Then there are those for whom this movie’s a draw because of its writer/director, Olivier Assayas, working here not just with Stewart but with the great French actress Juliette Binoche, who was also in Assayas’ terrific 2008 family drama “Summer Hours.” Assayas is one of world cinema’s most penetrating and unpredictable talents; for instance, the two films he made prior to this one were “Something In The Air,” an affecting, autobiographical coming-of-age story of politics and cinema in the early ‘70s, and before that, the sweeping, bracing, not-at-all-sweet “Carlos,” a trenchant biopic of the titular real-life terrorism perpetrator whose activities galvanized Europe for a period. “Clouds of Sils Maria” is entirely different in some ways from those two films, but its invented worlds are very much in keeping with Assayas’ concerns about how art and reality intertwine and feed off of each other.
The setup for the picture seems to promise a story of rivalry among artists: the movie begins on a train; world-renowned actress Maria (Binoche) is on her way to visit her artistic mentor Wilhelm Melchior, and deliver a speech at a ceremony honoring the reclusive theater master. Maria has her efficient but frazzled and very hip young American assistant Val (Stewart) in tow; Val’s the one in charge of the schedules, the multiple smartphones, and the texting, and it’s Val who first learns that Melchior, the man they’re on their way to see, has died.
This loss changes the dynamic of the event. Maria has barely time to register her loss than she’s regaled with Chanel in a theater corridor; whisked through a photo shoot; reintroduced to a former co-star she never liked; and approached by a hot young theater director to appear in a revival of the Melchior play that made her famous. Playing, and this is no small thing, not the ingénue role that she is now to old for, but the role of an older, more embittered character. Set to play the younger woman’s role is of course a younger woman, a scandal-riddled star played by Chloe Grace Moretz and initially seen mainly via paparazzi videos Val finds for Maria on YouTube. After this flurry of activity Val and Maria repair to Melchior’s house in the title village. It’s not far from this place that a particular cloud formation called the Maloja Snake, which provides the Melchior play with its own title, occurs. Aside from feeding each other lines from Melchior’s play, and arguing about life and art and career, Maria and Val aspire to go on a hike and witness the snake-like cloud formation as it appears. In the meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, Jo-Ann (Moretz) and her latest male conquest, a boy toy with literary pedigree, hone in on, you might have guessed it, an opportunity to stretch creative muscles and/or gain some form of artistic cred; for whatever reason, Jo-Ann is hungry for a form of respectability even if she can’t quite fathom what kind, not to even mention why.
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