April Showers: The Fifth Element
Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 11:00PM waterworks each weeknight at 11 as we turn on the cinematic shower.
True Story: The house my family lived in from the time I was nine years old until high school graduation had an unusual bathroom. I didn't think it was so terribly unusual because I lived with it but whenever friends would come to visit for the first time they would always demand to see the bathroom. They'd heard, you see. The storied feature in question was a sunken shower. You had to step down into it, as if it were an in-ground swimming pool and it was larger than your traditional shower or bathtub. But there were no rounded smooth edges, just tiles. So it wasn't, unfortunately, a comfortable bathtub unless you find sharp flat corners restive for reclining against, in which case… are you an invertebrate?
I suddenly flashed to my parent's old house while watching The Fifth Element recently. In the scene in question, law enforcement of one sort or another (it's hard to keep track in Luc Besson's frenzy-filled futurism) has entered Bruce Willis's building and good ol' Bruce realizes he needs to hide his strange guest, supreme being Leeloo (Milla Jovovich).
Where else? The shower, that most private of places... except maybe in the movies.
read the rest after the jump. (safe for work.)
So in the shower she goes. Maybe while she's there she should work on a new color rinse? What's with those yellow roots?
It looks like Bruce Willis has not de-mildewed that shower in some time.
English is not, apparently, the native tongue of Supreme Beings (patriotic Americans will be so disappointed) and Leeloo is regularly confused by what's happening to her. But this would be confusing for anyone not from this particular futuristic time and overpopulated place. Bruce Willis's shower is not sunken --he shoves her right in with no stepping involved -- but like most of the features of his apartment it moves. In this case it elevates up and out of the way. His bed also disappears into the wall and plastic wraps itself when he's done sleeping.
(If you're reading this from a cramped metropolitan apartment you are jealous of these sci-fi digs. His car flies, too, just to pour salt in the wound.)
After Bruce tricks the police into leaving he goes to retrieve his strange guest who is now soaking wet. Ooops. He forgot about the "auto wash". Milla emerges comically shivering and dripping.
Bruce towels Milla dry (who wouldn't?) and then he makes coffee nervously to keep himself from checking to see if the carpet matches the drapes while she nonchalantly strips down. The whole scene Leeloo keeps repeating "aut•o•wash" with her oddly funny phonetic delivery. Ms Jovovich is playing a Supreme Being and while it might be a stretch to call her a Supreme Actress she sure can sell an improbable character when she wants to (see also her recent work in the otherwise questionable Stone).
Do you wish you had an aut•o•wash moving shower? Are you a fan of The Fifth Element? Did you know that Jovovich married Luc Besson after that movie? Two years later they divorced and two months after that she was married to director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil and up next: The Three Musketeers). She adapts as quickly as Leeloo!
Reader Comments (10)
I LOVE the fifth element, it's just so much fun, and I love Mila too, she's just so funny, I know this because I listened to the commentary track on the first Resident Evil (that's right I did) and she's so funny, and while not a great actress at least she's not like Jessica Alba bad.
I've always admitted my love for this movie in its own First and Last. But I would commit to this relationship again, and I was in love with Milla Jovovich for a long time after watching T5E.
Benjh -- i was too. Not many people remember that she also recorded an album and I bought it :) between the CD, TFE (the movie shares this site's initials -omg), and Dazed and Confused I was kinda into her. The types of films she made after that lost my interest but still...
Milla is so underrated. I always find her terrifically watchable. If you haven't seen it you should see her in that Adrien Brody ventriloquist movie, Dummy - she's really fantastic in it.
I was just going on about her this weekend - I was flipping through the channels this weekend and Zoolander was on and I stopped because it was that wonderful scene where Alexander Skarsgard blows up and how can you not watch that scene when given the chace but then there she was as Will Ferrell's evil sidekick and I'd completely forgotten she was in it. And then Justin Theroux as the evil DJ! Okay I've seen Zoolander too many times.
love, Love, LOVE The Fifth Element! It's so random and wacky - you never really know what Besson is going to throw at the screen next - and I mean that literally. The movie is a real "let's throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" kind of film, and I love it for that. I mean, what other movie would have the Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent to bring together Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich (whose album is all kinds of amazing), Chris Tucker (who is HILARIOUS and totally steals the show), Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, and an Albanian opera singer, all doing what they do best? And yes, I love Corbin's apartment, what with its elevator-shower, hide-away bed, and floating ship-cum-Chinese take-out place that docks at the window!
Wow, this is probably the first movie I ever saw on tv. I watched it with my dad and I loved it. It was probably also the first time I googled a movie and ended up on IMDb. I used to think Leeloo was the prettiest woman I'd ever seen, I wanted to be her haha.
Have you seen this clip of a belgium interviewer recreating the famous scene in 'The Fifth Element' in which Leeloo wakes up? I LOL'd when I first saw it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDGgWXARzOs&feature=related
I agree with JA...Milla is way underrated...just watched Stone the other week...the film is somewhat tedious, but her performance is a standout.
Milla's perf in T5E is one of my favorites among the razzie nominated ones and her cd, THE DIVINE COMEDY, is amazing!
OHHH MMYYY GOOOODDD. Loved this movie so much. I watch it regularly like very 6 months or so.
REMEMBER THE DIVA SINGING SCENE?! As a kid I was physced and I am surprisingly still.
nice movie I like it