My Name is Hmmm (2014)

The Gist:

Directed by fashion mogul Agnes B or Trouble, My Name is Hmmm is the tale of a young girl named Celine. Celine is frequently molested by her out of work and down on his luck father (Jacques Bonnaffe,) while her mother (Sylvie Testud) tries to make ends meet by working as a waitress. At a trip to the beach with her class, Celine decides to run away by hiding on a truck driven by a Scottish man named Peter (Douglas Gordon)

The Review:

Despite its taboo and controversial subject matter My Name is Hmmm could have been so many things. A revenge thriller, an inspirational film about standing up for yourself anything. Sadly we get none of that. Instead we get two hours of lumbering performances, headache inducing oversaturated shots, and questionable character motives.

For instance, right after the scene where Celine’s father asks her to “join him upstairs” he is distraught with guilt and wailing loudly. It’s quite apparent he knows what he is doing is wrong but still does that make it better? Are we suppose to sympathise with him or something? Is the reason he hurts his daughter in such a way “simply” because he can’t find a job?

Then Celine goes on a school trip and hides out in Peter’s truck only for him to discover her hours later. We are given an inkling early on that Peter is troubled in the sense that he lost his own wife and child in unexplained circumstances but when he discovers the young stow away, he doesn’t even seem bothered. It takes her about two days to tell him why she ran away which had me thinking, “Was he just planning to drive away with her or something? Didn’t it ever occur to him that the police will be looking for a young girl?” Dunno bout you guys but if I find a child stowing away in my car, the police are first on my call list. What follows is a bizarre road trip, filled with odd dialogue beats, (he speaks minimal French, she minimal English) a duo of Japanese dancers in a forest and so on.

Director Agnes B and her cinematographer Jean-Philippe Bouyer, use different kinds of cameras and stock for that matter; for the most part the film appears to be shot on digital, occasionally there will be scratched and grainy shots in sixteen mm, then scenes will be displayed from an actual monitor, as well as highly oversaturated shots, hell I’m pretty sure there was a mobile phone footage in there too. I’m not sure if it did add any artistic flourishes to the film but it seems the crew was enjoying the process.   To be honest, I felt like I was watching an art or film student’s final year project at times.

To its credit the film is unpredictable and had me guessing on what would happen next. Unfortunately the climax of the film is filled with question marks and unfulfilled character arcs and resolutions.

Final Verdict:

Sometimes the film confuses itself for an art installation rather than a movie, on that note it would have been better if it was presented that way. Two hours of people going nowhere could have been trimmed down to an hour and a half and filled with much more character development.

Certificate: tbc

Director: Agnes B

Starring: Douglas Gordon, Lou-Leilia Demerliac, Sylvie Testud, Jaques Bonnaffe

Release Date: 17^th October 2014