Cezanne and I2016
They loved each other with the ardor of thirteen-year-old boys. Rebellion and curiosity, hopes and doubts, girls and dreams of glory – they shared it all. Paul was rich, Emile poor. They went skinny-dipping, drank absinthe, starved, only to overeat. Sketched models by day, caressed them by night... Now, Paul is a painter and Emile a writer. Glory has passed Paul by. But Emile has it all: fame, money, the perfect wife, whom Paul once loved. They judge each other, admire each other, confront each other. They lose touch, meet up again, like a couple who cannot stop loving each other.
Top-billed cast
14
Media
14
It’s a touching evocation of friendship, brotherly competition and artistic courage at the cusp of a new century.
What a dull film, and I am not quite sure whose fault the dullness was. Perhaps it was the script. Zola was portrayed as a bourgeois writer who made a lot of money by hacking away every day dressed in a suit and giving polite dinner parties. Cezanne painted all the time and resented his lack of recognition. Maybe it was the total lack of a sex life for either man, although at the end, we read that Zola eventually had one. So why not make a movie about that? Cezanne just spends his time painting and scowling and feeling resentful and hurt by Zola’s cutting remarks (Zola calls him “a stillborn genius” near the end of the film). Why make a movie about this apparently dull subject? The acting was good and Provence is always easy on the eyes, but even if this film is historically accurate, why make it at all?
Cézanne et Moi sounds more fascinating than it actually is; essentially, it’s just under two hours of exquisitely art-directed conversation, little of which is especially compelling.
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