1 October 2009

JCVD

d. Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008

We don't like writing about celebrities or celebrity culture, and we particularly resent having to use the phrase "the media" as though we were referring to a solitary entity possessed of singular intentions. However, there's no way around saying, by way of speaking about JCVD, that "the media" seems to generally have only two uses for "celebrities," one being to portray them as demigods, the other to drag them through the mud for pretending to demigodhood.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was never much more than a minor demigod in the pantheon, and has done his time in the mud. His name is a punchline, like fellow mud-dweller David Hasselhoff.

What a surprise to find that JCVD manages to humanize the man, and does so with whimsy and fondness for its subject. We could go deep into spoiler territory here, but won't. JCVD is worth seeing cold, with as little foreknowledge as possible.

We will point out what stayed with us of the film the next day: Jean-Claude Van Damme's sad, exhausted, yet oddly gentle eyes, which are very much the heart of the film.