By Roman Coppola, 2001.
Starring Élodie Bouchez, Jeremy Davies, Gérard Depardieu, Massimo Ghini, Giancarlo Giannini, John Phillip Law, Angela Lindvall, Jason Schwartzman, Dean Stockwell, Billy Zane.
Rating: 10/10, 7.5/10.
The first time I saw CQ, I fell in love every five seconds or so from the opening shot to the closing one. I spent the next few days thinking I’d just seen the cinematic masterwork of our time, never to be topped by anyone or anything. Eventually, though, I calmed down and realized that really there was nothing "good," particularly, about the film. Certainly not rave-worthy. I mean, if you’re talking from an art direction point of view, certainly, rave away, but the work as a whole...only so-so. The reason I’d thought it was so fantastic, I told myself, was that the subject matter (1969 mod France) was a perfect match for my personal loves, and that the way in which the subject matter was treated (with heaps of style) was another match. I’m so in love with the idea of beautiful European women and men wearing slinky silver dresses or skinny black ties and long sportscoats, dancing to bouncy, horn-filled music because it’s new, for the love of God, so in love with all that that I couldn’t see past it to the actual quality of the film.
The second time I saw the movie, I discovered that I’d been wrong twice. Obviously, CQ is not the best movie ever made; it wasn’t even the best movie of its year. However, I went a little too far in my post-euphoria crash. CQ is a damned good, damned competent movie, especially for a directorial debut, though admittedly the young Mr. Coppola didn’t exactly come out of nowhere.
The story centers on Paul (the unbearably gorgeous Davies), an American in Paris, if you will, and you will, who has come there to work on film. Currently he’s the editor on a science fiction film which is totally supposed to be like Barbarella, though here the film and the sexy agent lead character are both called Firefly; he hopes to break into directing. At home, he’s distant from his adorable, somewhat depressed—very frustrated, certainly—girlfriend, Marlene (the lovely Bouchez), not so much because he’s distant but because he wants to be distant for his art. He spends much of his time at home filming the objects that make up his life—coffee cups, mussed beds, toothbrushes—looking for "honesty." Eventually, the chain of failed directors for the film leads to Paul, at which point he falls in love with the lead, Valentine (the alluring Lindvall), Marlene leaves him, his father (the not-so-great looking but still beloved Stockwell) visits and has a significant conversation with him, the set is stalked by a vandal, Paul fantasizes about Valentine—or more accurately, about Firefly—and he finishes the film, essentially, though perhaps not quite in that order.
The movie isn’t really about story, anyway. Primarily and immediately, it’s about what I was talking about earlier—great music, beautiful people, parties, dancing, drinking, driving fun expensive cars, making a now-retro futuristic movie. On this level, the film is pure joy, pure, pure joy. I was going to say something along the lines of "if you like that kind of thing," but honestly...ok, I understand that in theory many people aren’t particularly interested in that kind of thing, but I can’t quite manage to take that knowledge and apply it to the real world. Anyway, yeah, pure joy.
There’s another level, though, on which the film is that dreaded thing, an allegory. I’m not going to talk about what it’s trying to say, because I don’t have a specific message in mind and that kind of thing gets boring, anyway. But it is there if you want it, and it’s there in a good, non-heavy-handed way. And if you don’t want it, well, then dance.