10 years ago Erick Zonca directed a quiet, emotionally mannered, adult film titled The Dreamlife of Angels. It won plaudits, awards, and the collective nod of approval by critics for its thoroughly french maturity. From that film up to now, Zonca has watched many american films, particularly the Coen brothers' films, and, in a moment of doubtlessly inebriated excitement, decided that he'd give their brand a shot, if only Tilda Swinton was involved. He had a good premise: like Jacques Audiard did with James Toback's Fingers, he would do with Cassavetes' Gloria; that is, he would better it by a few degrees of heightened suspense and a few more notes of free jazz. And so he did. Julia is a savage, unrelentingly violent film, that very surprisingly outdoes the Coens' usual brand of kidnapping gone wrong, by twisting the film's passages beyond the pale of absurdity. The plot becomes swiftly implausible, but Zonca focuses so much on the suspense at hand that the viewer is not allowed to weigh in with skepticism. We are held hostage by the film and its painfully irrational plot devices, since its entire plot is moved into action by the inebriated thought process of a raging alcoholic, played by the indefatigable Tilda Swinton. We are forced to accept the constant plot turns in the film because they are as they should be in a mind soaked up by alcohol (an ingenious plot mechanism, when one considers how skillfully Zonca's direction and Swinton's acting walk the thin line of sympathy and repulsion with Julia's character.) The beginning shots of the film that introduce Julia Harris, as she dances to booming club music in a redlit dance hall, in no way prepare us for the ending that comes more than 2 whiteknuckled hours later. The film's excellence resides in how surreptitiously violent it seems, with so little body count. That a film director as mannered and 'adult' as Zonca can manage to make a film more gratuitous than the Coens' kidnapping masterpieces is no small feat.
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