“I’ve always believed more in movement than narration.”
With his new film “Something in the Air,” revered French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (“Irma Vep,” “Carlos”) has effectively made his version of “Almost Famous.” A sexy yet sincere reflection on the post-revolutionary times of his youth, Assayas’ film – torn between past and present – is almost certainly among the most entertaining movies he’s ever made, but also one of the most conflicted and layered.
In Film.com’s full review of “Something in the Air,” I described the film as follows:
“The film begins with a floppy teenager named Gilles (Clément Métayer as Assayas’ blank but perceptive proxy) running around the February 9, 1971 demonstration, in which a branch of French maoists were teargassed by the Parisian police force. Originally titled “Après Mai” (or “After May”), “Something in the Air” rages with the orphaned energy that lingered in the aftermath of the May ’68 revolution, introducing us to the kids who were there to devour the crumbs of the counterculture. Gilles’ friends – the most memorable of whom is played by Lola Créton, perhaps the most compulsively watchable ingenue in all contemporary cinema – represent a generation of agitated adolescents so idealistic and impossibly beautiful that their physical presence alone is enough to suggest that this is a personal story told through a political lens, and not the other way around. Like a fire with nothing to burn, they have all the zeal in the world and no cause into which they might channel it.”
It was a hell of time to be young, and it’s obvious from the film that Assayas has plenty more to say on the subject than what he could fit in a single movie. That being said, IFC was kind enough to offer Film.com an exclusive clip from this Sundance Now video interview with the filmmaker, in which he talks about some of the ideas that informed his new work.
“Something in the Air” hits theaters tomorrow.
Categories: InterviewsTags: Apres Mai, Director, Ifc films, Interview, Olivier Assayas, Something in the Air, Video Interview
