Even in a year with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to movie musicals, Annette (2021) was always destined to stand out. For starters, it was the long-awaited follow-up to Holy Motors (2012) from director Leos Carax. For those who missed the French filmmaker’s career, the easy, overused word to describe him is “strange.” His work doesn’t exist in a realm of familiarity, instead asking the audience to expand their definition of reason. He demands that they become transfixed in his work, mesmerized by every audacious decision, and hopefully come away with a new favorite film. That’s how he’s always been going back to the 80s with Lovers on the Bridge (1991) and Mauvais Sang (1986), and even that cannot prepare one for Annette.
When most directors make the leap from international cinema to the English language, they usually try to make something more accessible, as if breaking into the industry for hopeful longevity. Sure sometimes you’ll get a Yorgos Lanthimos with The Lobster (2016) where the tone is perfectly balanced, but more often than not something is proverbially lost in translation. In the case of Carax, it’s very difficult to tell if this is true or if any of the head-scratching wasn’t intentional. Even when headlined by Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard with a songbook by the band Sparks, there is something isolating about the experience, lacking conventions that westernized Hollywood cinema would be able to grasp onto.
It is simultaneously the greatest reinvention of the form and the worst possible choice. It is easy to imagine over half the audience turning it off after 20 minutes, annoyed that they have only heard one earworm (the opening number) and the rest works more as spoken word poetry, dialogue broken up rhythmically to convey the most melancholic opera imaginable. There is definitely awe to watching Driver encapsulate the headspace of a narcissistic performer, grappling with a live theater audience in some of Carax’s most visually stunning photography.
From underneath a bathrobe, Driver turns on the audience. He revels in being abrasive, demanding that acts like turning the microphone into a noose be seen as shocking, provocative, producing deeper thoughts of humanity. He would consider himself a self-proclaimed genius if he wasn’t preoccupied writhing on the floor, making it up as he went along. The crowd, draped in limelight, sing in a unified choir against him, treating him like a spectacle as well as someone they are morally superior to. It’s the type of magic that Carax captures, finding the discomfort of the performative artist, eager to create as reckless of a public image as he can.
The film received buzz out of Cannes for its bold technique, though it still would be difficult to fully capture the experience of watching Annette in any review. Carax’s direction exists outside of the detail and goes straight for the visceral, needing to have an audience willing to trust him as he winds through strange tangents, introducing characters who are discordant yet classical. Every character feels removed from the familiar and as a result remain curios for the audience to gawk at, trying to figure out just what is going on in this world. It’s a 2.5-hour tone poem at best, not presenting much that’s new if taken literally, but maybe groundbreaking if appreciated from an artistic liberties standpoint.
For instance, the relationship between Driver and Cotillard feels strangely stilted at first. The further from a flashing paparazzi that they get, the more they feel calculated, doing everything to do what they think a perfect relationship should be. In a memorable sex scene, they repeatedly sing about loving each other, mundanely, as if it’s a task. There’s no grand revelation even as they hold each other passionately, Driver driven to her groin. They want to make it work, and yet it’s clear that for whatever passion can be heard in the harmonies, it’s not fully translated in their actions, hinting at the fraught relationship to come, the abuse that he will bestow upon her as she tries to find a new form of happiness.
The question becomes what exactly drew Carax to tell this story. For as many tassels as he throws over every scene, there is a tedium to it that makes it difficult to immediately love. The lack of Oscar-ready songs causes certain scenes to drag on, at times feeling hollow. Maybe that was the point, capturing the depths of characters through a grand metaphorical rhythm. On the outside, they sing beautifully about the optimism of life. On the inside, there’s a good chance that they’re masking pain. Is this a grand commentary on how American musicals use the form to escape their own miseries, believing in something majestic? By the time that the third act forms, it’s clear that Carax isn’t precious about anything. If a song were to crater, it would do so purposefully.
This is, after all, nothing new for Carax as a filmmaker. Holy Motors featured a series of vignettes brought together by Denis Levant touring France while putting on a variety of characters that featured everything from French New Wave to C.G.I. eroticism. It was a grand commentary on the medium as a form, its ability to make everyone feel these deep, complex emotions. Even if we were lied to, the power of the moment was undeniable. As a companion piece, Annette makes sense. Even if it’s far less accessible and arguably less exciting, its ambitions at least make for memorable viewing. It is so much more than a musical. Everything that can be deemed a flaw could be a layered commentary not only on yesteryear’s icons telling dark stories through springy pop tunes, but how it can create delusions and validate the wrong perspective.
This is especially true for those who see Annette as an endurance test. Whereas most musicals will have some catalyst by the hour mark, Carax demands patience. In between the mundane, unmemorable numbers are the slow revelations of Driver. He grows increasingly unpleasant, jealous of the conductor played by Simon Helberg. It isn’t a showy form of aggression, at least offstage. Driver may grow transparent in hostility when he has a crowd, but when alone the music grows more sparse, like a hunter ready to attack his prey. There’s madness in his mundanity, his showy music fading in favor of something less flattering.
It also helps that Carax finds ways to make even the haunting revelations appear like the grandest form of theater. In a duet between Driver and Cotillard aboard a boat, he finds a way to turn the moonlight into something sinister, uncomfortable. And yet at the same time, it’s a bit beautiful, the fashion a bit retro as they dance one last time. The music once again is strangled slowly, keeping a pinch of beauty underneath Driver’s increasing level of discomforting actions. If you think that he’s manipulative in the first half, just wait until the second, where his fading career is met with delusions and greed, an overbearing need to be the center of attention as he fails to recognize his own aging into obscurity.
*SPOILERS FOR ANNETTE FROM HERE ON OUT*
The one tool that has gotten the most attention is the character “Baby Annette.” As the love child of Driver and Cotillard, she reflects a deeper part of Driver’s psyche. Like the music, he is growing distant from the world around him. Everything is forming an artifice, including the fact that his own child isn’t real. Annette is a puppet, designed so oddly that it’s not difficult to notice its artificiality. The sincerity with which Driver acts opposite her adds wonderful absurdism to the plot even as it conveys some deeper pain. Is this going to be a spin on Pinocchio? Kind of, at least from the music career exploitation side of things.
Again, the audience’s tolerance for fantasy this late in the film is determined by how much they buy into Carax’s bigger vision. While there are a few catchy songs, they mostly fade in and out, servicing more as plot beats than ways to move soundtrack units. Even in some Annette scenes, the music drags to the point that it’s difficult to determine whether it’s comic or tragic. Is Driver’s sincerity to try and make a puppet convincingly be his daughter a greater commentary of his hubris? If the ending is any telltale sign, it probably is. Still, the journey there suggests a literal objectification of those around him, dissociating from reason in favor of believing that he’s as great as he thinks that he is. In some respects, the music does enough of that to convince us that he’s just another toxic white man.
On some level, there is disappointment that this is ultimately Carax’s first film in nine years. Whereas Holy Motors pushed boundaries with a crafty ingenuity, Annette feels more like a scramble of ideas thrown together. On paper, it sounds like a great idea to satirize the musical form with something so distinctly European. However, the cynicism and occasional confusion of tone result in something that’s big and messy. It’s true that one can argue that this is reflective of Driver’s character, himself not the most charismatic singer nor the most expressive. There is something to him hiding his emotions. He is, after all, an actor. He knows how to protect himself from the worst possible scrutiny of the world. It’s better to fake it until he makes it, not unlike giving birth to a literal puppet.
The journey is not spectacular. The big revelation comes from something so obvious that it may be underwhelming to some. Still, Carax’s choice to have the ultimate search be for empathy is an admirable one. It’s at times incredible to think that this film would have any traction as a major release for Amazon. Even with all-star leads, there’s not a lot that is commercial, suggesting that this is the story that Carax wanted to tell. In that regard, the whole experience is a miracle that is self-effacing. Those who can make it out the other side may feel rewarded for witnessing something so singular – or surviving it, anyways.
At least on first viewing, Annette is a wildly imperfect movie that requires so much of the audience’s investment. They need to put aside their knowledge of the art form and analyze what is being said. Carax continually asks why certain tropes are taken for granted, why Driver in a different context would be seen as heroic. While it doesn’t quite break down the movie musical with as much efficiency as Dancer In the Dark (2000) or A Woman is a Woman (1961), it does enough that is worth getting up and applauding. The music is doing more than producing hits. The visuals are playing with our understanding of beauty and ugliness. So much is at play that it may be best to just have your initial reaction be ambiguous. Is it a masterpiece? Is it a failure? Maybe it’s everything in-between, and I’m sure that’s exactly how the director would want it to be.
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