Recently watched: Eden Log

I must confess: I have a somewhat shameful taste for modern, French science-fiction cinéma. The latest bow to this habit was a recently released film Eden Log.

The back-splash on this DVD claims that it's an example of "cyberpunk". I rather beg to differ -- there's no real correspondence to much of the concerns of that sub-genre and this film (the ubiquity of monitoring, transhumanism, artficial intelligence, and so on). What it does share with the sub-genre is, perhaps, a willingness to wallow in a production design featured by grime and the broken-down.

The IMDB gives the film a 5.2 rating; the tomatoes give it a 43% rating. This seems a bit harsh. I'd probably give it a C- or C, depending upon your tastes. It's pretty look at (at times), the sound and score are interesting in points, and the acting is decent (mind you, the protagonists are not required to have much in the way of range); the cinemetography is compelling (to start with), but goes off the rails near the end. As does what little we have here for plotting.

As with so many of the films of this stripe, it seems to me it's all about production design and premise, with little ability to maintain a solid narrative line through to the finish. The story is meant to be buried and hard to follow, but really, in the end, it leaves more open questions than it answers. And the answers that it offers in the end are a bit lacking.

So, if you really liked Immortel, or other recent examples of French filmed science-fiction, then you might very well connect to Eden Log. It's not a bad way to spend an evening if you can get it on a relatively inexpensive rental. It has memorable visual moments (the first five minutes; the scene in the botanist's redoubt; the scene in technician's station where the protagonist replays the first found log). And for fans of science fiction, it's almost certainly more compelling than what Hollywood has come to think defines the genre.

But most of the criticisms levelled at it are fair enough: it's a bit shallow, it fails to make a sympathetic connection to the viewer, it's a bit disjointed and feels a lot like a film made by people whose primary exposure to pop culture is through video games and music videos. If you liked "Silent Hill" and "Immortel" and "The Fountain", then you might give more love to "Eden Log" than others.

Recently watched: Eden Log

I must confess: I have a somewhat shameful taste for modern, French science-fiction cinéma. The latest bow to this habit was a recently released film Eden Log.

The back-splash on this DVD claims that it's an example of "cyberpunk". I rather beg to differ -- there's no real correspondence to much of the concerns of that sub-genre and this film (the ubiquity of monitoring, transhumanism, artficial intelligence, and so on). What it does share with the sub-genre is, perhaps, a willingness to wallow in a production design featured by grime and the broken-down.

The IMDB gives the film a 5.2 rating; the tomatoes give it a 43% rating. This seems a bit harsh. I'd probably give it a C- or C, depending upon your tastes. It's pretty look at (at times), the sound and score are interesting in points, and the acting is decent (mind you, the protagonists are not required to have much in the way of range); the cinemetography is compelling (to start with), but goes off the rails near the end. As does what little we have here for plotting.

As with so many of the films of this stripe, it seems to me it's all about production design and premise, with little ability to maintain a solid narrative line through to the finish. The story is meant to be buried and hard to follow, but really, in the end, it leaves more open questions than it answers. And the answers that it offers in the end are a bit lacking.

So, if you really liked Immortel, or other recent examples of French filmed science-fiction, then you might very well connect to Eden Log. It's not a bad way to spend an evening if you can get it on a relatively inexpensive rental. It has memorable visual moments (the first five minutes; the scene in the botanist's redoubt; the scene in technician's station where the protagonist replays the first found log). And for fans of science fiction, it's almost certainly more compelling than what Hollywood has come to think defines the genre.

But most of the criticisms levelled at it are fair enough: it's a bit shallow, it fails to make a sympathetic connection to the viewer, it's a bit disjointed and feels a lot like a film made by people whose primary exposure to pop culture is through video games and music videos. If you liked "Silent Hill" and "Immortel" and "The Fountain", then you might give more love to "Eden Log" than others.