Word: retour
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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THIS IS A film of words," warns the narrator who begins Le Retour d'Afrique. "Words can be an act themselves, or they can substitute for action." When the words act well, Alain Tanner's new film sparkles with the same warm humor that he demonstrated in his last film, La Salamandre, a masterpiece. But this is occasional, and for the most part words are only surrogates for a new vision that Tanner fails to conjure...
...Retour and Salamandretreat the same theme--most broadly, the struggles of socialist humanists attempting to deal with a post-industrialist world. The setting (Geneva), and the sometimes simplistic philosophy of class conflict are the same. But Tanner has now brought his ideology, his words, into the forefront, replacing the action provided by Salamandre's fascinating heroine, Rosemonde...
Instead of Rosemonde, he provides us with Francis and Vincent Silverware, by comparison uninteresting principals. Salamandre is about Rosemonde, who refuses to be pinned down to any describable ideology. But in Retour,Tanner has turned the scheme upside down. Retour is not about the Silvestres, but, as he warns, it is about their words...
Taken by itself, Retour is not a bad movie, but for Tanner it represents a regression. Without engaging personalities, without a saving sense of humor, it is too long and often boring. Tanner's basic problem is his approach: the question that he treats is a vital one--for radical workers, and radical students. But forging a program for constructive radical action is not a simple task. By refusing to examine his characters in depth, Tanner refuses to put their ideology to the critical test of compatibility with their lives. He provides instead a vision of two children stumbling through...