participating in a harvest

Over the weekend I enjoyed my second parisian-cinema-bound french film.  Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec was beyond over the top.  And I don't say that in a snooty way: from start to finish, your eyes are graced by so many quick-wit words, creatures, ancienticities, fantasma, clothes, vehicles, characters...  You can't help but enjoy the overload of sensory artificats that are being thrown your way.

The fim is based on the series of comics by Jacques Tardi dating back to the late 70s.  This cinematographic feat belongs to the renowned french fim director, writer, and producer Luc Besson, who had to wait beggingly for 6 years before he convinced Tardi to give him the rights to this magnificent story.

There is really no way to give a short summary of the film, [my poor attempt at this would be something like "it's a story about a woman trying to save her sister, and somehow, talking mummies, a giant omelette, and a pterodactyl fit into this quite snugly"] for I could never bring together the various story lines in a succinct and comprehensive fashion the way Besson's film does so.  Watching the film is almost like participating in a harvest where you pick up delicious fruits a long the one-and-a-half-hour journey until you finally reach the finale with a bucket of treasure.  You don't really understand how the bucket is going to turn into treasure, but you have faith that is does, and well, it did.

Although critics were quite harsh in regards to Louise Bourgoin, the star of the flick, I thought she was divine.  She had a spark to her, never letting anything get in her way, whether it be a giant prehistoric monster or flowers being offered to her by a charming young jardin associate.

Another reason why my heart goes out to this fim is because one of the central locales to its plot, the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, stands at a nearly two minute walk from my apartment.  Hurray for living in a city which holds such grand cinematic attention.