Continental: A Film Without Guns

Directed By: Stéphane Lafleur

Review By Roberto Azula

Dull, pretentious, and meandering, Continental: A Film Without Guns is the sort of fare I dread in film festivals. Indeed, this kind of sorry filmmaking would not exist if it were not for film festivals. It certainly will never pick up any mainstream success, so it exists solely to bore the shit out of the arthouse crowd.

The most interesting part of the film is the first two minutes. A businessman gets on a bus, falls asleep, and wakes up to find the bus empty on a lonely road. He gets off, and then wanders off into the woods. Unfortunately, the film never really explores this cryptic opening. Instead, I was handed what amounted to a cinematic bait and switch. Instead of being a surreal mystery the opening promised, this is your standard film of standard quirky characters doing the standard quirky things. You see, if you find writing witty dialog or creating intriguing situations too difficult, all you have to do is have your characters do crazy (but not too crazy) things, and voila! You have a movie that is about ... oh, I don’t know, it’s about life!

You get a wife pining away for her husband after the police refuse to look for him. You’d figure she would have hired a private investigator rather than just post her husband’s picture around town as if he were a lost dog, but I guess that’s just me. You get an insurance salesman leading his dreary life. You get a hotel clerk leading her dreary life. You get an old storekeeper leading his dreary life. And surprise! You get a dreary movie.

I guess Continental was supposed to be some sort of existentialist portrait of how mundane life is, and that … oh, I don’t know, if we just connected with each other, life would be more poignant! But given how damn boring all these characters are, I can see why they’re so isolated. As I generally prefer the company of interesting people, I would likely avoid connecting with the insurance salesman, hotel clerk, and storekeeper. But again, that’s just me.

The only scene with any sort of life in this airless film is when a couple in an adjoining motel room invites the insurance salesman to watch them have sex. The awkward invitation and the ensuing awkward attempts to make the salesman comfortable are genuinely funny and convincing. But, true to form, the film sticks to its limp and timid ways. The salesman leaves the amorous couple’s room, and we return to the chore of watching these boring people do boring things. But hey, this is the movies, so we’re supposed to garner wisdom from mundane activities. And it’s French. So Continental is excused from being interesting.