James Joyce may have been the greatest writer of the 20th century, but his altar-ego, Stephen Dedalus, is one of literature's great bores, a self-regarding intellectual who gets so lost in a swamp of second-hand ideas he does not know how to live life, and where one line will do, will speak reams of dense, circular, allusive cant.
Ditto his namesake Paul in this film, with whom we have the privilege of spending three hours, as he talks, makes a mess of his life, talks, makes a mess of his career, talks, makes a mess of his relationships, and talks. 173 minutes. Like Stephen, his problems with writing are linked to his problems with sex. This is a key film of the Young French Cinema, which favours the flat filming of dozens of bright charmless young things drinking coffee and talking about Wittgenstein. Great.
Ditto his namesake Paul in this film, with whom we have the privilege of spending three hours, as he talks, makes a mess of his life, talks, makes a mess of his career, talks, makes a mess of his relationships, and talks. 173 minutes. Like Stephen, his problems with writing are linked to his problems with sex. This is a key film of the Young French Cinema, which favours the flat filming of dozens of bright charmless young things drinking coffee and talking about Wittgenstein. Great.