* Your not likely to find this film because it hasn't been released in the USA.
|
 Put down that Friday The Thirteenth video! It's time for a trip to the art house. Six Days Six Nights, imported from France, is an art film complete with subtitles and "heavy" talk about the nature of love. But it's also a thriller of sorts, one with enough outright macabre touches to categorize it as psychological horror  a fact I'm sure would horrify director Diane Kurys to no end. Six Days Six Nights is a break from the offerings usually found in the video store horror racks.* How unfortunate that it constitutes our one encounter with a full blown art film it just isn't very good.
|
|
* Parillaud and Dalle are known for just one film apiece Parillaud for La Femme Nikita and Dalle for Betty Blue after which both of their careers nose-dived.
|
The PackageArt house mavens swooned in fits of ecstasy when Fine Line Features announced the release of this film in the summer of 1994. It paired two big name French stars, Anne Parillaud and Beatrice Dalle, with director Diane Kurys (much respected for films like Entre Nous and Peppermint Soda). Even though the score by Michael Nyman (of The Piano fame) was released on CD, the film never appeared. To this day it has yet to be released (legally) in this country. Of course, one look at the finished product and it's not hard to see why Fine Line developed cold feet...
|
|
* It's a sort-of French Single White Female, but maybe that's not such an apt comparison. After all, Single White Female was better. |
The StoryA successful painter, Alice (Parillaud, utterly unconvincing), attempts to escape the obsessive attentions of her sister Elsa (Dalle, marginally better) by moving in with boyfriend Frank (Patrick Aurignac, awful). Naturally Elsa, after walking out on her family one morning (still in her bedroom slippers), tracks Alice down and turns her life upside-down. Elsa seduces Frank (unconvincingly) using Alice's affections as a weapon (again unconvincingly) until finally the three of them barricade themselves in their apartment. Then the twisted mind games really begin. In case I've made this story sound too exciting, let me set the record straight: the dialogue is shrill, obvious and silly, the characters are cardboard, and the story is a mess of cliches from start to finish.
|
|
* While one can applaud her for trying something new, the finished product leaves much to be desired. |
The DirectionDiane Kurys's earlier more successful films tended to be light, autobiographical melodramas. Here, she's clearly out of her element.* The visuals are flat and uninteresting, and the entire exercise plays like a boring product of the US studio system. (This from a country that goes out of its way to avoid such fare.) In addition, Kurys only uses about half the tracks from Michael Nyman's excellent score, and the weaker ones at that. Thankfully, that score is available on CD. Buy the soundtrack and skip the movie.
|
|
|
Vital StatisticsSix Days, Six Nights (AKA A La Folie)New Light Films, 98 minutes Director: Diane Kurys Producer: Alexandre Arcady Screenplay: Diane Kurys, Antoine Lacomblez Cinematography: Fabio Conversi Editor: Luc Barnier Cast: Anne Parillaud, Beatrice Dalle, Patrick Aurignac, Bernard Verley, Marie Guillard, Jean Claude De Goros, Alain Chabat
|
|
Select another review! |
|
