So It Goes
There is a body of work from a certain director that I am very fond of. Though this particular director hasn't done a lot of work, I still believe that the limited amount of work he has done is quite an achievement. For the films manage to not only be so reactionary as to split an audience's reaction to the point of deciding whether they loved it or hated it, which is always for the better since there is no middle ground to them, but also for the fact that they are truly uncompromising films to come from an American director in recent times and that in itself deems to me a worthwhile career. The dude also co-wrote Pulp Fiction but that's neither here nor there for this is about Roger Avary's directorial debut; Killing Zoe.
The Worst Poster I Could Find
The Original Opinion
To give an opinion of my current interest in the film I need to talk a bit about when I first got around to watching it and to be quite frank, I didn't like this movie when I first saw it.
Now to be clear, this was the year of 2007 which can be considered to be around my high school years. Around this time would be my freshman years as far as I can remember but then again on second thought, it could have been my college years since those 5 years of each are interchangeable for the most part but regardless, it was 2007 when I bought a DVD copy of this film which contained a supposedly full frame presentation of the R rated version but was actually in Widescreen. I think.
This EXACT same cover
Now why did I hate it when a cover such as this is offering so much? Hard to tell. The memory is a bit fuzzy but recollection through labor, I believe that what I found to be so off putting on that first viewing was the complete sense of madness/chaos that felt unregulated within the film. The idea that these criminals could be so unprofessional was just too much to bare for my baby movie watching brain. For you see, my baby movie watching brain at the time couldn't comprehend the amount of deviation from what can be considered the formula expectations in a heist film. With movies like Heat, Rififi, and The Killing on the brain when going into this and getting none of that, I was a bit disappointed.
What felt missing were the grandiose set up scenes of them prepping for the heist that they were going to pull off. From the layout of the bank to the weapons they will use and the ultimate escape plan for when they get the monies. The film having nothing of this caught me off guard and then when the movie shifts away from any notion of the upcoming heist, I was completely blindsided by the debauchery. It just seemed to go on and on and then all of sudden the morning comes, and the heist begins. Never before have I seen unprepared French men such as this running and gunning on a whim with lackluster disguises and actually believing that they were going to get away.
true professionals
My experience of French criminals at this time had been the cool calm expertise of the existential type from Jean Pierre Melville. The kind to never get themselves into a situation that they cannot find an escape from, even though they have this existential dread of just wanting to die. Nonetheless, those Melville type knew the stakes was always life and death and took it as it came.
These Avary criminals though are just too goddamn wild not giving a fuck for nearly the entire run time and then when the credits started rolling, my feelings were pretty solid in disliking it. I honestly just couldn't understand it or get into it.
Before exacting my revenge on the lunacy of 2007 Francis Booth, I feel as though I should get into the plot of things to get you up to speed.
Plot For Those That Need It
The film starts off with this American by the name of Zed (Eric Stoltz) arriving into France to do a bank job. He's the safe cracker and he's been hired from an old buddy he used to know to fly across the Atlantic and take part in this particular job.
The first thing he does is take a taxi straight to his hotel and orders himself up a prostitute with the help of the cab driver. He takes his time to relax by taking a shower and watching some Nosferatu on the television and that's when Zoe (Julie Delpy) arrives. She lays down the terms of the deal and the two get to having some sex but during the fucking they share a moment. Seems like there is something more going on between them but it isn't long before his buddy Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) shows up like a tornado and rushes himself into Zed's life to knock him off the ground.
First things first though, Eric kicks out Zoe, tossing her naked into the hallway, and then takes Zed out of the hotel to his hideout to meet the rest of the criminals.
After meeting the entire rag tag group of stoners/drunkards/druggies at the attic apartment, there is a 2 minute moment of the two going through a plan to rob the bank and after that they celebrate life by going off for the next 20 minutes or so on a binge of heroin and madness with Zed puking his guts out by the end of it as he watches or possibly hallucinates the sight of Eric sodomizing one of the other heist guys in the bathroom.
This is not your fathers heist film.
Then the next morning, the bank robbery occurs and it gets even crazier. They rush in the place and tell people hands up though they didn't kill the guard fast enough, played by a quick cameo by Ron Jeremy, and so the place gets surrounded by cops as time goes on. Zed gets to work downstairs on cracking open the safe while it is revealed that Zoe happens to be a bank teller and is now caught in the maddening situation.
Absolutely Nothing Goes According To Plan.
Eric is losing his mind as time goes on and does his duty to make sure the hostage situation is going good upstairs by killing a disgruntled American and then head downstairs to make sure Zed is working on the safe downstairs and giving him no accurate updates on what is happening upstairs.
Then in the middle of it all, Eric goes off and does some more heroin to get himself in the mood.
The safe gets cracked open and the last guard is in the back room with the gold bricks and so Eric decides to blow up the guy to hurry up the process. The guard gets burned alive, the effects on his burned body looking fantastic via Tom Savini doing the work, and Eric goes about in mercy killing him.
Zed and another robber get the gold out of the room but there's nowhere to go. There is no escape and by this point Zoe has made a move by taking a machine gun and shooting off at the robbers and when she makes her way downstairs and that's where she meets up with Zed.
The movie keep building and building then reaches the climax of the police rushing into the bank and the robbers getting knocked off one by one. Zed and Eric get into a fist fight with the end of it being that Zed and Zoe are laying on the ground with Eric pointing his gun at the two but a trio of police arrive and start riddling him with bullets and the two lovebirds leave the bank and the credits start to roll.
The Great Switch
Now, in regard to my 2007 state of being, this is not what I was promised upon my first impression of what the film was offering. It didn't fulfill my desires in a heist film and so I deemed it a failure. The DVD sitting among the pile of other DVDs accumulating dust during this time.
The year now is 2015. I am moving out of one city and moving into another. The great DVD inventory tally was in process. This was the time of trying to remember who the fuck borrowed a movie and whether or not I would be able to get it back. Ultimately at the end of the tally, I decided that the fuckers that never gave it back were in need of culture and so I did the ultimate sacrifice and let those fuckers keep the movies. My personal crucifixion.
Any who, during this time I discovered the DVD again and thought to myself , 'I am of an older age and there is more alcohol in me. I must give this a re-watch.' and upon moving, setting up my TV and filing my movies away via alphabetization of directors middle name; I gave this film another watch. And I found myself truly loving what the film had to offer more so than what my boring preconceived notions of what the movie should have been.
Now before I continue, I will now switch my opinion to that from the terrible DVD to the fantastic French Blu-ray*.
The Revised Opinion Final Cut Edition
Now after viewing the movie once more in the year 2023, I have come to enjoy it even more so than the last time. There is such a brash and sincere sense of FUCK YOU when this movie descends more and more into chaos. It revels in this feeling. This movie doesn't care much if you want to agree or disagree with it but instead feels like its saying 'If you want to have a good time then you better do what I say, otherwise get fucked.' Not a lot of films create this feeling nowadays for the audience and its a shame but this one does and its all the better for it.
One of the biggest driving force for this feeling to be so genuine all throughout is primarily the power of Jean-Hugues Anglade performance. That dude seems like he was certifiably insane the way he plays Eric. Just a guy who has thrown any sense of moral away and has been living on the edge for so long that it's now starting to seep into the people that he keeps around. He's charming, smooth talking, and seems to be capable of putting a gun in your hand and making you believe that its perfectly reasonable to go off and rob a bank with little to no plan.
It's fascinating now to see how the first half of the film works as being this character piece revolving around these future bank robbers. The only true insight to a Why? that comes around is Eric dropping the atomic bomb that he has AIDS, whether true of not who knows, but other than that following these characters as they go around Paris is an odyssey in of itself that reminds me a bit of how Gaspar Noe depicts Paris in his directorial debut I Stand Alone. Just brutal and disgusting all around. These characters existing and living in such a fashion of debauchery and reveling in it. It's fantastic.
Then there’s Zed on the other hand who’s primary there to just react. To be the viewers conduit and go with the flow of the night because he trusts Eric and Zed as a whole is a pretty great counter point to the madness. The only guy who seems to understand what being level headed is even though Eric does what he can to dissuade this. This being the case when he has to commit a mercy killing which kind of puts into perspective the whole idea of him actually realizing the consequences of his actions.
It's funny in a way that Eric Stoltz just wanted his character to fire off a gun since everyone else was and because of that there comes this scene that actually grounds the character compared to the other lunatics.
Julie Delpy is good too even though she doesn't get too much screen time but nonetheless you feel her presence and that's good enough for a film like this.
The atmosphere and overall mood of that first half is way cool now. Just the way it looks and feels even though its obvious that a lot of it wasn't actually shot in Paris but I think that adds a lot more than if they did. You don't get to see the sights. The glamour. You get the cesspool. You see a strange underworld especially with the jazz club scene. It was like these guys entered a dungeon from the past that's been refitted for some people to play some music and customers to just vibe along. It truly adds a texture that it probably wouldn't have had if actually shot in Paris.
The film is madness and the true way to enjoy it is to take the ride and go with it. Leave your bullshit and the door to truly enjoy.
The Underlying End
There was a time when a young Francis Booth dreamed to be a filmmaker. Watching the classics and bullshit to get an idea but something along the way pushed young Francis Francis to just focus on watching movies. Mostly it was because there was no voice inside him telling him this story MUST be told. Nothing beyond cliches that is. Watching this film though was a great awakening in a sense. That to make a film is to have guts and a belief that in the end, the shit will work out.
There are very few directorial debuts out there that come as strong as this one and its a shame. It is a film that pulls no punches in showing you what debauchery is when it comes to the life of these individuals and no qualms in going the distance. It’s the kind of film that blooming filmmakers should try and strive for.
An interesting piece that I read when looking up information on the film was a statement that the characters are a reflection of his generation during this time of the early to mid 90's.
Was it a general sense of doom and gloom? Possibly. What I do know is that Eric saw it all just like Kurtz but instead of saying 'the horror, the horror' he opened his eyes wide with a great smile on his face and said 'good times, good times.'
On reading that piece of information though, I was reminded of my youthful years of observation that I have had the great displeasure in being around people like Eric and know now that they are probably dead or doing something truly dumb with their lives but the difference between those real life individuals and this Eric character, at least from what I can remember, is the fact that they hadn't reached the edge yet. Maybe if they did, they'd smile more.
* In regard to the films presentation, there is a lot of misfortune in regard to its home release. The US release of both the Blu-ray/DVD are very much lackluster and contain the R rated version. The best avenue in watching this is importing the French Blu-ray that looks like this.
If you buy this edition, you get a pretty good behind the scenes as well as a solid commentary track but above all, you get the actual directors cut. The only problem being that there isn't any English subtitles included and there is French spoken throughout the film but the unintended consequence of that is feeling more like Zed in this situation of not being able to understand the language and going along with it. I dug it without the English subtitles but just be aware.