Renaissance: A FilmExposed Review

I mentioned yesterday that I took in a film before dining with Rick and JP. I also mentioned that I would get back to you on what it was like. Well the reason I was waiting was that I thought it best that the review was published first. Published, that's right. And now it is published. I am published. It is only a film review but it is exciting nonetheless. I am sitting here at home by myself celebrating. I am dancing on the inside.

The site I am reviewing for (yes there are more to come) is called FilmExposed and its focus is British and independent film. If you click on the link you can even sign up for the newsletter.

I plan to post the reviews here also but I encourage you to check out the site because I obviously don't cover every film and there are some choice picks coming up.

A FilmExposed Review

Renaissance (15)

Dir: Christian Volckman, 2006, France/UK/Luxembourg, 105 mins
Cast: Daniel Craig, Catherine McCormack, Romola Garai, Jonathan Pryce, Ian Holm

Paris, 2054. Ilona Tassueiv (Garai), a brilliant young genetics researcher is violently kidnapped from her workplace and held without ransom demand. Hard-nosed cop, Karas (Craig) is brought onto the case by Tassueiv's employer, the omnipresent super-corporation Avalon. With the help of Tassueiv's sister, the femme fatale-ish Bislane (McCormack), Karas trawls the labyrinthine streets of the Parisian underworld in a hunt that becomes increasingly more desperate as the stakes are raised, not just for him but for all humanity.

Renaissance is a visually striking film. The marriage of black and white animation and motion capture (the process used most prominently by video game creators, animated features like The Polar Express (2004) and digital characters like Gollum and Kong) gives the film the look of a moving chiaroscuro woodcut, somewhat akin Sin City (2005) with the contrast turned up. Volckman deftly uses reflections, smoke and black space to add depth to the images, and he has created a world where there is always a surface to throw back another layer of light or shadow.

The realisation of the future of Paris is awe-inspiringly immense. Walkways, motorways and waterways of glass and stone threaten to strangle the skyline and the maze of transparent boulevards affords the filmmakers a densely claustrophobic three-dimensional space. Volckman and his crew use this topsy-turvy world to its full potential, framing their shots like the panels of a graphic novel, from every angle.

The film noir mood of Renaissance is a promising partner to the visuals so it is unfortunate that the end product is so bitterly unaccomplished. The plot is desperately convoluted, even by noir standards and is populated by crime drama archetypes to such a degree that everything feels far too familiar despite its futuristic setting. The impressive vocal cast do an admirable job but they are caged in by skittish, uncomfortable acting and can do little to dispel the feeling that credible performances were not high on the filmmaker's list of priorities. In fact, peel back the layers of digital trickery and the acting is decidedly amateur. The result is a heartless, un-involving film that quickly becomes incomprehensible through unmotivated actions and characters that seem to blend into one another.

While there is immense promise in the field of motion capture animation critics of the process openly question its artistic value. In many respects Renaissance is a challenge to the purveyors of traditional animation. It has taken an aesthetic and created a film around it, one that exploits the technique's ability to seamlessly blend realistic human movement and expression with images of the future into the visual fabric. It is disappointing that due of lacklustre performances and its paint-by-number plot Renaissance will be seen as an interesting motion capture experiment rather than a fully-realised feature animation, another victim of style winning out over substance. It is a dangerously stylish corpse. It is a beautiful corpse. But it is still a corpse.

Michael Scott

Tags: movie review, cinema, FilmExposed