Artivels Undescribable Perfection

TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

lasttimeisaw French author Emmanuel Carrère's sole venture into feature filmmaking by far, LA MOUSTACHE is adapted from his own novel published in 1986, a head-scratching story about a middle-aged French man Marc (Lindon), whose life starts to collapse after he shaved his trademark moustache on a whim, and everyone around starts to behave that they have never seen him in moustache, including his wife Agnès (Devos).So, under this presumption, there could be two possible explanations: either Agnès is right, so Marc must have some serious psychological issues should be treated with kid gloves; or, Agnès is lying, when having dinner at their friends', Agnès is accused as an incorrigible liar by her ex- boyfriend Serge (Amalric), which might insinuate that an underhand conspiracy theory is in the pipeline. Cinematically, it is rather an intriguing premise, however, in hindsight, as the film turns out to be an experiment completely open to each individual's own interpretation, Carrère knowingly oscillates between these two scenarios lest the plot would veer to either direction with no turning back.Take the example of the photo albums Marc finds, it is a trip to Bali years ago and obviously he is sporting a moustache in every picture, but, instead of pushing forward his proofs to Agnès or his friends, he chooses to withhold it until the album goes missing, if that's a slip of mind, later we clearly see his moustache in both the head-shots in his wallets and his passport, why not show them to contest his belief, or just visit his parents, who should know the truth, but no, because, it would channel the story into a dead-end, either Agnès is right or she is playing a bigger game to dupe him, either way, it would lose the mystical allure.So, out of wits to keep the suspense rolling, Carrère employs a brisk geographical shift to Hong Kong, where Marc aimlessly and tediously moseys on ferry rides, an economical transportation in a metropolitan city (which might be used to save a fair amount of cost in shooting whilst the crew could enjoy their vacation), so as to buy some time to let his moustache grow back, then, bang! Surreal events materialise again, and viewers have no sooner recovered from the bamboozling revelation than the film reaches its succinct finish line, admittedly, it is an in-your-face anticlimax.Masked as an existential fable, LA MOUSTACHE intrigues at first, but pretty soon loses its sway and resorts to absurd-ism and metaphysics, which could be an alternative to lift the bar, like Denis Villeneuve did in ENEMY (2013), but in this case, it only betrays the filmmaker's incompetence to concoct up anything could possibly give a plausible justification, a cheap cop-out always tastes bitter and gets under one's skin.

Vlad_the_Reviewer Hello viewer. I watched this movie as it was tagged with "Mystery" amongst others. I like mystery, and don't mind additional tags such as "drama" at all. I regret watching it - wasting time. I'll explain in a moment.First the facts. The movie is about a man in his mid-life years who shaves off his mustache, yet nobody notices the difference. In fact, everybody claims he didn't have a mustache for the past 15 years. Even though we see physical evidence such as recent pictures. We even see him shaving off his mustache. From here on our star sinks into a life of confusion and mental agony.I can't help revealing the end to outline the criticism I have. The end basically leaves us in an ambiguous state. Was it all real? Is he going crazy, first signs of Alzheimer, mid-life crisis? We do not receive any answers and that is absolutely unforgivable. Because a potential "big reveal" is all the movie had going for.The pace is slow - to end up with nothing. With that I mean that much of the time spent is for our star to ask around if they notice any difference. We got the message after twenty minutes, but it kept dragging on. This movie could have been easily shortened by fifty percent, and it still would have retained its main narrative of ambiguity.So there it is, one sits through this slow movie only to be left with zero answers. The plot is that you have to make up your own reasons. I'm sorry but that will simply not do.I have two good things to say about the movie. First being the music. Philip Morris Glas' nihilistic classic music is really nice if you like classic music. For this movie it reminded me a bit of Vivaldi's "Spring". Whilst liking this, one may complain that it's too heavy, and the complaint might be justified indeed. The second thing I appreciate is the decent camera-job. The budget was "only" about five million Euros, yet we were not treated with shaky handycam like so many low-ish budget films do. Lighting, angles, lenses, it all was more or less OK. Meaning, watching the movie was mostly easy on the eye.For the good things, I rated the movie three stars. The lack of context and answers truly infuriated me. It's not that I desperately need answers, but I have been given absolutely nothing. For example John Carpenters' "The Thing" leaves us in an ambiguous state of the fate of the two survivors. But the ending is satisfying nevertheless because no matter what, those two are in deep trouble. Also, what happened wasn't their imagination, it all was real. So no mystery there. Such context was not the case with "La Moustache". Sorry to be this negative, but the truth is, I think, that this movie was a standard project to bait the kind of critics who love "deep" movies. And it worked; for example it won the Directors' Fortnight Award. It's not much, but that's how the game works.

museumofdave Sometimes being puzzled is good--it creates time and space to think, allows a person to conjure answers and perhaps ask more questions; in their films, many French directors like to ask The Big Questions: Who Am I? Where Do I Fit In The Scheme of Things? How do I know someone really loves me? La Moustache, despite it's narrative peculiarities, does just this.La Moustache is a sort of intellectual thrill ride that begins with a simple premise: "Why did nobody notice that I shaved off my mustache this morning?" Simple premise but no simple answer. I was never bored watching this film: I was somewhat mystified, and admit to being a wee bit frustrated with what appeared to be an inconclusive ending...you may not feel that way. You may, as some viewers do, find the answer to this puzzle in the middle of the film. Do not, however, expect Casablanca, The Asphalt Jungle or even The Sound of Music. Some things are not designed to deliver entertainment or simple answers, and such things may often be treasured.

peterlemass This is the first time I've felt compelled to write a review because I feel that watching this movie was a big fat waste of time - and a fairly annoying tedious time at that. If you are wondering whether to spend 1 and a half hours of your life watching this movie - I would recommend against it.Warning spoilers below:He shaves off his moustache. His wife then says he never had one. He has photos to prove he does. He never sits with his wife and shows them to her. He has an ID card and passport which show he has a moustache. He never shows her these either.Then he goes to Hong Kong, on his own and writes his wife a postcard which he doesn't get to post. Next thing we know she has been with him in Hong Kong all along. But the postcard is still in the pocket of the jacket he came in. Instead of showing her this, he throws it away!Are we are supposed to believe it was all a dream?Or is he switching realities?Or is it the writer trying to tell us to accept whatever crazy non-nonsensical reality we find ourselves in without questioning it, as long as there is some saucy french woman to keep us company?The film left me quite unsatisfied and a bit annoyed that I had sat through the whole thing.