Annette (2021)
Directed by Leos Carax
In present-day Los Angeles, controversial stand-up comedian Henry McHenry and internationally renowned opera singer Ann Defrasnoux form the façade of a happy couple in the spotlight. Ann gives birth to a baby girl named Annette, who possesses an exceptional gift that will change all of their lives forever.
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4 films that influenced Annette
What critics say influenced Annette
Much like the Sparks’ music, there’s a chance most people reading this are also unfamiliar with Leos Carax’s filmmaking body (something that should be corrected by watching the bonkers Holy Motors while asking why it took seven years for his subsequent work of genius to come to fruition), which endearingly makes the pairing a match made in pure craziness.
Such has certainly been the recurring theme in the career of French filmmaker Leos Carax, whose last movie, the 2012 Holy Motors , was a delightfully playful meditation on art (specifically, cinema) and identity that defied convention and was every inch an ambitious project worthy of careful dissection.
Visionary director Leos Carax's ambitious, audacious "Annette" opens with an infectious musical number, "So May We Start," that recalls a sublime moment from his superb film, "Holy Motors."
Initially, the novel idea works spectacularly, such as the lovers professing their endless love on the back of motorcycle (a favored Carax theme, and a limousine sequence makes an early appearance, a la Holy Motors ), considering the throb of initial desire is complete, infectious refrain (yielding the film’s most erotic moment).
It’s an exhilarating opening, reminiscent of the musical break in Carax’s whacked-out 2012 anthology “Holy Motors.”
Bridging that great divide between the two creative philosophies seems like exactly the kind of challenge that would appeal to Holy Motors director Leos Carax, and in his new musical Annette he focuses his signature artificiality into a film that is intensely and deliberately stagey.
Where La La Land (2016) was a celebration of the dream machine that is Los Angeles, Annette appears to view Tinseltown as more of a nightmare.
The go-to comparisons are probably going to be Damien Chazelle’s La La Land and Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (though James Bobin’s The Muppets also springs to mind).
The go-to comparisons are probably going to be Damien Chazelle’s La La Land and Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (though James Bobin’s The Muppets also springs to mind).
Perhaps more sophisticated spectators will appreciate all of Carax’s unconventional choices, the overplayed trope of the sad-clown comedian (see “Joker”) and the nagging stutter of Sparks’ songwriting.