If you ever happen to see the French filmmaker Leos Carax live and in person, perhaps presenting one of his films, or even deigning to be involved in a masterclass, then you really do get the sense that he’d rather not be there. Which is totally fine; public speaking is not for everyone, and Carax certainly seems like a person who would prefer to ram skewers in his eyes rather than crumble that dividing barrier between the public and the private.
Which makes his new medium-length feature, It’s Not Me, all the more surprising and scintillating, as it feels like the first time he’s let his guard drop just a little to tell us a bit about what he’s thinking right now. He in no way seems loquacious or in need to be part of a dialogue. Instead, he wants to get some issues off his chest in a semi-rant, and this witty and creative montage piece certainly fulfils that remit (and then some).
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Since his earliest films, it’s been clear that Carax has been in constant thrall to the late, great Jean-Luc Godard, and where films like Mauvais Sang and Boy Meets Girl tipped a beret to the early, more narratively-inclined JLG, It’s Not Me tips his hat to the maestro’s latter, cut-and-paste video work, in particular his epic disquisition on cinema and politics, Histoire(s) du Cinéma.
The film opens on an image of Carax flopped over on a bed in a room. He flips a switch and the screen transforms into a green, heat censor-like image, with the filmmaker unconsciously writing notes in Sharpie on a sheet of paper on the floor. The sense is that this material is spilling out of him, and he’s maybe not so interested in creating a cogent structure, but he does want to allow thoughts, images and emotions to flow out onto the screen.
You could spend days attempting to determine why the film is called It’s Not Me, mainly because its prime subject matter is the director’s own work, the director’s thoughts about other films and filmmakers, and the director’s musing on his own life as a father. He claims that this is some ruse, a playful smokescreen of random thoughts and feelings, but beyond the archness and cynicism, there are some profound, self-reflective insights about what it means to make moving images in the 21st century.
And do stay right to the very end, as Carax gives the MCU a hard schooling in how a post-credit sequence should really rip.
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