Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

(In French, On Cable TV, January 2022) If Slaughterhouse-Five is a disappointment, much of it has to do with how it reaches for more than it can deliver on at least two levels. First, in adapting the classic Kurt Vonnegut novel, it measures itself up against impossible odds: Vonnegut’s narrative approach is unique and maybe impossible to adapt faithfully to the screen. I last read the novel decades ago and it left such a strong impression that I can still quote moments of it—and didn’t find much of that in the film. But even if everyone agreed not to criticize the adaptation for not having the flavour of the original text, there’s still another insurmountable obstacle in the story’s immensely ambitious scope, spanning decades in the protagonist’s life: the firebombing of Dresden, a brush with near-incomprehensible aliens and eventually becoming unstuck in time. Little of this was possible to credibly portray on-screen with middle-budget early-1970s filmmaking, so it’s not a surprise if the result feels so disappointing. Vonnegut reportedly liked the result—but then again, he was a quintessential gentleman. Following in his footsteps, let’s be indulgent and at least acknowledge that Slaughterhouse Five remains interesting to watch even if it can’t grasp what it reaches for: The unstuck-in-time device is ideally suited for editing tricks (even if it doesn’t fully exploit the possibilities there) and the film does attain a darkly comic detachment about itself that does honour Vonnegut himself. I’m not even sure if it fully achieves the goals if set for itself—there’s a very long car mayhem sequence that had me thinking, “I hope this insufferable character dies” before exactly that happens, except that the film thinks it’s a tragedy. But weirdness is what Slaughterhouse Five has to offer, and then-veteran director George Roy Hill does his best in accomplishing a project fraught with pitfalls. As much as I don’t like the idea of remakes, I’m really not opposed to seeing someone take Slaughterhouse Five out for another spin, with modern innovations (SFX and audience literacy) that have made a mockery of what was formerly called “impossible to adapt.”  So it goes.