Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Les Mains Vides (2003)

Director: Marc Recha

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Recha repeats the technique used in Pau and His Brother to trace the texture of life in a Catalan village - jigsaw puzzle narrative reveals the full picture only towards the end. Eric the mechanic (the excellent Gourmet, who manages to get away with some of the film's more far-fetched moments) occasionally dresses as an old woman and keeps a stealthy eye on a plot being worked on by builders; Gérard (Noriega) turns up from Spain and is taken on as Eric's assistant; others flit a little enigmatically around the bar, the old woman's house, and elsewhere. After a while it seems a murder mystery is developing, and then the film diverts again into something vaguely resembling black farce. Most of this is very pleasant, in a minor key, but the story, when it comes together, really doesn't have much resonance, and in the end there's rather less here than meets the eye.

Author: GA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Marc Recha

Producer: Jacques Bidou

Cast: Olivier Gourmet, Eduardo Noriega, Jérémie Lippmann, Mireille Perrier, Pierre Berriau, Eulàlia Ramon full cast

Duration: 130 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.