The Japanese film One Cut of The Dead remains one of the best comedies made in the last few years. It's funny, heartfelt, impecable on a technical level, and it boasts one of the bests scripts I've seen in ages - a clever, water-tight marvel with a unique, original premise.
It's not exactly a film that's crying out for a remake, as it came out fully-formed the first time around. But when it was announced Michel Hazanavicius was going to do a French-language remake, I perked up - with the OSS117 films, the guy's proved to be a great comedy director.
Unfortunately, the remake is a disappointment - a very likeable disappointment, but completely unnecessary when the original Japanese film does pretty much everything better. Oh well.
I am going to spoil the shit out of things, because the trailer for the remake pretty much gives the game away - if you've seen neither, I STRONGLY recommend you go watch the Japanese original before reading any further. Trust me, it's worth it. And if you have already seen it, well... there's not much to spoil anyhow, as the remake is pretty faithful.
OK, you've been warned. So here are the commonalities: both films start with a 30-minute zombie movie about a film crew that encounters real zombies while shooting a zombie movie - and it's shot entirely in one cut. Meta! But wait, it gets more involved.
The second act jumps back in time and explains the backstory of the short - it's a production to promote a new video platform, and it's being aired live as it's shot as a publicity stunt; They purposefully hire a competent hack to do the movie, a couple of famous young faces for the protagonists, and a bunch of others to shoot it in a remote deserted facility.
After some last-minute complications, including the director having to insert himself and his wife into the movie to fill in for missing actors, the third act details the actual production of the film, showing everything that was happening in the background, explaining away a bunch of irregularities like the camera getting dropped, why people start talking about random stuff at points, etc.
Clever, huh? There's also a running thread where the director, partly inspired by his daughter (who's also on-set), starts caring about the material and evolves from a hack to a... well, not an artist, but to someone who at least gives a shit about his work. It's corny, but it works beautifully and is integrated very well with the story.
Both movies are very, very similar in content. Coupez! adds one major character, a musician (Jean-Pascal Zadi) doing the music on the fly - he gets a couple of good lines, and a very funny running gag where we realize the soundtrack in the background is actually him doodling on the keyboards.
It exists in the same world where the original Japanese short from One Cut of the Dead has already aired, and this is a remake for the French launch of the same platform (Yoshiko Takehara, who played a producer in the original, reprises her role.)
This is heady on a meta level, but it also makes you start thinking that if the problems with the production are almost identical to the ones in the original movie... oh, what the hell? It doesn't even begin to make sense. But it's a cute joke and it leads to some fun added complication like when the French director (Romain Duris) is forced to keep the original Japanese names after pissing off the producer. There are some other changes, but nothing major, and many of the beats are almost identical.
There are a couple major problems here. One is that the comedy this time around is a little broader (which is saying a lot, since the original was a Japanese comedy). Even worse: the short at the beginning just doesn't fucking work in the remake.
I mean, it's still a technical achievement, but as a short horror film, it sucks. The original was a cheesy but tight zombie story that's in and of itself a fun, funny genre exercise - the 'issues' that will later be expanded upon are a little weird, or offer some what the fuck moments, but they don't break the movie because the rest of the short is very propulsive and (as we later learn) the crew fixed things successfully as they went along. You could watch it on its own and it would still be great.
In the remake... well, later, when we see the behind the scenes, it cuts to people watching and complaining about it, lampshading the obvious issue: it's garbage. And the film never recovers from that because- what does the director have to be proud of at the end? Another mediocrity?
The broadness of the comedy is mostly a problem with the second third - the original was also cartoony, but mostly remained believable - the new one is happy to vamp and exaggerate things, which is a shame. Once we're caught up and they're doing the film again in the final stretch, the slapstick becomes more organic, and the film's energy and likeable characters finally sync up with the more 'wacky' elements.
It's very, very flawed, completely overshadowed by the original, and the few jabs at being a remake and other additions don't really justify its existence.
…Unless you know French and really hate subtitles, I guess.
It's a shame because technically it's very accomplished, and the actors all do a good job; Hazanavicius regular Berenice Bejo is great as usual, and Simone Hazanavicius plays the director's daughter - another delightfully meta touch. (And yes, I'm aware I'm overusing the word meta, but that's completely warranted when talking about these films.)
An amiable lark, maybe best watched as a curiosity after you've had your fill of the original.
No comments:
Post a Comment