Comments on: A Complete Clouds of Sils Maria Explanation and Walkthrough

By: Bart

Bart — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 05:13:58 +0000

Maria is getting old, and is not coping well with that.
Soon Maria will be living in an old mansion like Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard,” dreaming of her glory days and planning a return to popularity.
All in all, there just wasn’t enough real humanity or real life in this movie for me to enjoy it.
I grant that was a clever exercise in plot and character parallelisms and reversals, and so forth.
I grant that it showed some of the real mindset of famous actors, directors, and writers.
This movie is really all about European cinema’s huge inferiority complex (involving a mix of envy, love, hate, etc.) regarding the Hollywood film industry that makes so much money for its popular actors, writers, and directors.
But those things just don’t interest or excite me.
At one point in the movie, the Binoche character complains that the play script she’s rehearsing is written in a way that makes it “too theoretical.” That describes this whole movie, in my view.
I accept that all fiction is a construct and not real life. But I still like fiction that at least seems to be showing me real people in real lives.
The lives and problems of the famous also don’t interest me much (not being famous myself, and not seeking to be famous).
“Clouds of Sils Maria,” despite all its artsy, sophisticated structure, is at core just as shallow and empty as the “Twilight” movies it seems to be commenting on. But I don’t think this was intended.
As I was watching the movie, I kept thinking that the parallelism between the relationship of Maria and Val and the relationship between Helena and Sigrid would play out and culminate in a more interesting and satisfying way.
Instead, what mainly happens is that Val loses her temper over what is a relatively minor matter (her boss doesn’t appreciate her opinions!–oh, my! how horrible and unheard of!), quits her job, slithers away in secret, and is never seen by or heard about by us again.
Yes, at the end, as Taylor Holmes astutely points out, we are shown that Maria has adopted some of the opinions of Val. But does that mean that Maria has reached out to Val, expressed to Val how she now sees how wise Val was, and has thereby healed or tried to heal their broken relationship?
That, in my view, is what this movie should have shown us, but did not.
All we can do is presume that nothing like that ever happened and never will happen.
And that leaves us seeing Maria as a really pretty unstable, unsympathetic person who really hasn’t changed or grown. We are left assuming that she’ll have a similar ugly breakup with her new personal assistant and may, at any time, go back to her old negative appraisal of current pop culture.
Taylor Holmes explanation and walkthrough of this movie was very beneficial to me, and helped me noticed things I hadn’t noticed. Thank you, Taylor Holmes. The comments of the other readers were also very helpful.

By: Bart

Bart — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 04:14:43 +0000

*There just wasn’t enough real humanity or real life in the movie for me to enjoy it.
*I grant that was a clever exercise in plot and character parallelisms and reversals, and so forth.
*I grant that it showed some of the real mindset of famous actors, directors, and writers.
*But those things just don’t interest or excite me.
*At one point in the movie, the Binoche character complains that the play script she’s rehearsing is “too theoretical.” Bingo for this whole movie.
*I accept that all fiction is a construct and not real life. But I still like fiction that at least seems to be showing me real people in a real life. And so, I find less and less fiction that I actually enjoy.

By: Bart

Bart — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 04:12:14 +0000

By: Charles Brinkhurst

Charles Brinkhurst — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 18:31:45 +0000

In reply to Dolores.

I agree, I think.
Val never existed, as such, merely a projection upon Marie’s real PA, seen later in the film, for real.
Marie was “simply” reassessing her past in the midst of a kind of mid-life crisis, listening to her subconscious, and effectively projecting all over the place in order to get back to grips with herself; live the dream again…

By: Charles Cicirella

Charles Cicirella — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 10:13:15 +0000

Really surprised you didn’t mention the part where Valentine was driving back from her date and seemed really out of it. Then she stopped and either vomited or just retched. Later when Maria asked about the date I got the distinct impression Valentine had been raped. Did you also get that feeling?

By: Ardilaun

Ardilaun — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 12:54:22 +0000

Stewart was excellent in the movie, no question she pulled it off, but in the words of director Olivier Assayas this was a movie “about Juliette Binoche, starring Juliette Binoche”. Binoche is central to every aspect of it. To ignore her achievement while praising Stewarts undeniable achievement is exactly the theme of the movie and is very ironic.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sat, 12 Aug 2017 01:28:32 +0000

In reply to Dan. Juliette portrayed her character with nuance and was the undeniable star of the movie. No surprise in that. The praise for Kirsten is a little more backhanded... nobody quite expected her to add as much as she did. But you are right. As a society, we tend to focus on the decoration rather than the reliable structures holding the whole thing together.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 12 Aug 2017 01:07:27 +0000

Isn’t it something how we are all praising Kristen and not so much Juliette (actually,.. not one praise at all that I see in comments)? When her acting was spectacular in itself. Seems the ‘moral of the story’ is played out in real life. Out with the old,. in with the new. I personally have experience with this myself,. I have been cast aside,.

By: John Pavlou

John Pavlou — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 06:59:15 +0000

In reply to Lee Kronick. I enjoyed that ambiguity as well. But I also thought that Val's ease with the material and her very convincing delivery were actually a false note. Unless we might think she had studied acting in the past.