James Never Film not for everyone. Very slow, intimate and deep. With a lot of static camera views allowing you to drift in your thoughts. Character of Pharaon De Winter (Emmanuel Schotté) reminds me about Ingman Bergmans' "From the Life of the Marionettes " Peter Angelmann (Robert Atzorn). They are both very troublesome introverts with effeminate mindset in the world dominated by men, thus creating distortion somewhere deeply in their mind which eventually leads to abnormal behaviour.I do recommend this film to those who enjoy deep psychological and philosophical cinema.

I_John_Barrymore_I This French oddity from second-time director Bruno Dumont is a masterpiece. Four minutes into the film I was ready to switch it off, but once I'd settled into the rhythm of the film I was transfixed. That took about 20 minutes, and once I'd finished the film I re-watched those first 20 minutes again.A policeman investigates the brutal murder of a young girl in a French town and that's pretty much it. It's even less than that in some respects. For example the girl is found in the opening minutes, but it's 50 minutes before any real investigation begins. Instead it focuses on the policeman (Pharaon) and his two friends (lovers Domino and Joseph). They go to the beach, to a restaurant, stand outside their houses having stunted conversations and generally wasting the day away. Pharaon goes for a bicycle ride and tends to his allotment. Essentially nothing happens. There are maybe four or five actual plot points altogether, and the rest is filled with chat of the "Hi, how are you?" variety, long shots of people walking or driving, or opening doors. The entire film follows a kind of rhythmic cycle that becomes hypnotic if you allow it.Which brings us to the actors. The DVD notes say they're all non-professionals. Not amateur actors, but real people who are acting for the first time. The actor who plays Joseph does reasonably well, but Domino is excellent (and it's an extremely brave performance for any actress).Emmanuel Schotte (as Pharaon) is amazing. It's simply one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. Imagine Travis Bickle with 99pc of the anger taken out. Then cross him with Forrest Gump (with non of Hanks' caricature or comedy). Cast a non-actor who looks like a cross between Clive Owen and Alfred Molina and you're somewhere close. He's a very unlikely cop. He's wide-eyed, innocent, and simple. He's slow and deliberate. Brief comments from other characters tell us his wife and child died two years ago, and he looks like a man still stunned, as if he'd just heard the news. This is never hinted at once; we don't ever see what he was like before, no one ever tells him "You've changed", but the audience gets the feeling this is a man suffering desperately from the pain of grief. Most of this is expressed in Schotte's eyes which are desperately sad.This low-key little film requires patience. Without Schotte's performance I don't think there'd be much of a film here. Be prepared for an extremely slow film, but one that's never boring. It will polarise opinion like few other films I've seen so I can't recommend it to everyone (and there are some very graphic sex scenes), but I thought it was amazing.

causticjones This is a thoughtful and original film and the polar opposite of any Hollywood movie. It's slight plot is not what the film is about, it is in many ways a mood piece. The opening image of a vast landscape a lone figure running along the horizon is accompanied only by the sound of the heavy breaths of the runner, and sets the tone for the entire film.The film is character driven and contains long periods of near silence and beautifully shot landscape. Its basic plot, the investigation into the rape and murder of a young girl, would suggest it is a thriller but this film is about it's characters first and foremost.Our hero Pharon is a policeman who lives at home with his mother He has suffered the loss of his wife and child, how we never find out. The crime he investigates pushes him into a state of utter despair. This despair is not shown to us with any overblown emotional fireworks but with a heavy and quite sorrow which he carries throughout the film. He is portrayed by Emmanuel Schotte who justly won the best actor award at Cannes, and was unjustly booed for doing so. This may have something to with the fact that he is retired accountant rather than an actor. His face expresses the sheer anguish is a man at the end of his teether, by expressing nothing at all save for thin smile that seems to come not from joy but to stop him from crying.The center of the film is Pharon relationship with his neighbor Domino played by Severine Caneele who won best actress and boos at Cannes to. She is also untrained and delivers a wonderful performance.The investigation moves at a snails pace, and probably offers a more realistic look at police work than most films as witnesses are questioned and requestioned.It is a slow and beautiful film and reminded me strangely of Hal Hartly's work, in that the charters and actors seem to be doing very little but are expressing so much.

bodhisattva13 I started watching this film at about midnight. Even though it was 148 minutes long and I was becoming increasingly tired, I couldn't switch it off. I can't explain what about this film appeals to me. Especially since it isn't as much about a manhunt for the killer and rapist of an 11-year-old girl as how disconnected we all are from one another.The lead actor conveys this melancholic, sweetness that makes a person want to embrace him. He's so filled with sadness and ennui. This really is such a deeply sad film. His neighbor, too, wastes her time with an immature and idiotic boyfriend. Their frequent sex scenes aren't as much erotic as desperate, feverish attempts to feel something.Another film that had a deep effect upon me was Mike Leigh's "All or Nothing." That's another slice-of-life, roll the cameras and then pretend they aren't there kind of film. I think what makes these types of films resonant with me is all the artifice seems stripped away. Faced with a mirror of myself and my society, I can't help but ache and feel hollow.As someone else said, few people will recommend this type of film, although critics invariably hail it. The reason - because this is more true than "Die Hard" or any other equally vacuous Hollywood blockbuster. I don't go to the cinema to be entertained. I want to see life and from that understand myself and my world better. "L'Humanite," which not surprisingly is written and directed by a philosopher, accomplishes those objectives.