La Foule

This is my first encounter with the man who called himself King Vidor. He changed his name from the original Vidur to Vidor. Yes, his first name was indeed King. His parents probably knew that he would become someone famous, and to some extent he was. Based on this immodest name, I thought that what I was about to see would be an epic spectacle or some kind of a proper extravaganza, but I was surprised. This is a pretty raw drama about one man's self-destruction. He was born on Independence Day in 1900. Everyone was predicting great things for him, so he believed it. He just didn't do anything about it. The film has absolutely great scenes, where especially the huge uniformed rooms are incredibly depressing, as is the carefree nature of the main character. The ending is a beautiful conclusion and understanding of the film's original title, but that also wasn't hard to understand before. (23/01/2014)

Capturing in 100 minutes all the different emotional states of two young people is not easy and sometimes it grinds a bit, but that doesn't diminish the greatness of this movie. The pacing is amazing in the first half and we are comfortable with the characters, only to slow down considerably in the second half as the voluminous social and familial ideas weigh on the viewer. And although the second half failed to hold my attention consistently, the resulting feelings are strong and positive enough. In the 1920s, definitely the best motivation for life that Americans could imagine on the movie screen. (06/05/2018)