Les horizons morts

Jacques Demy's student film is all technique and young-man angst. The young man, played by Demy, is heart broken. He is rejected by the latest only girl he will ever love, and her current boyfriend knocks him down. Now he lies on his filthy mattress in a garret, brooding and smoking, then smoking and brooding. Occasionally he reads a book -- Sartre, probably. He tries to commit suicide, but is distracting by jazz drumming. Will he ever escape this vale of tears?

Like all young film makers, Demy is fascinated by camera technique: the overhead shot, the traveling crane, the fish-eye lens, Abd tragedy.. There's nothing like a young man for tragedy.

If I mock this film heartily, it's because I admire the film maker Demy became, one who used technique in a way that called attention to itself, and showed us something new.. Like every great artist, he had to be bad before he could be good.... and it looks like he tried to cram all the bad he could into this.

Points for making such a mockable film, though. Was that his intention? We'll say it was.

This is Jacques Demy's first film--one he did when he was first learning his craft. Because of that, it's very crudely made and I really don't want to rate it since it's more like a student film than anything else. The credits are VERY crudely done, Demy himself plays the lead and the story is a bit self-involved and pretentious.

Demy plays a young man whose heart has been broken and he spends the entire film mooning about and looking constipated. He also thinks a lot about his love and everything seems to remind him. Finally, in a cowardly moment, he considers suicide. Sadly, he doesn't follow through with it--it would have made the film more interesting.

Aside from a few nice camera shots, this is ONLY for someone who is a huge Demy-phile. I love his film, "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"-- it's my favorite French film. But I had a hard time enjoying this short.

Les horizons morts (1951) is an eight-minute film directed by and starring Jacques Demy.

This was Demy's first film, done when he was only 20. Although Demy would later become renowned for his use of bright, primary colors, this film is shot in cold black and white.

There's no dialog, but the theme is simple enough to be understood by anyone watching the movie.

Normally, I wouldn't see this movie, but it's part of the Criterion package for the feature movie Lola. My thought was, "It's only eight minutes long. How bad could it be?" Actually, pretty bad. It has an IMDb rating of 6.1 with which I agree. I gave it a 6.