{"id":17599,"date":"2018-03-16T23:33:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T03:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=17599"},"modified":"2018-03-17T00:07:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T04:07:19","slug":"dvd-man-who-laughs-lhomme-qui-rit-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=17599","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Man Who Laughs, The \/ L’homme qui rit (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>:\u00a0 Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> Metropole \/ Mongrel<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong> 1 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 July 23, 2013<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Melodrama \/ Romance<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong> Disfigured as a child, a clown falls for a corrupt duchess and discovers his noble lineage to a former marquise.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 (none)<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Victor Hugo\u2019s emotionally brutal tale of a disfigured man and critique of upper class society was given a second cinematic go-round in this elegant production, reportedly more faithful to the author\u2019s 1869 novel than Paul Leni\u2019s 1928 silent version<\/a> starring Conrad Veidt.<\/p>\n

Packed with an attractive cast, The Man Who Laughs <\/strong>is much leaner in story and character moments, yet follows the central tale of scarred and abandoned Gwynplaine adopted by poor itinerant showman Ursus who eventually has an affair with a vindictive duchess, and upsets both snooty society and the royal family when he\u2019s revealed as the lost child of a marquise.<\/p>\n

Leaner doesn\u2019t mean better, and in spite of director Jean-Pierre Am\u00e9ris\u2019 best efforts to evoke aspects of the silent film and the era\u2019s grimy atmosphere, the indulgences and backstory scenes of Leni\u2019s film provide a much richer experience.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also impossible to attain the heights of Veidt\u2019s performance, but to be fair this colour and sound version also mandated changes to the portrayal of wounded Gwynplaine: the fitted appliance that enabled Veidt to wear a hideous grin also prevented speech, hence a different makeup design that\u2019s more of a deep and badly healed scar that still conveys some grotesqueness but allows Canada’s Marc-Andr\u00e9 Grondin (C.R.A.Z.Y.<\/strong>) to deliver a broader range of facial expressions and have no difficulty with dialogue.<\/p>\n

The strongest characters in both versions are Gwynplaine, the duchess Josiane (Emmanuelle Seigner), and showman Ursus (G\u00e9rard Depardieu), but sadly the weakest character remains Dea (Christa Th\u00e9ret), the blind infant Gwynplaine rescued and eventually grows up to love as an adult. The issue with Dea may lie in Hugo\u2019s crafting her as an angel borne to suffer great heartache yet always hoping sorrow and hardship are transcended by her unwavering love and joy for Gwynplaine. She is the antithesis to Josiane in both film versions, but where Olga Baclanova\u2019s played her (renamed Josiana) as a corrupt skank, Seigner (Bitter Moon<\/strong>, Giallo<\/a><\/strong>) plays her as more cautious, discrete, and politically savvy.<\/p>\n

After shunning Gwynplaine the day after their affair, there\u2019s also a palpable sense Josiane possesses some pity and affection for the young man: her cruel words in what\u2019s ostensibly their parting scene are used to push Gwynplaine away for his own benefit and salvation from an obsessive, impossible love, and perhaps stiffen him in preparation for the cruel teasing and rejection destined to come from his newfound upper-class peers.<\/p>\n

Josiane\u2019s \u2018benevolent gesture\u2019 isn\u2019t necessary, however, because once anointed a lord, Gwynplaine\u2019s inaugural and highly critical address to the queen and starched peers (some donning elephantine putty noses) does the job in one fiery blast of rage. It\u2019s one of the film\u2019s strongest scenes, but it comes perhaps a bit too late, because to augur the story\u2019s inherently bleak tone Am\u00e9ris interpolates small comedic moments that evoke more than a bit of Tim Burton\u2019s Edward Scissorhands <\/strong>(1990).<\/p>\n

The parallels aren\u2019t hidden: Grondin\u2019s gothic wardrobe and huge mane of dense black hair aren\u2019t far off from Johnny Depp\u2019s all-black Scissorhands outfit; and instead of sharp fingers that cut and scar, Gwynplaine\u2019s grin is what repels onlookers and later transforms him into a celebrity once he\u2019s superficially embraced by the establishment – royalty and lords in Laughs<\/strong>, and trendy middle-class suburbia in Scissorhands<\/strong>. Moreover, temptress Josiane is not dissimilar to oversexed hair stylist Joyce (Kathy Baker), as both are attracted to each respective character’s physical flaws, and their shared timidity and innocence.<\/p>\n

Composer Stephane Moucha also evokes the spirit of Danny Elfman with a similar use of wordless choir, and his jaunty cues support an extended montage as Gwynplaine selects an outfit and is made-up like a proper lord, which bares a sharp resemblance to Scissorhands’ suburban makeover.<\/p>\n

Scissorhands<\/strong> and the silent version of Laughs<\/strong>\u00a0follow the extended finale typical of Universal\u2019s monster films in which a rebel \/ reject \/ freak of nature \/ outcast is chased out of town by weaponized citizens and driven to his doom, but unlike Universal\u2019s Phantom of the Opera <\/strong>(1925) and Frankenstein<\/strong> (1931), Burton and Leni ensured audiences left theatres with closure: the delicate romance between the monster boy and the sensitive girl remains whole. Am\u00e9ris eschewed these clich\u00e9s, dispensing with the big chase sequence and keeps things intimate, opting for finale faithful to Hugo’s work, but also tries to offer closure and hope in the spiritual world: after Dea dies from a self-administered dose of arsenic, Gwynplaine drowns himself, but sees her now sighted spirit before he respires and is once again reunited in the afterlife.<\/p>\n

That finale also makes use of Arvo Paart\u2019s \u201cCantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten\u201d which heightens the tragedy of the doomed couple, but it also ends the film on a dreadfully sad note, so the solution to uplift audiences is to stitch together Moucha\u2019s jaunty cues into a suite; the strategy admittedly pulls the audience away from the tragedy, but it also summarizes the film as a fable rather than a critique of human cruelty.<\/p>\n

Leni\u2019s version manages to be both fable and critique because the story was expanded with a prologue of Gwynplaine\u2019s father, murdered by the king, and Barkilphedro\u2019s involvement in both the father\u2019s arrest and tossing Gwynplaine to the comprachicos to be scarred and used for criminal activities. The Iago qualities of Barilphedro are greatly reduced in Am\u00e9ris\u2019 film \u2013 he\u2019s a conniving weasel rather than secretive master manipulator \u2013 and the corruption of royalty and the lords is more implied in static scenes; even the rarely shown queen is reduced to a silent, frumpish figure.<\/p>\n

Josiana\u2019s fianc\u00e9 Lord Dirry-Moir is wholly absent in Am\u00e9ris\u2019 version, but Gwynplaine has a slight rival for Dea\u2019s affection \u2013 a fellow showman who respectfully keeps his feelings tightly locked away because he knows Dea is Gwynplaine’s girl. Also unique to the 2012 film is the inclusion of a mother who lost her child to the comprachicos, but aside from a brief dialogue scene, she pretty much disappears until the finale, where she gathers with fellow shanty villagers as Dea dies near the water\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n

Am\u00e9ris film is neither awful nor unnecessary; it\u2019s a strangely different interpretation and experience with its own minor degrees of success, but it lacks the emotional desperation of Leni\u2019s version (which is admittedly more epic and extreme in melodrama, especially the outrageously contrived denouement). It\u2019s also heavily reliant on digital recreations of 17th century Britain and digitally goosing atmospheric shots which aren\u2019t as affecting as the stunning B&W cinematography, lighting, and expressionistic sets in Leni\u2019s more costly studio production. Where Leni’s camera moves and shots are kinetically intercut,\u00a0Am\u00e9ris’ direction is more typical of a slightly upscale yet conventional TV movie.<\/p>\n

Metropole\u2019s DVD features a decent transfer of the film with optional English subtitles and a clean French 5.1 surround mix, but no extras to contextualize the novel nor the film.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2018 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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