American Translation (2011)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Surely this movie is not everyone's cup of tea, including mine. It deals with unsympathetic people, senseless killings and unbridled sex and it may leave you depressed and aghast. But all this doesn't mean that it's a bad movie. On the contrary, in my opinion it was actually very fascinating and compelling, maybe a bit overlong and repetitive, but still: quite good. This is especially due to both leading actors Pierre Perrier and Lizzie Brocheré. They play Chris and Aurore, two young kids of opposite backgrounds (she spoiled and rich, he an obscure vagabond) who fall in love, elope and start to roam around the country in Chris' mini-van. Soon Aurore discovers a very dark side in her lover: he picks up young guys for sex and in the process kills them. Director Barr obviously tries to give some insight in the mind and motives of a serial killer (as he illustrates by showing some meant-to-be illuminating texts right before the closing credits). Maybe he doesn't totally succeed, but he comes a fair way. Slowly and by fragments Chris reveals to Aurore some of his feelings during his killings. It becomes clear that there's a strong sexual motivation, killing turns him on. There are also hints of a disturbed childhood with physical abuse, but I appreciated it that director Barr doesn't go into that too deep, so it doesn't serve as an obvious excuse. What remains is a clearly psychopathic and relentless killer but with such luring charm that it totally encapsulates the infatuated Aurore. As I said, Perrier and Brocheré are both very good and convincing. Perrier is extremely handsome with a strong screen-presence and a beautiful physique that he is not shy to show (as one may expect in a French movie), and when he smiles you can easily understand his attraction to women and men. But the moment we see his face tighten up or when he gets into one of his frequent aggressive tantrums he becomes hair-raisingly scary. Brocheré has equal charisma and plays the slightly naive rich girl who slowly comes to understand what is really going on to perfection. We see her evolve from being in shock and disbelief, through resignation with the apparently inevitable, up until passive complicity. I did like the script too. Especially the episodes where Chris takes Aurore to some of the places where he grew up are very strong. They meet people there who clearly have a grudge against him for things he did in the past or are visibly afraid of him (the pastor that Chris almost forces to marry them), it gives the viewer a chilling sense of some dark and terrible secrets that concern Chris. Also the casual approach that Chris uses on virtually every young guy they meet along the road (including one of the policemen that stop them for a routine control) give you the chills, it's like a snake charming a potential victim. There are also some flaws in the script, apart from the repetitive character. Apparently Chris always picked up guys in broad daylight from such public places as supermarkets, laundries or gas-stations along the road. And he always uses the same old mini-van and his own name. One would think that the police would be on his track some time before. And then the role of the father of Aurore is disappointing. I can understand that they had some sort of free relationship, but once he visits her and Chris in the apartment and obviously senses that there is something very fishy with this guy that seems to have bewitched his daughter and lives of her (i.e. his own) money, he just leaves and apparently does nothing. I really expected him to turn the police on Chris. Now this whole episode was unnecessary and superfluous. All in all an interesting and very well acted movie, not for the tenderhearted (be it for the graphic sex and nudity, or for the violence), but still very worthwhile.

I'm not a big fan of French director/actor Jean-Marc Barr who co-directed this and has a supporting role. He is somewhat of an acolyte of Lars Von Trier, but he actually somewhat deserves the criticism that various ignorami are always making about Von Trier and other Euro "arthouse" director. His films are rather pretentious and he does to some extent try to pass off porn as art.This movie about a naive young girl who falls in love with a bisexual hustler and serial killer may be a little pretentious in that it owes an obvious debt to the Jean-Luc Goddard French classic "Breathless". It's definitely heavy on the sex. Barr-regular Pierre Perrier is one of the prettiest pretty-boys in the land of wine of truffles. He's not especially believable as vicious serial killer, but he would probably be a great cellmate if you were doing life in prison. Lizzy Brochere is a little more talented and bilingual and she really made an impression (her beauteous bare butt especially)when she appeared on American TV in the second season of "American Horror Story". I don't know which of these two has more nude scenes, but probably Perrier. The most memorable might be when HE gives HER a long lapdance and you can see why Barr also prominently cast him in his "arty" hardcore porn film "Sexual Chronicles of a French Family" (unfortunately, he couldn't get Brochere, but it was probably better for her international career that he didn't).This is actually not a BAD movie though. At least for the first half. Both actors do a decent job, especially Brochere who--in another nod to "Breathless"--is supposed to be an "American" girl (well, half-American anyway). There's an interesting scene in the middle where they return to the guy's hometown where everyone blames him for the suicide of his childhood friend. I wish they had done more with this plot thread, but the movie just becomes very repetitive after that with the pair picking up teenage hustlers for the purposes of sex and murder. The ending is disappointing and lot of added-on text about serial killers might be interesting if you've never seen the 1 million movies they've made in America about serial killers. Ultimately, this movie doesn't offer much insight on the serial killer phenomenon (which would be a dubious achievement anyway), but it certainly does create a tres SEXY pair of them.

This movie disturbed me. Just finished it now, I'm left with a feeling of unease, probably even at myself. I feel like disgusted. I don't' know maybe the movie is successful to the extent to which I feel kind of close to the serial killer. Not approving what he does, but the really deep inside perspective is what puts you alongside the serial killer. And what is successful is the well done mix of elements that puts the viewer (or at least me) close to Chris. So, a story only focused on the serial killer would have prompted harsher condemnations of him. But here we have first of all a new perspective on the serial killer: victim and torturer. And this is explained while she looks on internet for information about serial killer and also at the end, as it is written that serial killers are people suffering of a huge pain and killing is the only way to them to express this pain. Beyond this new perspective (serial killers are always depicted as the evil on mass-media), her presence. So, first of all, her physical appearance: very beautiful but of a normal beauty, baby-face and like an angel (also his face is extremely fresh and innocent, as he smiles - she says to he's got a teenager smile). So, she further smooth up the presence of the serial killer. Plus her love, plus the great complicity between the two. And then also their wish of freedom, problems with the adult world generally, and both of them with their parents. Then and above all, her understanding of him, so this gives the viewer the new perspective, that one of pain. So, I'm 27 years old, nearly their age, and I am undertaking a route of personal freedom, emancipation and self realisation, so the movie had a grab on me for these reasons. And that is why the figure of the serial killer doesn't pop up as violently as if it was all focused on it. A viewer with characteristics as I do, recognizes him/herself in them, in their wish of love, in their love, actually pure and untouched by society, family and so on. But beyond this, the drama of the serial killer stays behind and eventually comes out with all its strenght. So, the two are eventually naked, out of their wish of freedom, their love, their parental Independence. He hasn't got anymore his self-confidence, so you can see him crying (even if he said during the movie already that he had fear), and she too. So the big message the movie aims at transmitting (or one of them) is that serial killers can be watched from another perspective, for how hard this can reasonably and comprehensively be, which is not a justification, but a mere understanding. And maybe a better understanding can lead us to help them, and in turn help the entire humanity. So what was lying behind the whole movie (his sickness, fear and pain) exploded at the end of the movie, with his arrest and further exploded with her face crying. The face of somebody who understood (even if her understanding made her guilty too, but understanding doesn't entail agreeing, as I said before) the behind-situation of a serial killer, crying for him. And we have to look at this from her perspective, without judging if she was sick as well (probably she was) or not. Just the perspective offered by somebody crying for a serial killer. Something totally new, that stays at the opposite than the usual, short-term, limited hate for serial killers.

This film is not for everyone, but for certain guys like me it is everything. And I'm talking orgasm time. I think it's safe to say that 99% of the people in the world will not get this film, but for the 1% of us who do this film is something else - not only a work of art but arousing as well. It deals with a subject that is known only to a very small group of guys who cultivate it as much as they can within safe and sane boundaries. Some guys alas fall off the edge and end up in very dire circumstances. The newspapers are full of these stories. The cops just look the other way. They've seen it before and they will see it again. The very core of man's nature is dark and sinister and the male lead in this film demonstrates that to a degree that is shocking, but also, a turn-on, for those of us consumed with dark and sinister sexual fantasies.