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36%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #12,166
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An undercover French cop and an American art critic travel to a mystical island to verify the source of a painting of a scene that only the infamous "Marseilles Monster" serial killer could have created.
--IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: March 12, 2008
When it comes to foreign films, I'm one of those movie snobs who demands nothing less than subtitles if the original dialogue isn't in English. Dubbing? Please; I'll turn a movie off before I sit through that sort of thing, as listening to some uninspired Americans reading a script and attempting to sound like they really give a shit is truly one of the most distracting things in the world of cinema. However, there is one thing that I hate even more than that, and it's when foreign actors attempt to speak their lines in English when they really should have stuck with their original languages instead. Granted, I can't very well criticize their language skills as they spoke English a whole hell of a lot better than I speak French, but when you're watching a movie with a deep script that relies on numerous little details, it's sort of important that the audience can understand what the leading men and women are saying. This was my biggest problem with Nature Morte, and sadly, this problem was big enough to cause me to abandon the film altogether more than once. I finally sat through it from beginning to end just so that I wouldn't break my four-year-long streak of reviewing everything that I watch, but unfortunately, I think that I should have just called it a day the first time that I ejected the disc in anger.
The storyline here has promise, which is another thing that really pissed me off about the language issue. We begin by watching an artist work on his latest painting, but unlike most renowned artists, he also has a young woman chained to a chair while he works. He takes great delight in torturing her while he works, but sadly, he never finishes his work as - presumedly - the police have found out about his deeds and are on their way to arrest him. Instead of spending the rest of his life in jail, he whips out a gun and shoots himself. The end? Not quite...
Months later, the French police discover that this artist may have had an accomplice, or he may not have even been guy that was responsible for the string of murders. You see, someone has created a finished version of the painting that the original artist was working on when he offed himself, and when one considers that nobody besides the artist himself and the police have seen the unfinished painting, well... it may be a coincidence and it may be a copycat, but it sure demands their attention nonetheless. Enter art expert and collector Oliver Davenport (Troy McFadden), who the police enlist to get to the bottom of this mystery. He eventually traces the new painting to an eccentric artist named Lec (Laurent Guyon) who lives on a remote island with his girlfriend Blanche (Carole Derrien). Oliver travels to the island to meet the man, and from there, we have ourselves a confusing little film.
Here's the problem with the film: the director attempted to present us with a surreal storyline not unlike the works of David Lynch, and as anyone who has seen any of Lynch's releases can attest to, they're not exactly linear films that are easy for the audience to understand. That's fine and dandy; I'm personally not a fan of these types of films, but seeing how Lynch and his contemporaries have a sizable fan base, there's certainly a market for them. The problem comes from the vast majority of the actors in this particular film, as aside from one or two actors of either American or British descent, everyone is French and speaks English with an extremely heavy accent. This may not be a huge issue for those of you who happen to understand English as spoken by a Frenchman, but personally, there were entire scenes that went by where I couldn't understand a single word being spoken.
This wouldn't have been an issue had this been a straight-forward slasher film, but no, this is one of those films where the devil is in the details and you really have to hear every piece of dialogue and every subtle hint in order to fit the pieces of the puzzle together when all is said and done. Perhaps this would have been easier to follow had the distributor offered subtitles to go along with the film, but personally, I don't see why the filmmakers just didn't let the people speak in their native languages; it would have forced someone to create those subtitles and the film would have had a much better chance at scoring with an American audience. Oh, and I showed the film to two other people who voiced similar concerns, so the problem wasn't just with me.
There are some interesting camera angles and some neat shots in here, but truthfully, it's hard to appreciate any of that when you can't understand ninety percent of what is being said. I'll re-review this one if a subtitled version ever pops up, but for now, I'm going to have to say avoid Nature Morte like the plague. 1/10.
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