Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Vonia Something in the Air (French: Après mai) (2012) Coming-of-age tale, Based on Assayas's life, Dream-like graceful camera, Gorgeous shots of Italy, The youthful zeal is catching. French high school students Art, film, drugs, love, politics, Unfocused story, More a nostalgic film than One that can be loved by all. Somonka is a form of poetry that is essentially two tanka poems, the second stanza a response to the first. Each stanza follows a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern. Traditionally, each is a love letter. This form usually demands two authors, but it is possible to have a poet take on two personas. My somonka will be a love/hate letter to a film? #Somonka #PoemReview

tieman64 "The uncomfortable truth of the matter is that if there is no future for a radical mass movement in our time, there will be no future for humanity, because the extermination of humanity is the ultimate concomitant of capital's destructive course of development." - Ivan Meszaros "The majority is always on the side of routine and immobility, so much is it unenlightened, encrusted and apathetic. Those who do not want to move forward are the enemies of those who do, and unhappily it is the mass which persists stubbornly in never budging at all." - Gracchus Babeuf Olivier Assayas dedicated a 2005 Cahiers Du Cinema article to the widow of Guy Debord, the famous French Marxist philosopher. In the article, Assayas discusses the post 1968 revolutionary vanguard and his involvement in it. Assayas' films have themselves become increasingly political, moving from trashy meditations on global capitalism ("Boarding Gate", "Demonlover", "Summer Hours") to bio-pics on political terrorists (2010's "Carlos").Inferior to all these films is Assayas' "Something in the Air". Evocative of Bresson's "The Devil Probably", Godard's "Le Chinoise", Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point", Bertolucci's "Dreamers"/"Before the Revolution" and Fassbinder's "The Third Generation", the film watches as a student named Gilles finds himself caught up in the political turmoils of 1960s-70s France.Like most of the aforementioned films, "Something in the Air" is about political disengagement. Whilst radicals, students and workers take to the streets, young Gilles heads off into other directions. But Gilles doesn't simply disengage from politics, but sees such disengagement as the ultimate manifestation of his own free-will, freedom of expression and personal identity. This "identity" is mostly aligned to sex, wistful longings for past lovers, paintings, a desire for celebrity and trashy B movies involving Nazis and dinosaurs. For Gilles, activist movements impose their wills, doctrines and mantras too forcefully upon him. They leave no room for deviation, which Gilles, an artist, finds constricting."Something in the Air's" Gilles character was based on the defining years of Assayas' own adolescence. Early scenes watch as he mingles with radical film-makers (resembling Godard's Dziga Vertov Group), whilst others see him drawn to both the romance of revolution and the revolution of modern romance. But he's unable to commit to either, interested only in dabbling in things in the spirit of youthful experiment. Assayas encapsulates Gilles' personality early by having him scratch an "anarchist" symbol whilst a teacher delivers a lecture on orthodox Marxist history. The point? Gilles is his own man. An individualist! Assayas doesn't condemn or praise this, but the film nevertheless makes it clear that the "thing in the air" has shifted from breathless excitement to nothing less than the death of radicalism, the next generation torn between solidarity and personal ambition, selflessness and self-obsession. As French philosopher Regis Debray would say: "the Great Day has been and gone." 7/10 – Like Bruno Dumont's "Hadewijch", Assayas' film owes too much to Bresson's "The Devil Probably". See too Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy". Worth one viewing.

Laura B I was excited for this film as it started. I could genuinely feel the angst and tension as they rioted and was eager to learn why and root for them or at least watch them engage in something passion-driven. Long story short, despite this being the least clear/focused/pointed film I've seen in a decade, how&why I forced myself to finish it is the only real mystery. It felt longer than most six hour trilogies, than twelve hour miniseries all watched in one marathon take, than reading War and Peace which while grueling at least had meaning and moved me. Save yourself. If you feel it slipping, not gripping you, don't waste your time. Once it starts losing focus it never comes back. I even rewound it a few times to be sure I hadn't missed anything as my mind inevitably felt like I was on opiates, not the film's experimental lost souls.Before the first thirty minutes were over, I was feeling TIRED. How I went from energetic and engaged to feeling like someone was looping a distorted electric guitar note as people walked, sat, stared blankly, showed each other random "art" for praise, discussed anarchy in the most tedious, passion-void way imaginable, and drilled more dull monotonous drivel into my ears than I ever should have accepted-I had thirty other choices on hand AND the web for thirty thousand more, yet I devoted two criminally slow hours to it and left entirely unfulfilled-annoyed that this director took beautiful scenery and great filters to NOTHING meaningful, inspiring, or insightful. I felt a sheer void-like they'd tossed a year of brain-slowing medication in me and caused my own neurons to feel slurred in moving signals across synapses. I felt mentally drunk as if I'd just given the brain devotion I'd expect solid art to deserve-concentration similar to when I perform music or use higher mathematics to solve complex problems or even the level to assess and respond to social input and inquiry with reverence for others and ideally some depth--only to have drab and dreary versions of Teletubbies fed to me. Maybe there is some point beyond how trite, confident, undeservedly self-assured and ultimately stupid we tend to be, especially as teenagers. Maybe I wasted two hours watching them ultimately jack off to their own egos which only affirms the bad traits of humanity without granting an ounce of resolve that great films usually have or at least PRODUCE (the characters can find no resolve but still be meaningful to the audience, but these were just wealthy bratty white French youth spoiled and too like entitled Americans I cringe at too often--nothing in this film I can't find browsing deviantart and reading comments on Ron Paul related videos-was THAT why I chose it, to put a pretty set of faces on apathetic rich kids without any real hardship and with no real conviction either, to see another set of conformists who rebel together to fit in?) I guess my real issue is that in highlighting the morally decrepit youth here, this film never bothers to show distress beyond knowing what career path or what girl or guy to sleep wit-poor babies. So many films out there genuinely move me-from all places and mindsets and languages come brilliant works. Clearly the guy can shoot something very pretty. I wish he'd make a greater effort to share something very rich, evocative, conflict-bearing, etc. As is I cannot stand the idea of more pretty nothings with bland speech and bland vague jump-around story lines that never give me what an issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine can't provide.(I put the disclaimer in case someone may be frustrated at anything I've included about what I got from it or more aptly did not get, but I don't think this film can exactly be spoiled unless you totally feel it is wrecked when someone tells you generic dude is with a blah girl them follows other generic dude to Italy and shacks up with blah girl two because other blah girl left him for older generic dude in London-it lacks a story so what's to spoil besides your hope of it being enchanting?)

aykutsevincboun Just watched the movie yesterday, and for those who are interested in the high school movement of France in the early '70s and expect the movie to have a say about the topic, it would be a disappointment. Therefore, alter your expectations towards an autobiography of a young artist who is in pursuit of love, his ideals and independence.The opening of the movie is promising with protests, group of students clashing ideas and then acting based on those ideas. You can actually sense that there is something in the air which is obviously the belief in the revolution. Yet later, it seems quite undecided whether to focus on the aspect of revolutionary ideas or on the personal lives and thoughts of the characters. Both topics can be processed in a movie, however in this one both aspects seems inconclusive.Also what I see missing in the movie is that all young revolutionaries were not faced a tough life or living a life that is rather comfortable. They want to change things but it seems they are not sure what they want to change or how bad things are for the working class. I am not expecting a person of that age to be fully aware of the situation but I wondered how would they react in a desperate situation. They do not look unhappy with their life.If I had watched the movie with different expectations, I would have enjoyed it more. It is still likable but not satisfying.