Saturday, August 13, 2016

"la démission créative d'une génération"

Moi, j'adore Les Choses Plus Etrange,

mais

French dude Philippe Guedj don't reckon much on Stranger Things

(at least according to the Google translation machine)

"Undeniable success of the summer, retro eighties series Netflix is ​​symptomatic of the prevailing cultural abdication" 

"With her children kidnapped by a monster story in the boondocks of Indiana in 1983, Stranger Things did fly. His secret? Drop a long logorrhée references to classic laid here thirty-five years by Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter movies, Stephen King in literature. A holy trinity itself hides winks other forest spread over eight episodes and is given to the audience as to flush the Pokémon Go on hunting today. Result, aggregators and Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic drowning in positive reviews, while on the Web proliferate the "fan art" turning the iconography of the series. Stranger Things has already generated a real-fake trailer to the eighties sauce / VHS, a true-false K7 video box and the American Institute Parrot Analytics has sacred "digital series most popular in the US" for the period from July 17 to 23. well we take a phenomenon.

Yet itself teenager during the sacrosanct decade of the 80s, the author of these lines, alas, remained unmoved  the charms of the "Duffer Brothers"  retro hit.... Worse, these ecstatic tributes have irritated to no end. Before moving to the attack obviously Stranger Things is not zero! Very neat in his photography, especially in the interior scenes, it is packed with enough efficiency to consume without boredom.

Except that its defects are more numerous than his qualities. We could dwell at length on the avalanche of improbabilities (how the little Mike can he hide the fugitive in the basement of his house for seven episodes without her control freak mother noticing?) Or on interpretation under coke Winona Ryder, incapable of restraint, even in its quiet scenes, not to mention the kids star trio, called surjeu unbearable, especially horrifying Dustin, stupid caricature of the vision of the authors of the same type of a Spielberg production. One could equally ramble on the soundtrack completely off the plate, trendy postmodern mush sound, omitting the essential: the music of the 80s were FREDONNABLES. You tried to hum one of the themes of Stranger Things? It is not enough to show a sound vintage synthesizers to capture a spirit, Duffer gentlemen.

But the real discomfort comes from the concept of the operation. This machine to spit out the reference that kills all spontaneity in the bud on each floor of the building Stranger Things. As with J. J. Abrams and Super 8, the series is unable to overcome its fascination with the childhood totems of Matt and Ross Duffer. One account here the imperative "be like old times." The Duffer does not in hiding from elsewhere: "Our real goal was just to return to this style of storytelling. [...] We have redesigned the things we loved in childhood and tried to capture the essence of it, "they explain.

In Stranger Things, referential obsession takes two forms. First, verbal and visual. The dialogues multiply direct allusions to such worship copy of the comic book X-Men (No. 134, published in 1980), this or that passage of the Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars ...


This name dropping geekophile could still pass for costs at the time of 30 Rock, Fringe and Community, but today feels thawed, refrozen and redécongelé.

The camera also never fails to frame ostensibly in the background a poster of a cult film "the golden age": The Thing (in the basement of the Wheeler), Evil Dead (in Jonathan's room . Byers), Dark Crystal (in that of will) or the Jaws in the Thing and the Dark Crystal, it's also nonsense: they were in their time of scathing chess room and did not enjoy in 1983, the reputation or the dimension of love that is theirs today.

Doxa copyist Stranger Things is also expressed through the staging: grainy image, framing and focal use decals on the "style" of the 80s, sets and props scrupulously reproduced vintage, music, ... in situations blatant borrowings from the 80s (ET, Poltergeist, Alien, the Elm Street, the Goonies, Stand by me ...) to other more recent surges (Insidious, Under the Skin) or from the video game (Silent Hill, the Last of Us), or Japanese animation (Akira), ALL Stranger Things is a vast duplicate.

So yes, it can be considered successful photocopying and fun to spot all the references as do several websites and some film school hipsters. But the problem beyond this smug mimicry without formal talent (not Tarantino wants) is that Stranger Things has nothing to offer behind this smokescreen.

Why does it take place in 1983? Apart from the need for a blanket sucking for their creators are always looking.

Autistic series, Stranger Things embraces the 80s, but has nothing to say or to tell them. It summarizes in commercials, BMX / banana bikes, walkie-talkies and brats geeks 12 years bullied at school. His story could just as well take place today with the kids geeks these days and their problems today. It is symptomatic that in all their interviews, Duffer respond only to questions about the form and references ... never speak about what exactly Stranger Things.

Normal: apart from a smoky allusion to the Cold War, it speaks of nothing. It merely contemplate, eyes red with emotion, the mirror of a past idolized slavishly. It seems that the Duffer have wiped the refusal of fifteen broadcasters before finding refuge with Netflix ... Wow, what a surprise! The operator of streaming, algorithm expert targeting desires of its subscribers, could not ask for a better buzz machine a mash-up series of all that the public seem to extol recent years. The Force Alarm, Jurassic World, soon Splash, and TV, Lethal Weapon ... So many safe operator productions (for now) the vein of "brands" of childhood.

We do not doubt the sincerity of the brothers nor Duffer fans Stranger Things. But what they forget is that they fawn a time when Spielberg, Dante, Hooper, Carpenter and others made films THEIR TIME. They described their time, mentalities and lifestyles, his fears, his youth ... They invented new and spontaneous stories, over decades, have become our cultural matrices. Never spontaneous, always manufactured, Stranger Things retreated to ease what is becoming the disease of our society: the nostalgisme.

Whatever the merits effective or qualities, that she will tell future generations about 2016? Nothing, except that, this year, Netflix card with a series of 1983. And in the chilly time of remakes, reboots and other artistic resignations, few writers / directors who dared to create all parts new mythologies from the far. And so now we did not mind them some peace, 80s? And if after this cloning climax what Stranger Things were rediscovered that thing very strange today: creativity.

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