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May 24, 2002
CQ
(out of four)
Roman Coppola, whose father fathered The Godfather, chose for his directing debut a movie about the movies. But instead of serving up some pretentious exercise about the making of a classic, he uses the disastrous production of a campy work of "eros-fiction" as our entry into the world behind the cameras.
The year is 1969, and an arrogant French filmmaker (Gerard Depardieu) has lost his focus. He's in love with his star (Angela Lindvall) and incapable of finishing his film. Set in 2001, the sexy space odyssey stars a Barbarella-like secret agent, codename "Dragonfly," whose mission seems to be making sexual liberation an intergalactic priority. Naturally, she spends most of her time on-screen cavorting naked in her shag-carpeted spaceship. Which is fine, of course, if only there were an ending.
Jeremy Davies plays the editor who will eventually take the director's place on the project (while Coppola cousin Jason Schwartzman plays the twerpy prodigy first hired for the job). Davies's character rejects commercial cinema and aspires to something more profound. He spends his free time recording his own life instead of living it, a verité pioneer obsessed with trying to capture "truth" on film. Ironically, it's the delusions of his overactive fantasy life that hold the key to completing Dragonfly.
Coppola grew up with an understanding of film that critics and fans spend a lifetime trying to cultivate. He understands, for instance, the fallacy of the "auteur theory" and celebrates the unsung creative talents usually lost behind the scenes. CQ goes a long way towards dispelling the misconception (fostered by critics) that directors deserve credit for all the decisions on a movie.
Like brother-in-law Spike Jonze, Coppola knows how to wrangle a difficult narrative and deliver more than we've come to expect from the movies. CQ is the best new film of the year, a stylish meditation on the difference between what audiences want to see and what the artists are trying to say. CQ may not have uncovered the meaning of life, but it does offer answers to some of our questions about cinema (not to mention a sexy film-within-a-film that's infinitely more entertaining than a recent Kevin Costner picture of the same name).
[as featured on Moviefone.com]
Posted by Peter Debruge on