Review of Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) by Mike H — 13 May 2015

Clouds of SIls Maria has been frequently called a Melodrama, which is fair, but I hope those who have done so don't mean to be derogatory, as it is also the best film of the year so far. Clouds of SIls Maria follows famous actress Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) and her assistant Valentine (Kirsten Stewart), as Maria prepares to act in the play that began her career 20 years earlier in a new role, as an aging sad office manager rather than the charming young assistant she played 20 years before.

The film is like a play, in more than its content. It contains two parts and epilogue, which are further divided into scenes by fades to black that resemble a curtain opening and closing. Director Olivier Assayas uses the added structure to tame the film's winding narrative, which offers far more than most movies do. The whole thing seems true to life, as characters disappear never to reappear and things never quite feel wrapped up. When, I sat down to think about what the movie I actually saw was and what happened and what it was about. All I can think is that it is about almost everything a movie can be about from how we constantly caricature those around us based on our biases, about how are world view is limited by our experience and how states of being that are lost even when we don't think we lose them. All of that sounds abstract, but I don't want to give much away.

I can't help, but think about Milos Forman's Amadeus when I think about The Clouds of Sils Maria. I keep dwelling on the way that Mozart seems to will his own death by writing his funeral. Clouds of Sils Maria is equally about the way works of art overcome us and shape our lives rather than us shaping theirs, but in Assayas's film unlike Forman's the characters don't create the play. It is written for them.