Jours de France

I truly wanted to like this film; it has much going for it. The acting and cinematography are superb, taking the viewer to parts of France rarely seen in film. Unfortunately, the filmmaker is more interested in cobbling together a series of set pieces featuring the philosophical musings of odd characters encountered by the protagonist than he is in telling any sort of coherent story. Pierre skips out on his long-time partner, Paul, one night and drives (and drives and drives) aimlessly. After a lone sexual encounter, Pierre crosses paths with a series of quirky individuals with much (but actually very little) to say. As presented, Pierre is a pleasant-looking cipher who seems to serve only as a vehicle for setting up the odd encounters which, in and of themselves, do not sustain enough interest for the viewer to care about this very slow trip through France. Paul frantically searches for Pierre, tracking him through Grindr(?!). Will he find him? Who knows? Who cares? This is a slow-moving film presented in a style peculiar to French cinema with little, unfortunately, to sustain it.

Just a bad and pretentious movie (and I am French)

When the main protagonist steps into his car, riding away from his humdrum life and partner, Grindr at hand, ready to have it off with half the male population of France, I was on board too. I anticipated for there to be many casual encounters between him and other men. He drives from one renowned public cruising hot-spot to another, guided by comments left online or in magazines that indicate that a certain public restroom or parking place is teeming with potential homosexual liaisons after sunset. There are a few of these chance encounters in the film, but more than sexual frisson, the focus is on conversations and the non verbal dynamic between these men. One of the depictions of a spontaneous meet, is a very clever reference to Jean Genet's eponymous short film "Un Chant D'Amour." And I believe there are a great many other references to other French gay luminaries from the past throughout the film.

This road movie can be considered gay, but it is also largely focused on intersections with women - who function as commentators on male homosexuality - and the protagonist's vices and virtues. The story plods along extemporaneously, from one interaction with an eccentric stranger to another, exposing in each encounter, a particular idea about relationships, incongruities in people's personalities, some sage observations, or just plain awkward behaviour.

The main protagonist, (and his boyfriend following him hot on his heels), stumble upon one idiot savant after another, and these haphazard meetings are all contrived into one long poetic story, which, although it takes some patience, does come to a worthy rewarding cohesive conclusion.

This film has all the ingredients to be a compelling work of contemporary French cinema (a protagonist who flees in the middle of the night for no reason, journeys through rural France--including through stunning Alpine landscapes, a partner who tracks him using the Grindr app, possible random hookups along the way, etc.), but it squanders them again and again, to no apparent end. Even the ending, which I will not give away, feels unearned. The highlights are the Alps themselves, the glimpses of the French countryside, the French Baroque (Rameau, Muffat, ec.) and modern (Ravel, Lasry) music, and the various female actors, who work with the minimum the script gives them to create standout characters. The two leads are dull, there should have been far more sex (even if it was not explicit) given the storyline, the few threads of philosophizing feel unintegrated, and the entire film could have trimmed at least 1 hour off its running time. The tedium was neither interesting nor engaging. Alain Guiraudie makes similar films that, no matter how plotless, feel far more alive (and full of sex).

I went into this knowing nothing, and I ended up really enjoying this film. The film begins with a man leaving his home unannounced, and wanders around France. In the mean time, his boyfriend tries to find his location using Grindr.

The film is broken up in segments that feel a bit like short films. There is a constant line of new characters being introduced, and brought into the story, and then quickly removed. I'd relate it in this way to "Before Sunrise", and films like it. While this has much less of a focus on dialog, it has a really amazing feel of adventure to it.

Some of these interactions are really successful, and some are confusing and even frustrating. But overall the film has a great flow to it, and I'd definitely recommend.

(Cinematography was also really nice in this!)