Could Someone Explain To Me

Why is it that Matthieu Kassovitz has not directed a James Bond film, particularly since the newer Bond films seem more ‘grounded’ than most of those that proceeded them. You could tell that the man is capable of such a task from seeing his first film, La Haine (Hate), though you really can see what he is capable of from watching The Crimson Rivers.

The story of the film, while at first fascinating, grows more and more fantastic as the film progress, much to it’s detriment; though that is not really what I am writing about. Mr. Kassovitz has a keen eye and teams with a really good cinematographer, Thierry Abrogast (whose style reminds me somewhat of Dean Cundey) to produce a sharp, crisp image on screen that–while the gore reminds this viewer of David Fincher’s Seven–differs in that Seven was very dreary and deliberately understated while Crimson Rivers is just the opposite, despite having a relatively restrained color palate.

In The Crimson Rivers Mr. Kassovitz displays a sense of place, of topography, that’s remarkable in that it makes some of the surrounding areas of France become virtually characters in the film. This is what I mean. He handles scale very well, and unlike Michael Bay, doesn’t seem to let the spectacle of a particular situation overwhelm human stories.

Which reminds me, I need to add Babylon AD to my Netflix queue, partially because Mr. Kassovitz directed it, partially because the film is supposed to be a virtual tutorial about what happens when a studio doesn’t let a director do what he was hired to do, namely direct.



The picture of Matthieu Kassovitz above came from Abelhudos.wordpress.com