low key labeled laborious lethargic lockdown laziness

More like Wasted Time

No doubt all the self-reflexive, high bourgeois insights would deter anyone who’s not a fan (or even familiar with) Assayas’ work, but there’s something cathartic about its introspection. It might not always be entertaining, but it provides enough food for thought along the way.

Olivier Assayas channels Caveh Zahedi and takes a stab at his own The Show About The Show. So indulgent bordering on obscene, somehow so self aware yet baffling in its blindspots in conversations around privilege. He’s one of my five favorite filmmakers of all time give or take so I was always going to dig this but I truly don’t know who else this could be for. A true bozo mode classic. Superficially ponderous, never scratches beneath its own self consciousness. You get the sense that he thinks he’s doing the real, raw work in dissecting his many problems but accidentally tells you all you need to know in what he neglects to show. If nothing else, this is the self flagellation of a man devastated that Kristen Stewart is a lesbian and on one hand, I get it but brother, you gotta get it together. Dares you to hate it, I kinda loved it.

Assayas’ In Water, or maybe just his Hong film in general. A quick perusal here suggests that this movie is not particularly well-liked but I very much enjoyed it. Light, airy, occasionally essayistic, it’s a lovely little trifle.

It took a longtime to find its footing but once it was clear that Suspended Time was Assayas version of “auteur reckoning with their anxiety about our current time”, I got invested. Returning to ideas that he previously better explored in Summer Hours and Irma Vep (2022), such as family legacy and artistic drive, though this time there is the lockdown shadow looming over them. So, on top of those worries, relies a fear of death and anxiety towards going back to this “new society”. Of course, all that is present through Assayas’ usual bourgeois perspective, so it might be challenging to some. Personally, I appreciate the personal vein that has been overarching through his latest projects.

Concludes a loose trilogy started by Non Fiction and Bergman Island while forming a neat duet with Nü Irma Vep, by which tokens alone it's not minor. And mostly a delight all its own, with potential faults or outside criticisms part and parcel of its construction. People in lockdown make hay of minor conflicts and excessively speak thoughts aloud? Wasn't me!

I could write about this playing way more towards docufiction than anybody let on, with a lot of productive tension between Assayas' first-person voiceover and a more omnipotent perspective afforded by this fictionalized rendition, or how the film articulates rather honestly the ways lockdown was a wonderful time to be alive if you just knew how to center your own neuroses and flare-ups — with a nod towards the specifics of a personal life I do much to keep offline — but it's almost Christmas.

Olivier Assayas is probably my favorite filmmaker to interview. Accordingly it was a pleasure talking about this lovely film, with a bit of insight into his artistic neuroses.

Has there been, over the decades, some consistent feeling just before you premiere a movie, knowing people—including cast and crew—are going to see it for the first time? Do you tend to feel confident?

No. [Laughs] I can give you a straightforward answer: no. No, no. And I’ve always thought that, with time, it might change, but no—it gets worse. I don’t know what the film is until I’ve screened it, until it has been seen by a full house with the worst or the best possible audience. I don’t know. When you are in a major film festival, everybody’s there basically. So it’s extremely intimidating.