3 Billboards - Les panneaux de la vengeance

Quatre et demi. Il manquait peu pour atteindre la perfection. Surtout la conclusion, qui aurait fait un usage plus satisfaisant du conflit brillamment façonné entre motifs dramatiques et destinées humaines. Mais c'est compréhensible, avec une telle fin, cela semble plus « artistique », pas négligé. Et avec des situations si originales et intenses dans lesquelles les personnages se trompent mutuellement, avec des performances d'acteurs aussi fantastiques, c'est toujours le meilleur des films nominés pour l'Oscar principal de l'année 2017. (27/02/2018)

Défi ciné 2018 : les États-Unis. Je ne peux pas m’empêcher de toujours avoir des attentes élevées envers certains films, auteurs ou acteurs. Et la déception n’en est que plus forte quand ça ne marche pas. Or, j’adore voir les pièces de McDonagh au Club dramatique de Prague, en particulier A Behanding in Spokane qui m’a énormément amusé. Il en est de même avec Bons Baisers de Bruges, un film devenu presque culte et auquel on ne manque pas de faire référence quand la ville de Bruges entre dans la conversation. Et puis voilà, les Golden Globes arrivent et, en même temps, les attentes démesurées qui vont avec. Malheureusement, l’artiste ne m’a pas convaincu cette fois-ci. Je n’en pouvais plus d’attendre que l’intrigue se manifeste enfin, que quelque chose d'intéressant ou de spécial se produise, mais en vain. Ses pièces aussi mélangent les genres, mais il y en a toujours un qui prédomine ; ici, aucun genre ne l’emporte et l’intrigue peine à entrainer le spectateur. McDormand et Rockwell jouent brillamment, mais au point d’être oscarisés ? Je suis très déçu. D’accord, ce n’est pas un flop, mais ce n’est certainement pas le film de l’année. (03/02/2018)

McDonagh (how happy would I be to be able to write this at last) also brings his original mixture of satire, blackis black incorrect humor and ancient tragedy into movie theaters... And incredibly well-written ambivalent characters and dialogs that can hit the nail on the head to such extent that it gives you the shivers but even though you will be rolling on floor laughing. So it works for him as a real, incorrect comedy, in which things that are not supposed to be said out loud are said out loud, as well as the non-violent but apt satire of Western society, the tragedy of one (more) loss or neowestern. So far, he had kept it just for theater stagings. However, he did a disservice; Although it is his best movie (especially the first half is brilliant in terms of screenwriting ), but in comparison with the Pillowman or the Lonesome West, it is still a much worse. Especially because of the final third, when it unexpectedly runs out of breath, it doesn't progress much and all the characters except the duo Mildred / Dixon are a bit forgotten. And that´s kind of reprehensible. Even so, the first and last one is saved by the great cast and the fact that, as a director, he knows exactly when to use the striking message and when, on the contrary, to let the silence do the job through guilty look. (17/01/2018)

I consider it an art to write and shoot a drama in which there is a hardly a scene where someone doesn’t say “bitch”, “fucker” or “cunt” (and most of characters don’t deserve a kinder form of address), in which we see a finger nail penetrated with a dental drill and which is still funny, true and touching (I think the theme of insurmountable grief is more nuanced here than in Wind River). Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a remarkably variable film and Martin McDonagh’s best so far (and I really like In Bruges). ___ At moments, I found it irritating due to its theatricality (precisely timed arrivals of characters on the scene, pauses for laughter, operatic arias) and a somewhat infantile attempt at incorrectness, but the film also offers so many surprises and so many refreshing changes of tone and has such an inventive narrative structure (there are not just three billboards, but also three characters whose stories McDonagh develops and intertwines in various ways) that these shortcomings are acceptable. With the chosen composition and multiple twists, McDonagh pursues a higher goal; he doesn’t play by the rules only for the sake of not playing by the rules, and though the film is by no means a gem stylistically (only a one-shot scene with an angry Rockwell will remain in the viewer’s memory), the structure of the story abundantly compensates for that, at least in my eyes. ___ In the context of his work so far, I find it notable how McDonagh again plays with standard narrative conventions and audience expectations (you definitely should not expect a straightforward story about a flawless protagonist who overcomes a few obstacles, uncovers the cause of her suffering and finds inner peace), just less explicitly than in Seven Psychopaths, thanks to which the characters are more believable despite the absurd exaggeration of the whole world and the film also conveys something thought-provoking about our own presence and not just about fictional worlds. 90% (16/01/2018)

As soon as I’ve seen this film I remembered Fargo from the nineties. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri are pretty similar, especially in the quality of acting performances and the American small-town atmosphere. Ebbing is a typical American hole, but a wide range of interesting characters lives there. And these characters are so well written that you are bating your breath and just desperately wonder what is going to happen to them in the following minutes. Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell have roles so powerful that it almost left me speechless. The screenwriter and director in one person, Martin McDonagh, played with their characters so much that you encounter several shocking moments which impact the course of the whole film. There is even one scene with Sam Rockwell in the lead, which immediately placed among the best scenes I’ve seen in the recent years. Overall, I have to admit, that although there is some absurdity in the story, it is still one of the best American crime films I’ve seen in the recent years. While watching it I was reminded of the older American crime movies that I love and at the same time I was assured that the American cinematography can still amaze. (21/01/2018)