In July
Picture: B-
Sound: B Extras: C- Film: C+
Many French and German films have been trying to be as hip
as American films that have been duplicating The French New wave in the first
place, but In July (2004) tries to mix it with the American Screwball
comedy when it gets its Quentin Tarantino ambitions out of its system in the
first few sequences. Too bad it thinks
that masculinity in a screwball comedy is about the guy becoming a man if a
good woman could just get him to come out of his shell.
Daniel (Moritz Bleibtreu from the slightly overrated Run
Lola Run) is that nerd, a teacher who is sexually oppressed and not
connected to his animal self. Several
of the women around him thinks he has “potential” (To be used? Lied to?) and Juli (Christiane Paul) is the
one who goes the furthest in turning his life upside down. Despite her outgoingness, they are
interesting together, but the chemistry is limited because it is predictable
that she will tone down a bit as he does his best to become more “manly” to the
extent that happens.
Writer/director Faith Akin is just too loose with his
ideas of what Cary Grant and Ryan O’Neil represented respectively in Howard
Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up Doc?
(1972), insofar as what their masculinity was and what was being sent up about
it. If he says he has never seen these
films, I would doubt that. If he says
he does, it is obvious he missed the point, unless it was just to make money
off of Bleibtreu’s newly found fame.
This film hardly uses the interesting actor to best effect, but fans
will still enjoy him one way or the other.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is not bad, but
some of the detail is sort of lost from whatever the original source was. Cinematographer Pierre Aim does his best to
do every kind of kinetic shooting he can, but it’s too bad we have seen most of
this before. The Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3
is more vibrant than usual, offering some articulation around the speakers
atypical of most Dolby mixes. The film
was even a Dolby Digital-only release, so that it was not DTS is a further
surprise, but if it were DTS, this would have had some great
demonstration-quality moments. Extras
include interviews with the director and two leads, plus the original trailer,
but not much else. In July is a
mixed bag, worth seeing if it sounds like something you might be interested in.
- Nicholas Sheffo
