Very well executed

The Worst Film Ever

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

In a truly outstanding film work, both the director's design and the actor's performance should be part of the film, rather than excessively showing off the individual. The film succeeded in doing this. Enclosure and communication constitute the main contradiction and conflict of the movie plot. Every loss of the protagonist occurs in a sudden, forcing her to slowly begin to try to understand the world that was once too simplistic, and at this level, the theme of the movie it is quite traditional. The boundaries between nature and drama are gradually blurred as the characters change, and this low-key design ultimately achieves the perfect blend of emotions and themes.

I ask relatively little of movies, but do expect to be entertained, informed or stimulated intellectually in a meaningful way.That said, I agree with other reviewers who consider this to be a self-indulgent film, apparently only about acting, by and for actors. Neither the plot nor the characters are compelling or even interesting. Therefore, the claimed subtlety, sophistication and excellence of the screenplay and acting are not apparent since I'm not engaged enough to care. In short, it is uninteresting, unimportant and unmemorable (Bo-ring).A movie is like a song. The music draws me in, and only then the words or message become of interest. Without appealing sound I could usually care less about possibly interesting content. Clouds of Sils Maria lacks the music.

Powered by two towering performances by Juliette Bincoche and Kristen Stewart, Assayas tells the story of a complex and fragile relationship between an 'older' (as in late 40s) actress and movie star. and her young assistant. But instead of getting an art house variation on "All About Eve" (and there are echoes of that classic) we get something much richer, more subtle and enigmatic about aging, art, acting, identity, youth and the complexity of relationships between women, and between employer and employee. (It's also all spectacularly well photographed).Maria (Binoche) is a respected and admired film star headed to a festival to honor the writer- director who launched her career years earlier, --casting her in a piece examining the relationship between an aggressive young woman and an older female boss who falls for her. But the mentor dies before the festival can start, and the shaken Maria is talked into returning to the seminal project of her career, but now in a London stage production where she will play the older woman, not the younger. This triggers all sorts of complex fears and emotions, so Maria retreats to the incredibly beautiful mountain home of her now dead mentor, bringing her young assistant Valentine (Stewart) with her to help her study and analyze the role. In the process the two women grow closer, and share much about themselves and their world views, each challenging, supporting and at times frightening or enraging the other.The film boldly embraces the meta nature of the tale – the relationship in the film in many ways – but far from all – mirroring the key relationship in the play. While rooted in naturalism, there is a spooky sense of ambiguity always creeping around the edges of the film, the sense that anything could happen, and in the end, nothing is tied together with a neat bow. Thankfully! There are still questions and mysteries to be pondered.The film did have a few miss-steps for me, some late turns that felt more forced than what preceded it, but but those 'problems' bothered me less on a second viewing. That's happened to me before with Assayas, as with Bergman and other film makers who deal more with the mystery of human behavior than the mechanics of plot. And the tremendously dense work between Bincoche and Stewart is wonderful. There is a sense of freedom in the performances, a terrific immediacy as the two bounce off each other like ping-pong balls, giving a sense that much of what we're seeing is semi-improvised (though I doubt that was actually the case). Seeing that loose, playful, alive style in a film that on a larger level is much more formal in it's structure and ideas creates a wonderful friction that also gives the film a powerful sense of life. And life - and the way we change as we move through is - is ultimately what the film is all about.

This is about a middle aged actress who spends in the Swiss Alps with her personal assistant while preparing for the upcoming project. During that time, she receives a news that the author of the book which was adapted for the screen 20 years ago where she play a main role and now in its remake, she's doing another part, while a young sensation playing the main part. This is more like the evolution of cinema. The 20 years is too soon for her, while the cinema and its trend advanced rapidly. Precisely to say, the commercial films and young actors taking over the art films and true artists' places respectively.If you at least 30 years old, you would get this film more than others. Because while I was growing up in the 90s, the cinema was so different. I'm not talking about the technology like computer graphics, but the story and how it was narrated for the screen. Now the science- fiction and dystopian themes taking over with the young audience and social media support. I think it was a quite meaningful film, particularly if you adore films like the recent evolution in cinema was so faster than ever.The negatives were, the film was too long, slow pace and too simple drama. The positives were, the actors and their performances, the locations, theme and some of the dialogues. Directed by a French filmmaker, this is an international project with a few guest appearances. Most of the film was set in the Alps. Totally different than what I was anticipating, but I still like, except in a few parts where I got bored for its weak development. So this is for the selected audience, that mean it will be appreciated by a very few and I'm kind of neutral with mostly in its favour.6/10