The Crusade

Hard for outsiders to "decode" this film as there seem to be so many layers of irony and camp. From what I can make out it"s some kind of satire on French champagne socialists who are inclined to a indulge in purificatory self-loathing as a way to justify themselves, a fact that doesn't make them any less loathsome and won't spare them from the Zemmours of this world and from any real communists, should the species ever tread the planet again. Everyone comes off looking phony and unlikeable in this film, from the pampered, hyper-sexualized rich kids with their hare brained scheme, the clueless, conformist dad, or Lady Bountiful mother who descends on Muslim Africa in her "crusade". The film begins well enough with a quirky family crisis shot in an edgy cinema veritè style but soon the Garrel's craftsmanship can't cover the absence of afflatus and the plot descends into a series of boring, pointless, insincere tableaux, while its manufactured, "simulacrum" of a social critique just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.