It seems that Jean-Luc Godard still has a lot to answer for. Some 60 years after his Brainless got the Pseuds into such a lather young filmmakers are still finding that off-the-wall, outre, call it what you will remains as good a substitute for talent for them as it did for him. This time around one Alain Guiraudie has come up with a scenario in which a guy named Basile - or it COULD be Hector - gets it into his head that if he falls asleep he will never wake up and - I'm guessing here and your guess is as good as mine - in the throes of sleep deprivation appears to undergo the type of hallucinations he could just as easily acquire via substance abuse. Whether he did actually massacre an entire small village, have an affair with a 60 year-old man, fly a red plane abortively, etc is really academic because like Godard before him Guiraudie has either not learned or has chosen to deliberately ignore Rule #1. Entertain the audience. Academics will cream in their pants over this one because it's open to so many interpretations it'll keep them writing papers and lecturing for years. On the other hand the non-academic film-goer will take one look and say merde.
Review of Pas de repos pour les braves
