Mars and April (2012)

Excellent adaptation.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

I extremely enjoyed this movie. I personally do not like slow rhythm movies but I confess I didn't even forward a second. The actors were great the concepts and symbolism all over the movie scenes challenged my mind to think more deeper. The story connected love,music and infinity together. The only lame part was that elevator. it could be sth else. It was more cooler that that girl only existed in Jacob's dream and he could bring her back to reality. It is one of the few movies that show consciousness as a whole new world yet not fully discovered by human. I strongly recommend this movie. I am not an expert to criticize the movie but in general it was a really nice effort and i don't get why its ranking is not over7.that view from the top of the stairs that looked like an infinite spiral was amazing. The ending can be interpreted in many ways. I want to accept that Avril stays alive in real world but there is also the possibility that the real reality was that one Jacob traveled to at the end so he dies and leaves the virtual reality.

Embarrassingly bad, especially for a Quebecois film with Robert Lepage. Flat, uninteresting characters, weak story, weak and simple dialogue masquerading as profound, no plot to speak of...looks a lot of attention was paid to the bartenders' outfits, though....I realize making a sci-fi on a limited budget is an immense challenge, but this seems like someone's vanity project; maybe they should have tried a short film to start. And for a film with the main focus on music and musicians, it's a totally unremarkable, forgettable score. Sometimes films remain obscure and off-the-radar for a good reason!! Pass, unless you're looking for s "hoot-fest"....

Yes, this is not a perfect movie, I didn't give 10 stars for achievement. I gave it for pure directing talent. You need to understand Quebec's movie industry. The mainstream movies here benefit heavily from financial government support. Mainstream movies here have average scenarios at best, and most of the time the acting is theatrical when it's not sub par. Even with some of the best paid actors here in the french province. Probably it's all under the influence of a group of people who don't really care about passion and quality.Not so with this particular picture. Compared with the rest of the local productions, this film is pure bliss. Actually, without being partisan, this picture reminds of one of the best Quebec's directors, Robert Lepage. He also has a role in the film. Actually, Lepage is a genius born at the wrong place where he doesn't receive the deserved recognition. Will Martin Villeneuve be luckier?

I saw this film at the Imagine film festival 2013 in Amsterdam. I was disappointed while watching this movie, probably because of the high praises it received from all sources I consulted beforehand. No one complained that we had to wait at least half an hour before some story made its appearance, leaving us all that time wondering whether some sort of plot would came up, or even some message that the film makers wanted to get across. Even worse, after the plot emerges, the pace is still very slow and developments miss a logical binding element. The impression remains that visualizing a future society proved much more important for the film makers than presenting us a consistent story with characters we could identify ourselves with.The music is wonderful. The visualizations we see with possible future variations on our society, is very nice indeed. For instance, the interviews with the astronauts before and during their voyage to Mars, are brought in a beautiful and promising format, different from what we see on our TV channels, and still very believable as a future setup. Also, the holographic figure we see giving a lecture and even eating in a restaurant, is also a nice way to liven up the movie, and to provoke ideas about future technical developments. I'm less certain about medical advancements, and certainly not in psychology if we can believe this film.A definite role in the story has the futuristic public transporter mechanism (variation on the "beam me up" devices from the Star Trek series) shown in the film. Also a nice find is combining these devices with an implicit reference to the still living conspiracy theories about the moon landings we saw from 1969 to 1972, alleging that these were faked, and that the astronauts never left earth but were filmed in a moon-like décor. We see something similar happening here, and is an integral component in the story when Avril gets lost in the transporter while traveling together with aging musician Jacob.Avril's love for retro devices is remarkable (black box camera, turntable with LP vinyl records, telephone with a dialer). It attracts our attention in this futuristic context. Her hobby forms a stark contrast with all other props in the film, and may be a bit far fetched. I see it as an indication that the film makers exaggerate in their attempts to be different. Avril's methods to make photographs of people who were asked to talk about themselves during the exposure time an old camera needs (as per her explanation), is a needless attempt to be different too.All in all, I was disappointed in this movie, possibly (as said before) caused by all the positive comments I've read beforehand. Not everything is bad, however. There were nice attempts to picture what a possible future society may look like, places where other social conventions may exist, and of course that yet uninvented devices will be commodities, just as normal as our mobile phones are nowadays. Music will also be different, of course; we can expect different instruments to appear, producing sounds we cannot imagine at this moment.Given all the above on the positive side, the narrative and the characters that were supposed to carry the story line, were unclear for at least half the running time. Only in hindsight could we construct some logic in what happened. That should not be necessary and better made apparent not after but rather during the movie. For the first half hour I felt a bit lost, and was wondering where all this was heading. When leaving the theater, I scored only a 3 (out of 5) for the audience award, considering too much emphasis on format and appearances, and too little (and too late) clarity about story and characters. Many will disagree, but so be it.