Allluia movie review & film summary (2015)
"Alléluia" is about the stifling tunnel vision that anyone who experiences love pangs goes through, as is made clear in a glaringly ironic line of dialogue: "Being in love is magnificent." That line is spoken by Madeleine (Stéphanie Bissot), a lonely single woman who is preyed upon by Michel (Laurent Lucas), a socially maladjusted lady-killer. Michel is supposed to be deeply troubled, but also mysteriously seductive. He's most attractive when he overcomes initial jitters, and impresses Gloria (Lola Dueñas), a single mother and Michel's future partner-in-crime, over dinner by speculating authoritatively about nearby patrons' personalities based on their footwear (Michel is a shoe salesman).
After that dinner date, Gloria falls very hard for Michel. You can tell she's enamored by Michel from the creepy, doe-eyed leer that Dueñas almost always has plastered on her face during Michel and Gloria's early honeymoon period. Soon afterwards, Gloria discovers that Michel seduces lonely women, and takes their money. Being an unhinged crazy with no discernible motives beyond pure blinkered desperation, Gloria enthusiastically offers to help Michel steal from hapless plain janes. Gloria's obsession with being Michel's assistant provides "Alléluia" with its narrative arc since she increasingly clings to their odds-and-ends love, though it's hard to tell based solely on the film's pseudo-evocative mood lighting.
Yes, "Alléluia" is an arty, dour film with a tedious style of atmosphere that is largely a product of natural lighting, and extreme close-ups. The result is a series of pseudo-naturalistic scenes where people don't talk to each other but rather sulk and scream and hesitate dramatically with the lights out. Because that's apparently what love is, a series of technically accomplished, impressionistic shots of people's jaws opening, and partially shutting, and then some frantic humping by a nearby window, and some scattered scenes where the main characters' intense bond is related through maniacal laughter, and mercurial, body-language-heavy exchanges. Yes, love is strange, but only as strange as its characters are freakishly moody.
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