-By Eric Monder
For movie details, please click here.
Urville, a mythical society, inspired filmmaker Angela
Christlieb to search for a real-life counterpart around the French
countryside. Audiences seeking the offbeat should appreciate
Urville’s understated, bittersweet aura.
Christlieb first introduces us to Urville’s origins. We learn that
a French artist created the idea of a Mediterranean island where
everything works perfectly and all citizens are content. Next,
Christlieb takes a road trip to three cities in the French
provinces that claim the Urville name: Vosges plain, Calvados and
Aube. Naturally, the three rural locations cannot live up to the
Urville ideal, but the inhabitants—from farmers to real estate
entrepreneurs to politicians—try mightily to achieve a societal
excellence.
That
Urville leaves open the idea such a place might exist
makes the film more reverie than documentary. Christieb never pokes
fun at the concept, so we are hardly in mockumentary territory, nor
is her lyrical travelogue in the same league as Russ Hexter’s
Dadetown (1995), with the latter’s shock ending where
everything real is actually fake.
Urville explores states of
mind as much as actual locales by engaging individuals to discuss
their hopes, fears and desires.
Just as in her first film about people obsessed with movies and
moviegoing,
Cinemania (2002), Christlieb demonstrates her care and
concern for optimistic oddballs. Her humanism has a touching
quality that shines through the eccentricities on display. (The
Gallic politician in the first Urville dresses like a Native
American and lives in a teepee.)
Yet
Urville, the movie, isn’t any more perfect than the
faux-Urvilles Christlieb visits. The one-note theme makes
each city visit seem like a repetition of the last. We might also
wonder why all the Urvilles are in the French provinces and not
other parts of Europe or the world. Wouldn’t the film have been
more interesting if Urvilles existed everywhere? Perhaps they do,
in fact, but we wouldn’t know it from seeing this film. Despite
this limitation,
Urville is still worth the trip.
Film Review: Urville
Wistful documentary about utopia just misses the mark.
Oct 15, 2010
-By Eric Monder
For movie details, please click here.
Urville, a mythical society, inspired filmmaker Angela Christlieb to search for a real-life counterpart around the French countryside. Audiences seeking the offbeat should appreciate
Urville’s understated, bittersweet aura.
Christlieb first introduces us to Urville’s origins. We learn that a French artist created the idea of a Mediterranean island where everything works perfectly and all citizens are content. Next, Christlieb takes a road trip to three cities in the French provinces that claim the Urville name: Vosges plain, Calvados and Aube. Naturally, the three rural locations cannot live up to the Urville ideal, but the inhabitants—from farmers to real estate entrepreneurs to politicians—try mightily to achieve a societal excellence.
That
Urville leaves open the idea such a place might exist makes the film more reverie than documentary. Christieb never pokes fun at the concept, so we are hardly in mockumentary territory, nor is her lyrical travelogue in the same league as Russ Hexter’s
Dadetown (1995), with the latter’s shock ending where everything real is actually fake.
Urville explores states of mind as much as actual locales by engaging individuals to discuss their hopes, fears and desires.
Just as in her first film about people obsessed with movies and moviegoing,
Cinemania (2002), Christlieb demonstrates her care and concern for optimistic oddballs. Her humanism has a touching quality that shines through the eccentricities on display. (The Gallic politician in the first Urville dresses like a Native American and lives in a teepee.)
Yet
Urville, the movie, isn’t any more perfect than the
faux-Urvilles Christlieb visits. The one-note theme makes each city visit seem like a repetition of the last. We might also wonder why all the Urvilles are in the French provinces and not other parts of Europe or the world. Wouldn’t the film have been more interesting if Urvilles existed everywhere? Perhaps they do, in fact, but we wouldn’t know it from seeing this film. Despite this limitation,
Urville is still worth the trip.
