E-Biopic and F-Comedy: ENFANT TERRIBLE (2020) and FIRST TIME FEMALE DIRECTOR (2023)

I watched 2 very strange movies last night:

- A biopic that starts with an E (and a full-on END credits card): ENFANT TERRIBLE (2020) by Oskar Roehler, about Rainer Werner Fassbinder's life as a director and his bizarre creative process.

This is how the film starts, for like 4 minutes, you read a bunch of names, like it's the end of the film

- A comedy that starts with F: FIRST TIME FEMALE DIRECTOR (2023) by Chelsea Peretti, about a playwright who gets promoted to stage director after the theatre's male stage director is fired over a 20-year history of sexual misconduct.

It turns out these two movies have a lot in common. They're both extremely campy and theatrical; they're both art-about-art films ("the theatre within the theatre"), meta-cinema in the first case and meta-theatre in the 2nd. They both have an all-star cast. In both films, the main character is a chaotic, unstable director. The first is full of himself, the 2nd struggles with imposter syndrome.

In ENFANT TERRIBLE, every set of every scene feels like the stage of a play. The film direction and the decor make me feel like this is a theatre play that happened to be filmed. Whenever characters interact, it feels like they're acting. It never stops being about acting and directing. Neither film allows you, even for a second, to forget that none of this is real. It's as if suspension of disbelief would be a crime.

I don't know if I recommend either of them, but I don't regret watching any of it. They definitely remind you that you should keep creating and stop overthinking everything.

As we say at The Roncy QBC: "Anything that comes out is welcome."

Next: a drama that starts with G, a queer romance that starts with H, a boring romance that starts with I