Already Dead (1998)

Purely Joyful Movie!

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I first notice her in the movie La Beuze in which she shows funny kissing skills. Then, recently i just picked her glamour pictures for her 12th Marrakech International Film Festival Photocall in 2012 and it's the instant hard-on : this fine brunette wears a exciting see trough with black leather jacket, full red lips on a red carpet ! In addition, i notice that she is again a look alike of my famous coworker who was already the inspiration for Crystal Klein (#39), Laure Sinclair (#43), Rebecca Hall (#75), Jade Nile (#89) and the one shot [12] Nomi Malone ! Sure you will tell me that they are all different but that is the proof that feminine beauty has multiples angles…Here, Zoe plays a no feeling, opportunist model who does cheap erotic photos and who is offered better opportunities by making adult movies. As it's a french drama, the story is the expected treatment : drugs, bad deals, exploitation… At the end, it's a tragic, bloody shoot them up… It's very limited, as dull as Zoé tells it too, but the cast is cool with Romain, Maginel and real porn-stars (i have recognized Olivia (#79) but not Laure). As for Zoe, she exposes her cleavage for a few seconds only and dressed not sexy! So it's not really hot but you can watch it if nothing else, all the more it happens in Nice that is indeed a real jewel city ! NB : the movie opens on the 14th July and when you see the big crowd everywhere, you still wonder as a French how a mad truck could go there years later with all security forces on alert ????

That's what all the characters, with the exception of Andrea, are - dead, emotionally; as one of them says 'I'm like a dry river bed'. A group of young men with a penchant for drugs, girls and parties decide to try and break into the heavily controlled pornography industry in Nice with a cynical ingénue called Laure as their main product. The film charts the disintegration of all the characters as drugs, guns, sexual excess and the pornographic industry take their toll on each life. Even Andrea, the film's conscience, is eventually consumed by this world and its trappings.Laure is a commodity amongst all the men except Andrea, the guy who unwittingly introduces her to the other when they are dabbling in soft porn photography. Laure, described as 'purity in a brutal world', is used as the film's narrator to reflect on life. Her reflections are frequently accompanied by repeated visuals of her removing make-up after the making of one particular pornographic film that we are left knowing is destroying Laure.This film is a critique of pornography's production and the feckless upper (middle) class of Nice who have money and influence enough to seduce and take advantage of those vulnerable with ambition and aspiration, such as Laure. It is most certainly not a film noir and it is really bizarre that it has been described as such by others. The director critiques the belief that 'straight or porn {films}, the camera's the same' and Laure's naive belief that posing topless is no different from making a pornographic film. It is and the camera of a porn film does not treat its actors well. The women of the porn industry want to make it as mainstream actresses or like Laure be a big name, someone significant. Their expectations of achieving this through porn are disappointed.Early on Laure asks: 'isn't fate the assertion that the game is up?' The ending has an inevitability that seems fated as life calls time on the game the characters play. The concluding events whilst unsurprising are still brutal and shocking.

After watching about thirty minutes of this film, that's exactly how I felt: already dead.Despite what other reviewers seem to feel about this film, it isn't noir, it doesn't come across as sincere and it most certainly is not "great stuff".This is just one of those "add a dash of sex, stir in some drugs, and set it in a good location and you have a film" films. The only things they forgot was the script, tight direction and good acting. There are far better films in this genre.By the time the guns come out a blazing, you'll wish they hit you as well as everyone else within sight. Anything to be put out of this misery. To avoid.

Too bad, that not many people have seen this movie. It just happened that I lived in Paris when the movie came out - and it was the right movie at the right time - exactly reflecting certain feelings I had. It's hard to explain a certain mood to others, for me this movie was just perfect ... if you get the chance to watch - take it ... maybe you will like it as much as I did.