Any time you hit a festival like this you, by default, hit a lot of films blind and while you undoubtedly strike a lot of gold that way every festival also has its unrelentingly bad moments. In Philadelphia this year that was Evilenko. At this year's TIFF I've found that unfortunate film with only my second screening of the festival. Hello Les Saignantes. Much like my stay in the theater this review of the Cameroon based sci-fi film will be brief.
Set in Cameroon circa 2025 Les Saignantes is meant to serve as a social criticism of life in modern Africa, with the sex and corruption blown up on a large scale. As they say, the more thing change the more they stay the same. The titular Saignettes (or Bloodettes) are a group of high profile prostitutes. When one of their number has a high ranking politician die on her during sex she turns to a fellow Bloodette to help dispose of the body and cover the entire incident up.
I've already made my bias clear so let's get right into it ... where does this film go wrong? Pick something. Anything. Literally. The first thing you notice is that it is shot on what looks to be a mid grade home video camera, and poorly lit. Visually this would receive a failing grade as a film school project. Next you'll no doubt notice the sound track, more specifically how the length of the music cues often has nothing to do with the length of the scene they're attached to. Onc eyou're through the opening shots you are introduced to the acting - poor - and the writing - poorer - and, if you stick around long enough the 'futuristic technology' which includes an AI driven, voice activated car which a prostitute is able to fool simply by dropping her voice an octave. Amateurish in the extreme Les Saignantes simply fails on every level imaginable.
Now, before you criticize me for judging this based on an incomplete viewing, consider this. The theater was packed for this, particularly for an early morning screening of an unknown film from Cameroon. Like me a great number of people were anticipating this one, seeing a lot of potential in the scenario. How did the rest of the people in the theater respond? By the fifteen minute mark roughly a third had left. By the time I gave up the theater manager and volunteers were standing in a ring next to the entrance marvelling at how incredibly poorly the screening had gone. People hated this film. The only reason I can imagine that it has drawn any attention whatsoever is the copious T&A and, frankly, you could have made this film with the entire cast naked from start to finish and it wouldn't even begin to entice me to take another look at it.
In a year where I can easily name fifteen to twenty very deserving films that are not here for various reasons the fact that such a low grade film is here at all fankly makes me a little bit angry. There are much better things out there that are being overlooked and Les Saignantes' selection smacks of regional quota filling far more than picking the best of what's out there. Avoid this at all costs.
its called blatant TOKENISM and if a film came from TIMBUKTOO expect to see it in the fest. I walked out under 7mins - twas enuff to see it was rancid and should never have been in the festival. would love to ask the programmer their rationale? are they into scat?
I have never wanted so desperately to walk out of a film.
Unfortunately I didn't. I thought, perhaps, that there was some well thought out plan for the film. That I was missing the perspective required to appreciate this expresion of one man's something.
I even stayed for the Q&A after the film to hear the director speak. What I learned from the director's comments was that his main characters--as women, were merely a mouth and a body.
He said it was an expression of what his perceptions of Cameroon were. There was a native of Cameroon who stated that she really appreciated the film because it was how she too saw Cameroon. So someone appreciated it.
I shudder at the prospect of watching any other film by this man.
I don't think I have the words to describe how bad this film was. Put it this way: about twenty minutes in, realizing that I was trapped in the middle of the row, I *willed myself to go to sleep so that the time would pass more quickly*. I couldn't believe such an amateurish piece made it to the internationally-renowned TIFF. The production values mirrored those of bad 70s-era BBC sci-fi television shows. From the end of the opening credits to the end of the closing credits, the editing was appalling. I think at times the director was intentionally using jump-cuts to create a sense of disorientation, but I can't be sure, since at certain times it simply looked like he was re-doing a take and not bothering to edit to a different POV to cover it up. The laughable acting, which might have been forgivable in a work by high-school film students, was hardly helped by a screenplay that left the audience incredulously trying to sort out what the hell had happened and how the hell we'd gotten to where we were. The best (worst?) bit was the kung-fu/go-go-dancing climactic scene in which the two female protagonists overcame the Minister of State by invoking some kind of primal female life-force. This was, bar none, the worst movie I have ever seen. On the People's Choice ballot, I gave it a 1 out of 5. I was not the only one, by a long shot. If there had been negative numbers, I'm sure people would have gladly voted to take points away from their total score. I couldn't believe there were still people left in the theatre at the end -- perhaps, like me, they were hoping that the Q&A would clear up their bewilderment. However, it turned out that the director was as inarticulate with words as he was with film.
Not a total loss, though -- on the walk from the Elgin to the Cumberland I stopped on Yonge and bought some groovy winter boots.
Horrible.....F.
Worst film ever...
I knew in the opening credits that the film had problems, as the music ended long before the credits did, the words hung far too long in silence as we waited for this complete waste of time known as "Les Saignantes&" to begin. The opening swing scene had some promise but it was too long, things just got worse from there, particularly when you noticed it was shot on what looked like VHS tape.
I went to see this film because I thought it would be interesting to see Africa in the year 2025, well lets see they have the same technology as today (like video cell phones - already out in Japan), only it looks fake on film. The 90's era Mercedes 300 the girls drove around in (which would have been roughly 30+ years old) was so fancy it was voice activated, but could be fooled by any hooker with a low voice.
Lots of stupid male fantasy scenes, I think someone involved in this film likes rape and peeing since the first was alluded to several times and we are shown a close up of a woman relieving herself standing upright in a parking lot. Someone must have said to themselves "Hmm, I have always wanted to see that actress pee why don't I write that scene into a movie?&"
I did not stay for the whole movie, I can't decide whether I admire anyone who did or just think they're foolish and or masochistic.
The only reason I didn't walk out of this film was because the director was sitting in my row. That didn't seem to stop two or three other people next to me (and that's a lot, considering the other half of the row was occupied by the director and his cronies). Awful, awful, dreadful. And I have NEVER even CONSIDERED walking out of a film at the festival before, no matter how bad it was.
Us 'sad bloggers' run this website, and have just as much a right to post our opinions of a film as you do to critique us. Understand that this website is primarily directed at 'spoiled audiences of the industrialized world' who may not have the context to put the film into completely, and have certain standards with which films we like have to adhere to (but these can also be bent for certain films). And, this was playing at an international film festival, not in Cameroon, so our reaction is certainly valid.
Sorry if it didn't meet with your approval. And thanks for posting.
Hi, Todd,
Just for the record and to make sure that you really know what you are talking about, what is "the first feature film to be made in Cameroon&"? Enlighten the masses, why don't you? Share the knowledge!
Oops, did I give you a little homework, darling?
That's okay, you know how it goes, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
Now go dig through the history of Cameroonian cinema and let us all know what you find...
;-) La Saignante
Oh, and first film out of Cameroon? According to IMDb, that would be "Une nation est nee&" (1970), a documentary. (http://www.imdb.com/List?tv=on&&countries=Cameroon&&nav=/Sections/Countries/Cameroon/include-titles&&heading=8;All;Cameroon)
According to All Movie Guide, it's "Kein Auskommen Mit Dem Einkommen&" (1957) -- does it count if the filmmaker was actually German rather than African? (http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=24:D|||365)
First film by Bekolo: "Quartier Mozart&" (1992).
That wasn't so hard. Still doesn't really explain what Cameroon is hoping to achieve by fielding a badly-made film to represent the abilities of its artists to the world.
I think the criticism has alot of do with racial and cultural issues. There is nothing in this world that can be seperated from race and culture. Your perception and ideas on both colour the way you see the world, art, film, even fashion. You want to be shown things that are familiar, safe and reliable. BUt thaty isn't life. And that isn't the life that artist and true filmmakers want to present. There needs to be people pushing boundaries, showing us new styles, new stories, new outlooks on life. If there have been films by an American, Canadian, French directors that were poor in plot, construction, acting and were just plain horrible, but you wouldn't hear this rabid attack by you spoiled and closed-minded cinephiles. That's because the way you see the film is through your cultural blinders. You are mere horses being directed in the way that the trite, predictable, and mass-produced film industry of the world want to see you go.
If you are such great cinephiles who expect the world of filmmakers to bow down to your demands of filmic style and construction, then i think you need to just get over yourself. Bunuel would tell you to go F*@K yourself, and i would agree. If you look at some of Bunuel's films, they are flawed, there are mistakes in the editing as well as purposeful mistakes in the general construction of the film.
I just think it is sad that this great film has been wasted on people like you, who couldn't even grasp the importance of it.
Oh, please. Someone doesn't like your film so they must be racist? Head, ass, remove.
If you want to avoid this sort of criticism in the future, here's a handy primer:
1. Learn to frame a shot.
2. Learn to light a shot.
3. Take lessons in editing.
4. Learn to time your music and audio cues so that they line up to what is occuring on screen.
I have no issues with the politics of the film, in fact I was hoping for more along that line. I enjoy satire. I enjoy being challenged. The problem isn't the "culture&" the problem is that on every basic technical level, all of the purely physical and skill based elements that go into making a film, this film fails HORRIBLY.
Is it harder to make a film in Cameroon than here in Canada? Sure it is, of course. But there are plenty of poorer countries than mine, loaded with histories of corruption and decay every bit as long as Cameroon's that make *gasp* good films, plenty of film makers from those countries that grasp the basic technical skills required to make a film.
Frankly it doesn't matter how "important&" what you have to say is if you can't make yourself understood, and when it comes to the language of film this film can barely even spit out an intelligible phrase, never mind a complete sentence. I can't even HEAR the message when it's presented this poorly. It's incoherent, not because I'm a racist or because I don't understand the culture but because the film itself is a horrible mess from start to finish. If it is so "important&" than you'd think it would be "important&" enough to do well. This is a shambles and if I were you and had such an obvious personal connection to the issues being raised then I'd be pretty damn pissed off that the person who decided to take this issues public did such a damn poor job of it.
-----