A director's first film can be a major event for the world of cinema or could simply fail to make its mark. In the case of fashion designer Agnes Troublé's directorial debut "My Name is Hmmm..." both scenarios will likely play out in some way. The film already premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is slated to screen as part of the New York Film Festival's Main Slate. After those screenings, a major question looms - will anyone watch the film thereafter?
A better question might actually be - how was this film even allowed to grace the screens of such prestigious festivals, but I will let the conspiracy theorists mull that one over. For the uninitiated, Troublé (or agnès b. as she seems to prefer) is a French designer of world renown. In press notes for the film, she noted that she developed an interest for films in the past decade and had crafted the script to "My Name is Hmmm" "in one go." And it shows. The film, which is clearly wrought with good intentions, not only fails to make any mark, but slowly frustrates the viewer the longer it plays.
Where to start with the problems? The prologue of the film introduces us to Peter (Douglas Gordon), a truck driver in France. He sits in a restaurant listening to a conversation of two other men at his table. The moment they start talking about their family, he has a fit and runs out. Moments later, the narrative shifts over to a family household where Celine (Lou-Lélia Demerliac), a young girl, gets abused by her father. Troublé has the good sense to portray the actual rape elliptically, but this is as far as the virtues of the film come. Celine decides to run away from home when she goes on a field trip to the beach with her class. It is during this escape that she happens upon Peter and the two form a seemingly inseparable bond.
In her director's statement, Troublé states that the film is not about incest; unfortunately the abuse is the massive elephant that dominates the film and the viewer's only interest is in finding out how this complex web will eventually unravel. The elephant not only goes unaddressed, but is virtually ignored in the film's climactic moment.
While the thematic irrelevance and emptiness is frustrating, the narrative goes further in irritating the viewer. After the prologue, the story shifts to Celine and her father's situation before heading to a bar where her mother works. The mother takes center stage for a few scenes before the narrative starts following the father around for a while. In these initial stages, it seems that the mother and father's unhappy marriage will be the focus of the story and the potential starts brimming. About 20 minutes in, the film decides to shift gears yet again; this time Celine takes over the film and never lets go (until the narrative decides to occasionally check in on the parents to see how they're doing). The parents and their problems, which were set up well in the opening act, ultimately come to nothing and the characters become cardboard creations that elicit more laughter than empathy. In the scene where they find out about Celine's disappearance, the mother (played by well-known French thespian Sylvie Testud) has no reactions whatsoever while the father (Jacques Bonnaffé) whimpers about. At one point he even asks if the girl ran away. The mother is suspicious of his inquiry, but fails to follow up on it like most people would.
Troublé and fellow screenwriter Jean-Pol Fargeau seem intent on getting the audience to root for the relationship between Peter and Celine, but fail to do so due to a lack of development. The characters meander about, but the relationship never actually seems to build. Peter accepts the girl upon seeing her without asking any questions about why she is there; he gets around to that question after about a half-hour together. He also fails to ask her for her name until an extended period of time has passed. Afterward, the two engage in every road trip cliché that you can ever image. Singing in the truck? Check. Singing by a fireplace? Check. A picnic? Check. Running into awkward rural folk? Check. Picking up random strangers and becoming fast friends? Check. Despite all of these experiences, the characters never seem to explore one another and help each other heal. Celine's situation is apparent to the viewer, but Peter is just one question mark after another. He tells Celine that his family is "dead" (he hands her a picture and uses the single word to describe their predicament) and that is all that we get. From that information, one gathers that he is lonely and seeking company. That is fine, but why is he flustered in the first scene? Is he having a hard time coping with their loss? When did they die? Was it his fault? Why does he seem like he carries so much guilt? While it is often great for a film to be filled with ambiguity, the executions here offers no outlet for discussion and ultimately makes any attempt at interpretation pointless. The climactic scene that inspired the entire script (according to Troublé) winds up laughable in the context of the character's actions.
Aside from the characters (or lack thereof), there are a tremendous amount of inconsistencies in the narrative that do not help Troublé's cause. Peter speaks some French to Celine throughout the film, but cannot defend himself in a department store. When the cops try to speak with him, he has no idea how to talk to them in French. In one scene, Celine and Peter arrive at a diner to get a drink. Suddenly, two men walk into the café to get some drinks. Who are these men? What is their part in the narrative? Will they recognize the girl? The bartender walks over to them and strikes up a conversation. One of the men flirts with a woman at a nearby table, potentially setting up some more... that never comes. The aforementioned questions are never answered, making the addition of these characters (and the attention given to them) completely pointless in the context of the film. The same goes for a stranger that joins Celine and Peter on their journey. He hops on the truck, they do some sing along, and then the guy disappears. How does he help develop the relationship of the characters? In absolutely no way whatsoever. The same happens later in the film when an older gentleman identifies Celine as the missing girl. The film follows him around for about five or so minutes as he contacts the police, but the viewer never actually finds out if his actions had any impact on the story. Obviously a road movie should be populated with unique characters that help set up the world, but their entrance into the story usually serves a narrative purpose that affects the characters' journey; without them, the story would be missing an integral part. None of the added characters in this film are necessary or affect the story in anyway; they are unfortunately expensive window dressing when all production costs are considered.
This leads to the next major problem with the film - its style and editing. Troublé attempts to add experimental film elements to her narrative by including shots in different aspect rations and formats (an effect that is all too reminiscent of Courtney Solomon's horrific "Getaway"), using different colors, cutting on images unrelated to a particular scene (beach shots in the middle of a conversation in the truck when it makes no contextual sense) and a number of other flourishes that ultimately add up to nothing. Some of these would be acceptable if their execution did not come off as amateurish as it does. Troublé, who also shot part of the film, has a fascination with panning and tilting on shots of landscapes and buildings. Most of the time, they have nothing to do with the scene and could simply be done away with (this would have cut about 5 to 10 minutes from the film). The biggest issue is that the tilts and pans are never steady and often feel as if done by a highly inexperience filmmaker; this is hardly the kind of material one would expect from such high end festivals as New York and Venice. In one scene between Celine's parents, the two characters are shown arguing in the living room. Suddenly, the sequence cuts to an empty shot of the dining room with the voices continuing their banter; seconds later, the focus returns to the parents. The inclusion of the shot is jarring and ultimately unnecessary. In another scene, Celine's father talks to his friend who lent him his car. As the men converse, the editing cuts from a close-up of Celine's father to a wide shot that encapsulates the two men, the car, and the building. The editing gets distracting after a while, especially because the constant returns to the wide shot are unmotivated after the first inclusion. During part of the conversation, the two men talk about marble statues and Troublé does a partial dissolve to showcase a marble figure superimposed on the remainder of the image; the effect is bizarre and... (you know what I'm going to say). There is a sense that Troublé wants to subvert cinematic expectations, but none of her tricks actually carry any symbolic or substantial weight that truly merits them being imposed on the viewer.
There really is not much to say about acting. The thespians undoubtedly gave it their best shot, but their efforts are in vain for the most part.
Continuing to talk about the film's shortcomings would likely take a few more hours to list and doing so would be unfair to both the reader and filmmaker. Some experimental filmmakers or enthusiasts may find something to value here, but everyone else will like grow eager to walk out of the theater. Unfortunately the end product is seemingly unredeemable in any sense with the viewer likely intent on getting one question answered upon finishing a screening: How was this film allowed to play at the New York and Venice Film Festivals?