CQ

A charming, intricate, compulsively watchable, rather brilliant comedy by Roman Coppola, his first and, to date, only feature.

A young, experimental filmmaker in 1969 Paris is suddenly handed the reins of an unfinished sci-fi sex comedy.  As he grapples with his daunting new assignment, he also deals with his fractured love life, his stunted artistic ambitions and his decaying family.

It perfectly captures a moment in film history when the possibilities of film as a language seemed unlimited.  As the young man tussles with the problems of his film and life, the mysteries, pleasures, seductions and promises of the art form open to him and allow him to lose and find himself.  That the movie pulls all this off while remaining funny, fast, original, unpretentious and fizzy is something like a minor miracle.

Jeremy Davies, it-boy of the modern independent film movement, plays the young filmmaker, and Gerard Depardieu and Giancarlo Giannini are on hand to remind us of the moment that the film encapsulates.

If the movie finally falls short of its revolutionary promises (“Astonish me!” is the producer’s note to the untested director, while an older director insists that film has the power to change the world), well, then it reflects well the time it’s describing.  But it also shows the joys and sadness of the art of film, and how the most malleable, most complex, most powerful of artistic tools is consistently put in the service of silliness.
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Comments

3 Responses to “CQ”
  1. eronanke says:

    I must disagree- this movie was nigh unwatchable for me. The kind of arty-for-the-sake-of-art-alone film that just doesn’t ‘click’ with me.
    I forget- did someone bring up Cecil B. Demented?

  2. spooky_chan says:

    I loved this movie. I probably saw it a few years ago.

    I loved how it had many different views on what was reality to the film maker (if i’m remembering correctly.) I loved how quiet and slowly the movie goes. Like a very patient love letter to a time gone by.

    Anyways, you have reminded me that I should probably pick this film up again for a 2nd viewing, it’s been way too long!

  3. medox says:

    It’s weird, but I was entirely turned off by this film.

    I think it’s because I ended up hating the main character. It was so frustrating watching him make his navel-gazing “art” film and mope about, instead of actually engaging in and enjoying his damn sweet life.

    I ended up just wishing that I watching the Dragonfly movie instead. It was pretty…and it had Billy Zane.