Browse: Home / Taco Break: The Big Ask

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Decade of the Month: Tom "vomas" Morton on GO WEST
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty
  • Celebrating the Living: Adam Arkin
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright
The original draft had an elaborate swipe at Orlando Bloom, wooden acting and all that, but I'm slightly bigger than that.

Taco Break: The Big Ask

Posted By The Ploughman on November 4, 2021 in Short Articles | Leave a response

All movies ask at least something of their audiences. Most stories ask the viewer to accept the world as presented. The James Bond series needs us to believe in all-capable spies and villains with access to near-future technology. Legally Blonde asks us to believe a court case can turn on a dramatic reveal on the witness stand. Instant Family asks us to believe Mark Wahlberg would be allowed to adopt kids.

On a more basic level a movie will (usually) ask us to forget that everything has been scripted, rehearsed and staged and that the end of the story hasn’t been decided yet. We’re used to granting a number of a movie’s requests for suspension of disbelief, and the amount and nature of that leeway depends heavily on the genre and tone. The journeying duo in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle seem beholden to most of the laws of the real world, yet there’s a spirit to their movie that allows us them to ride a cheetah without the viewer feeling their faith betrayed.

Sometimes there’s a request of the audience’s understanding beyond believing a man can fly. Leos Carax’s Annette thins the barrier between the performers and the movie right out of the gate, with a musical number performed by the cast asking permission to begin the movie. So it’s not as if a wholly conventional drama is being upended by a birth scene where the baby… Look, it’s been generally available for a while and nearly every review makes mention of it so I don’t think it’s a spoiler to come out and say it: the baby is a puppet. The child of parents played by flesh-and-blood actors Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard is portrayed by a marionette.

The child continues to be played by a series of slightly haunting marionettes of increasing size as it grows into a small girl. And the strings are erased for reasons of verisimilitude one imagines, though the limbs have visible joints and the distinct movements of expert puppeteer manipulation. There’s no acknowledgement by the other actors that one among their number is less than human, and this is what captured the attention of both reviews looking to engage seriously with a Cannes entry and goofball “What Is This?” fluff pieces: the movie is making a Big Ask – that we take the movie and its themes seriously not by ignoring the artifice, but by incorporating it. Annette T. Puppetbaby must be accepted as the character for the story move forward, and is unavoidable in a discussion of the film and its thoughts on romance, celebrity, and jealously (and, from another angle, it’s not among the most distracting child performances on record).

Personally, I love the Big Ask of Annette, and all the more because its suspension of belief requirement stands out even in a film that makes frequent and surreal use of its techniques, like the rear projection waves that crash in a key emotional scene. Choosing to play along rather than roll my eyes or take it purely as metaphor is much more rewarding.

Your turn, Solutors: What are your favorite Big Asks in a movie? Do you enjoy having a movie challenge your disbelief? Where’s the furthest you’ve followed a movie’s crazy idea without getting knocked out of it completely?

Posted in Short Articles | Tagged Annette, Taco Break

About the Author

gemofpurestray@gmail.com'

The Ploughman

Related Posts

The name of the sequel is an all-time great, I must say.Taco Break: The Future of Silver-haired Cinema→

Now we live in a time where more kids recognize Kirk than a newspaper machine.Taco Break: Sanctioned Fan Fiction→

Downey looking at another list of Oscar nominees.Taco Break: Mismatches and Yes! Matches (from Miller)→

If we work at it long enough, article names will reach pure abstraction.Taco Break: Oven Cats→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    30679 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    26393 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    18894 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    17662 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    9550 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    May 24, 2022 / William Taylor
  • Decade of the Month: Tom “vomas” Morton on GO WEST

    May 23, 2022 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty

    May 23, 2022 / Tristan "Drunk Napoleon" Nankervis
  • Celebrating the Living: Adam Arkin

    May 22, 2022 / Gillianren
  • The two Charlies

    Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright

    May 21, 2022 / Gillianren

Last Tweets

  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray - https://t.co/eVomucZv0R, 5 hours ago
  • Decade of the Month: Tom “vomas” Morton on GO WEST - https://t.co/gJTrXZWtwa, May 23
  • Taco Break: Getting Thirty - https://t.co/1lXgpRGRdj, May 23

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!