How didn't I know about Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec?
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
D'une manière ou d'une autre, je ne connaissais pas le film de Luc Besson 2010 Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec. Excusez mon français. I will continue in English now. I just had a pleasure of listening to people speak French for 2 hours straight, because I just learned about the existence of a movie that for some reason passed my radar. As you know I'm a big enough Luc Besson fan that sometimes I take his personal life blunders personally. I knew about his more obscure Arthur films. And I am anticipating his upcoming 2 films, that nobody seem to know nothing about. But somehow only now I heard about the 2010 Luc Besson film The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. ↩ Reply
Obviously ( no questions asked ) I watched it right away. This time with subtitles turned on ( I prefer not to have them, but the movie is in French and I don't speak it ). In my opinion this sort of movie suits Besson's sensitivities as a writer best. In my previous review I talked about how I find Besson's writing almost good. As in he writes good stuff, but just one rewrite ( to polish the blunders ) would actually be a good thing. ↩ Reply
This film almost made me think that Besson intentionally forgot one thing he introduced in the very beginning, to make the rest of the movie good. As in Besson knowingly introduced a blunder, because he knows there will be one. And he took control over his fate. But then the thing introduced in the beginning is actually payed off in the very end of the film, revealing a sort of unspoken comradery between Besson and James Cameron. ↩ Reply
From interviews with Besson you can learn that he was one of the directors Cameron invited to the performance capture stage during the production of the first Avatar movie. They at the very least know each other. And a theory could be formed that they are friends. ↩ Reply
Cameron's second Avatar movie appears to bother aesthetic inspiration from Besson's work. Specifically Valerian and Le Grande Bleu. And Besson references Cameron in reverse. Making the sexy aliens in Valerian kind of similar to the Na'vi. And doing other similar stuff. ↩ Reply
In a way, both directors are obsessed with marine biology. Besson wanted to be a marine biologist before his health complications made him instead choose film-making. But it didn't stop him from doing dolphin-porn in Le Grand Bleu. Cameron is even known to do multiple deep sea explorations. Including diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. So both men probably have a lot to talk about when they meet. And that could suggest they might have a strong comradery. ↩ Reply
That leaves us with only 1 reference that Besson could do in a movie like The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, which is set in 1912. You guessed it. He recreates a shot from Titanic. The film is silly enough to start as a Indiana Jones rip-off ( with a black leather wearing Nazi character ) and it is silly enough to suggest that this black leather wearing Nazi character is so pissed as Adèle Blanc-Sec that he is going to sink a ship she is on. Basically the film is silly enough to blame Titanic on Nazis. ↩ Reply
And that silliness is what I think saves this movie from Besson's writing. The silliness is silly enough that he can blunder ( the way he usually does ) but it is immediately explained by the silliness of the movie. So it results in a rather enjoyable experience. ↩ Reply
You can argue that this is a family friendly film for very little children. And perhaps you are right. There is a PG cut of it, as stated on Wikipedia. I don't know which cut I watched. But the cut I watched had a girl barely alive, because she fell on a needle that is now sticking through her head. And the cut I watched had a scene of some wealthy important gentleman driving home with a prostitute. And they were about to fuck in their car. Just suddenly a pterodactyl appeared out of nowhere and fucked their car before they fucked. Resulting in the scene being family friendly. As in to teach kids that if they will fancy themselves with wanting to have sex with a prostitute, a pterodactyl will come and kill them. As I've said. It is a silly movie. ↩ Reply
Louise Bourgoin plays the main character Adèle Blanc-Sec who is this very rude woman. I mean she is very determined to save her sister from the needle in her head. And that requires her to deal with early 20 century sexism. Which she does by having a fucking character. Like at one point when the taxi driver couldn't go anywhere because there was a horse in front of them, first she yelled at him in French. That just resulted in him pointing out the horse. So she stuck her head out of the window and cursed the horse in Arabic. Which made him move. That was fucking brilliant. She called him ya hamor which is like calling him a Donkey. Ridiculous. ↩ Reply
The film has a lot of visual effects. There is obviously the pterodactyl which looks good until Besson tries to give him closeups. They didn't have the budget of Valerian for this movie. Still though, there is like a whole team of alive mummies in the climax. And the climax is strangely enough not an action scene. It is a comedy scene, that starts with a mummy dressed in a 20 century black suit, scaring off a fat guy. And then a Pharaoh character ( also a mummy ) looking at the Louvre building ( before it had the glass pyramid ) and saying that he wants to build a pyramid there. ↩ Reply
If you have noticed that Besson has giggles stuck up his ass that manifest themselves as a crash zoom or some stupid ass moment in his more serious movies. Well this movie is like a therapy session for Besson, where he releases all of the giggles that are suck up there all at once. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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c:0Translation of the first sentence: Так или иначе, я не знал о фильме Люка Бессона 2010 года «Необыкновенные приключения Адель Блан-Сек». Извините за мой французский.
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