monsieurubu Review of Quelques jours en septembre

Quelques jours en septembre (2006)

A real aesthetic and dramatic attainment

[10/10 · 30 September 2006]

If you are waiting for action and violence, don't go and see this film. The spy plot, in this movie, is only a pretext to show us the meeting of three strangers who learn to know and understand each other while they are waiting the final coming of Elliot, under the threat of William Pound, a hilarious psychotic killer played by John Turturro. What is interesting is to see how, gradually, characters begin to talk really, and to build a real link between them. In some way "Quelques jours en septembre" may remind us of "Sonatine", by Takeshi Kitano ; the whole film is indeed totally based on a very long expectation ; an expectation that the audience is obliged to share with the characters : during the 40 first minutes we don't know where Santiago Amigorena is leading us, we are totally lost - but if we have the patience to wait, we enter the action and get really rewarded for our efforts. To conclude, I must mention Tom Riley and Juliette Binoche's remarkable performance, a very original aesthetic "parti pris", and a very pleasant bittersweet humor (I think for example of John Turturro's dialogs with his psychiatrist).