WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

arrisake When neither of the (usually) wonderful Binoche or Luchini can save a film, you know it's a stinker. God knows why they agreed to be in this, it is truly dreadful. I actually felt a bit sorry for some of the actors, I bet they genuinely shudder with embarrassment when thinking back to it, I hope they were well paid enough to provide some comfort.

martin-807-452270 So having had a feast of high budget US feature films recently I thought I should try a cinematic sorbet and went to see French film Slack Bay at the Curzon cinema the other day in London.******Spoilers****Spoilers****Spoilers****Spoilers****Now I love comedy, several of my top ten films of all time are comedy, and I've spent quite a lot of time in France over the last 44 years, and I think, I have a very wide understanding and appreciation and knowledge of comedy. I have also written comedy, performed comedy and directed actors doing comedy.I would describe Slack Bay as 'Without humour'.Slack Bay is just a terribly unfunny film. After a mere 15 minutes (it's an excruciating 2 hours and 2 mins) I was anxiously glancing at my watch and wondering if it can really be this bad throughout - but it was!There are no 'jokes', no clever dialogue, just a little bit of visual humour. One of the main characters has a strange shambling walk, which he does in every scene. He sits in a deckchair and it collapses. But not overtime he sits in a deckchair and the one time he sits in a deckchair and it SHOULD collapse. predictably it doesn't.It is a film of grotesque but that gives a name and a 'style' to what anyone else would call rubbish. It features unjustified and unpunished cannibalism which is just horrid and not funny or even in keeping with the rest of the film. There's a lot of spitting up close to the camera which is clearly hilarious in the eyes of the 'director' but didn't elicit a titter from me or the audience. There's a lot of homophobia and one of the main characters gets a huge beating for being a boy dressed as a girl dressed as a boy (?) which just felt terribly out of place in a 'comedy'.So many scenes don't go anywhere and every joke is repeated: When the fat detective walks there is a dubbed on sound of someone rubbing balloons. again and again and again and again and again. The secret of comedy is timing, as we all know and the editor and director just never knew when to cut and when too much was too much.I was so hoping that this would be the antidote to Hollywood Block Busters that I wanted but it ain't. Apart from the pretty good wardrobe, and OK cinematography (which in these days of Digital cameras is achievable by children with an iPhone) and the star turn of actress known only as Raph, it is unwatchable pants.As I considered the varied merits of the film as I left the cinema one of the other cinema goers said to me: "What did you make of that?" I said: "It didn't really work for me, where's the story?" and he said: "It was just a terrible mess" quite.This film was nominated for an award at the Cannes Film Festival which just goes to show that I really don't know anything.1 out of 5 without humour.

brunoantunes-63048 This movie is quite unique, an unlikely mix of social comedy and gender drama. Cinematography is beautiful, even haunting sometimes. The harsh French Northern landscape is wonderful, providing for a previously unseen contrast of deep blue, beige and grey. Slapstick and dark, bizarre humour are equally present. The plot is quite simple. The bourgeoisie is copiously mocked, while the villagers are depicted as brutal yet somehow faithful. The actors are great, specially Binoche and Luchini, all extravagant and whimsical. Unfortunately the soundtrack sounds sometimes inadequate, the emotion coming from the music doesn't seem to fit in with the emotions displayed by the characters and situations. This is only low point for me (or maybe I failed to understand some subtle intention from director Bruno Dumont). Otherwise, it's a brilliant movie and I recommend to all cinema lovers.

christophechaplet "Ma Loute" is a film but what it really is is theft and abjection, it is the result of the cultural misery and of the intellectual mischief and vacuity taking place in an era where history is at a standstill. This film is yet another proof of the power of the media and marketing upon the brain washed masses of consenting slaves and consumers in the new world order. When thousands of minorities are actually the overwhelming majority of the human population on this planet, when less than one percent of the population owns more than 99 % of the assets, when futures and junk bonds, « Sex and the city » and publicity are the pinnacle and ultimate goal and purpose of the whole circus, it is time for terrorism, incest, « gender  debate», gluten free diet or cannibalism to justify yet another reason to go on as usual. In this particular instance what is somewhat interesting in this display of ridicule and emptiness is to wonder about the motives of the producers and of the distributors of such utter despicable lack of respect for the public and past authors. The only explanation, the only way to read this film is, I presume, to comprehend it as a form of fascist propaganda. The director intends to depict a decadent society at the beginning of the 20th century in France where the poor and the rich conjure in their respective and shared perversity and degeneration, doing so the authors of this project wish to confront us with the mirror of our own abyssal dismay and uncertainties about post-Christian western civilization. Cannibalism being the least horrific detail here, incest is worse, not because of the sufferings of the victims ( Binoche makes her worst performance in vain) or because of degenerate off-springs, but because it is assumed as an acceptable fact of life and a normal process within social classes. All the same there are too many signs throughout the film that both the director and the main actors are really desperate to obtain cultural status and recognition in order to please heavily subsidized institutions and their privileged public. The result is a crime: theft, theft of the work of Chekov. Over the last forty years there have been so many theatre productions of Chekov in France that it has become some kind of redemption or absolution for all the sins and poor invention of the cultural elites and their subordinates, this film is much less than yet another one of those, it is hardly a fart. Towards the end, the film shows a certain inspector Machin shot down for inflating himself a little too much...very enlightening... the film blows itself up too. Terrorists do the same sometimes, I can't help wondering why they go on doing it.