subject: Watch Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench Full Movie Online Stream [print this page] Watch Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench Full Movie Online Stream
A full-fledged song-and-dance musical, "Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench" tells the story of two separated lovers, a young jazz trumpeter (Palmer) and an introverted woman (Garcia), who slowly wind their way back into each other's lives through a series of romances and near-romances punctuated by song. Recasting the MGM musical tradition in a gritty, near-documentary style, the film features all original songs recorded by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra and choreography by Kelly Kaleta.
A magical amalgam of Jean-Luc Godard, Miles Davis, Morris Engel and "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg," helmer Damien Chazelle's "Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench" catches you off-guard and keeps you there. It's not every day one finds a black-and-white movie with a score performed by the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra -- or one so umbilically connected to music itself (jazz, mostly), and so simultaneously immersed in observational realism and the conceits of the 1930s musical. A surprise, a delight and a whimsical experiment, it could, despite its rigorous efforts to be noncommercial, end up a bona-fide cult hit.
The Madeline of the film's title could have appeared in both "Masculin feminin" and a Busby Berkeley extravaganza. Actress Desiree Garcia's tap dancing is impressive; likewise, her expressive silences.
A romance whose entire setup is revealed behind the opening credits -- boy meets girl, boy leaves girl -- "Guy and Madeline" is as casual with time as it is with its sources and moods: Gifted composer Justin Hurwitz's opening theme suggests a "Barefoot in the Park"-era buoyancy, despite the unfolding heartbreak. The jazz performances -- Jason Palmer plays Guy, and an enormous amount of soulful trumpet -- are spontaneous and real.
If Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench's storytelling were up to its filmmaking, it might have been the masterpiece it often seems capable of becoming. Certainly, director Damien Chazelle's hybrid of classic MGM musicals, mumblecore, John Cassevetes's Shadows and Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin, Fminin has an aesthetic dexterity that's frequently breathtaking, its 16mm black-and-white portrait of love and art so nimble and radiant as to stun the senses. Layering Justin Hurwitz's sprightly orchestral score over views of everyday Boston life, Chazelle's debut subscribes to a predictable boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-reunites-with-girl template, albeit one that recounts the twentysomething couple's first attraction, relationship, and breakup in a striking, wordless intro sequence, so that it might focus more squarely on the aimless lovelorn activities of both jazz trumpeter Guy (Jason Palmer) and waitress Madeline (Desiree Garcia) after their courtship's end. During that bumpy period, Guy shacks up with, and is then abandoned by, Elena (Sandha Khin), while Madeline visits New York, falls for a French crooner (Frank Garvin), and then returns to Beantown to continue working as a waitress, all rather mundane events that are energized, and elevated, by Chazelle's lushly romantic treatment.
