sitting before a lawyer who is reading the lengthy terms of their divorce. Cut to a hotel room. They have decided to have one last sexual encounter before going into their new divorced lives. Once there, however, Marion decides she does not want sex after all, and in an infuriating scene Gilles rapes her – rapes with hardly a fight from Marion. I still cannot shake the grotesque image of Gilles grip around Marion and her half-hearted, ineffectual struggle to stop him. Ozon does not play this scene as a violent, crazed struggle where Gilles eventually overpowers Marion after a significant fight. What is infuriating is Marion barely exerts herself, a few half-hearted, feeble pushes and a flaccid ‘no’ is all she can muster. Worst still,( yes it gets worse), after the rape Marion goes into the bathroom, changes and comes out to talk with Gilles about when he will be picking up their son. What the fuck!! You wanted her to pull out a gun a blow his head off and instead she is chatting about visitation. I have never recovered from this repulsive wrongheaded scene, and I am still infuriated.
The film than goes back in time so we can see all the other ways Gilles was abusive to Marion, and all the other ways in which she takes it without a struggle.
There is no good reason for this film to exist unless you want a cold-eyed, un-redemptive view into a masochistic, abusive relationship.
And I am still infuriated.
Should you see it? You should gather every copy of the film and burn them and make believe Ozon never mad this horrible, horrible mistake.
