Advertisement
Advertisement

Film review: Clouds of Sils Maria

The intricacies of movie stardom are exquisitely explored in this backstage melodrama, written and directed by Olivier Assayas. With two Hollywood starlets (Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz) featuring opposite a European art house mainstay (Juliette Binoche), the character study is so meta it's writing itself into many a graduate thesis.

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
Starring:
Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz
Director: Olivier Assayas
Category: IIB (English and French)

 

The intricacies of movie stardom are exquisitely explored in this backstage melodrama, written and directed by Olivier Assayas. With two Hollywood starlets (Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz) featuring opposite a European art house mainstay (Juliette Binoche), the character study is so meta it's writing itself into many a graduate thesis.

Arguably a sequel in spirit to André Téchiné's (1985) that partially launched Binoche's career, highlights the transient nature of artistic pursuits in its mournful opening segments, as the world-renowned actress Maria Enders (Binoche) learns of the death of a respected playwright and filmmaker, whose signature play, , made her a star two decades earlier.

While that play-within-a-film — conceived by Assayas as a condensed version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's (1972) — depicts the lesbian affair between a tormented middle-aged woman and her manipulative younger lover, the plot of this often claustrophobic drama thickens likewise as Maria engages in a tussle of wits and wills with her personal assistant Valentine (Stewart, above right with Binoche).

Largely set in the titular area in the Swiss Alps where Maria prepares with Valentine to take on the senior part in a revival of , the film sketches out the psychological conflicts in the actress's ageing process, made acute by the casting of a scandalous hotshot, Jo-Ann Ellis (Moretz), as the ingénue in the play.

While it is too saturated with ideas at times to involve the audience emotionally, Assayas' multilayered film reveals its scope as a meditation on topics ranging from the perils of celebrity culture to the merits of superhero blockbusters. The ensemble cast leaves a refined and articulate impression without being overly self-conscious.

 

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Gloom with a view
Post