OUT OF COMPETITION
Vertiges |
© DR
Speed Racer
Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
2008 - United States - 2h15
Screenings :
monday 22 - 10:15 pm - Pathé - 1 - presented by Gautier Roos - journalist
Speed Racer, a young racing driver, aspires to champion of the racing world thanks to his family and his high-tech Mach 5 car.
“Speed Racer opens with a kaleidoscope of colours worthy of a bad LSD trip, which starts even before the Warner Bros. studio logo. The statement is clear: watching the Wachowskis' film means taking the plunge into a rainbow well, into a parallel dimension with its own rules.
“The first quarter of an hour is a ferocious shock and a slap in the face: a combination of two races and a number of flashbacks to tell the story of the hero, his family, his world and the issues at stake, the introduction is as effective as it is hysterical. The Wachowskis deploy sensational energy to package this unique pop adaptation, with obvious care taken with the editing and the art direction: from the costumes to the colour palette, every image contains all the grotesque and irresistible madness of the adventure. There's a spectacular desire to occupy the whole space, to fill every inch of the image and every empty second, to form an outrageous adventure that overflows on all sides. The exercise is more than perilous, and goes off the rails on several occasions, but there's a kind of organised chaos at work in Speed Racer. The deliberately camp look and video game logic built into the script (the villain who uses a joystick and screen in his super truck to shoot at a car, Speed's tutorial where he learns to use the A and B keys to steer his vehicle) all help to make this super-production an extraordinary object which has seemingly sprung straight from the Wachowskis' imagination without passing through the filter of the studio that shapes the everyday mainstream.” (Geoffrey Creté; Ecranlarge.com)
“The first quarter of an hour is a ferocious shock and a slap in the face: a combination of two races and a number of flashbacks to tell the story of the hero, his family, his world and the issues at stake, the introduction is as effective as it is hysterical. The Wachowskis deploy sensational energy to package this unique pop adaptation, with obvious care taken with the editing and the art direction: from the costumes to the colour palette, every image contains all the grotesque and irresistible madness of the adventure. There's a spectacular desire to occupy the whole space, to fill every inch of the image and every empty second, to form an outrageous adventure that overflows on all sides. The exercise is more than perilous, and goes off the rails on several occasions, but there's a kind of organised chaos at work in Speed Racer. The deliberately camp look and video game logic built into the script (the villain who uses a joystick and screen in his super truck to shoot at a car, Speed's tutorial where he learns to use the A and B keys to steer his vehicle) all help to make this super-production an extraordinary object which has seemingly sprung straight from the Wachowskis' imagination without passing through the filter of the studio that shapes the everyday mainstream.” (Geoffrey Creté; Ecranlarge.com)
CAST AND CREW
Cast : Emile Hirsch, Nicholas Elia, Susan Sarandon, Melissa Holroyd, John Goodman, Matthew Fox, Melvil Poupaud
Screenplay : Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
Cinematography : David Tattersall
Editing : Roger Barton, Zach Staenberg
Music : Michael Giacchino
Production : Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, Silver Pictures
French distributor : Warner Bros