Prototype Issue
City of Lights, City Of Angels Showcases 28 French Features
By Robin Menken
(page 2 of 3)“Crazy Sabine” was removed from her sisters’ school, then from a school for “abnormal kids”. She was home schooled, learned to play Bach and Schubert, and knit wonderful rag dolls. She had a motorcycle and traveled alone to Paris to see her sisters. When the family moved from the house she knew well, rages against family members forced them to institutionalize her. Resolutely unpretentious and un-elitist, less intrusive, than the current wave of documentaries based on family footage, Bonnaire makes a strong argument for progressive, humanistic centers for patients with independence limiting neurological or psychological conditions, and underscores the tragic limits of love (no matter how pro-active) in the face of chronic diseases.
Time and again while watching the poignant early footage of Sabine we see Sandrine’s Bonnaire’s break out performances: the reckless wild child of Maurice Pialat’s À Nos Amours, the feral homeless girl in Agnes Varda’s Vagabond. It’s as if Sandrine was exorcising Sabine in her early work. Footage of a joyful trip to New York on the Concord is used to great effect throughout. Sandrine shows Sabine the footage 20 years later. She sobs in recognition, engulfed in the shadows of her almost forgotten self, then asks to see it again, laughing like a child. Available on DVD (Global Movement.)
Also Recommended: In Israeli director Etgar Keret’s delightful Jellyfish</> (Winner of the Camera d’Or, Cannes 2007), the destinies of five people intertwine when a single catering waitress takes in a child found wandering on the beach.
Hats Off, Jyll Johnstone’s delightful documentary, profiles the classy, eccentric 93-yearr-old actress Mimi Wendell. Mimi began her professional career at 65, often supplying wardrobe from her hat collection, Mimi’s played memorable cameos in countless films, usually playing Mayflower aristos or cracked sociopaths. Her stoic “rise above it’ philosophy carries her through epic days of dance & voice classes and auditions. Her canny joie de vivre is an inspiration to all.
The following films appeared in the April Festival
The World Premiere of Fritz Lang’s restored film noir Secret Beyond The Door (with it’s startling dream sequence) played April 18. The World Premiere of Christian Faure’s Behind the Walls, and the 2008 César Award for Best Film of the year, Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain were selected to close the competition.
Alfred Lot’s serial killer thriller Melody’s Smile owes a lot to Silence Of the Lambs but is a frightening twisted ride all the same.
In Abdellatif Kechich’s The Secret Of The Grain</>” claustrophobic family squabbles detail the life of an immigrant family trying to hold onto their little piece of France. As in his earlier film “L’esquive,” Kechichewe reveals his characters with the sort of bittersweet intimacy that Mike Leigh excels in. Contrasting the work ethic of two Franco-Arabic men- father and son: an older immigrant worker fights to keep his hours at the shipyard. Hamid (Abdelhamid Aktouche, the captain of a tourist boat, slips below to fiddle with a sexy tourist clearly his mistress.
After 35 years at the shipyard, many of them off the books, Slimane (Habib Boufares) been laid off. His severance pay is short. Separated from wife Soaud, Slimane lives in a boarding hotel surrounded by Magrebi musicians. His landlady/lover Latifa (Hatika Karaoui) pressures him to move into her room and formalize their relationship; her teenager Rym (Hafsia Herzi) loves him like daughter.
Every Sunday Slimane’s family gathers at wife Soaud’s (Bouraouia Marzouk) to feast on her fish couscous, a symbol of home. As her grown sons and daughters gather we discover that bad boy Majid (Sami Zitouni), leaves his Russian wife and baby at home to run around with other women. Everyone in the family knows except his young wife Julie (Alice Houri).
Patriarch Slimane dreams of doing something for his two families. He picks up a salvaged old freighter. His sons help him revamp it as a couscous restaurant. He asks Souad to provide the couscous, alienating Latifa. Rym writes his proposal and argues his case in city offices. Battling racism & city politics, stymied at every turn, Slimane plans a gala dinner to seduce the city fathers to see things his way. Souad’s daughters, especially Karima (Faridah Benkhetache) resent Rym’s involvement. The awkward clan pulls together for Slimane’s big night. The last reel develops real tension as Slimane fights his absurd fate with the pathos of a Becket character.
Writer /director Cedric Anger’s debut film The Killer explores a symbiotic relationship between a seemingly paranoid business man and the hitman sent to kill him. Investment broker Leo Zimmerman (Gilbert Melki) notices someone stalking him. Leo has everything to live for, an 8-year old daughter he dotes on and his wife Sylvia (Sophie Cattani). Dimitri Kopas (Gregoire Colin) checks into a Paris hotel and appears at Leo’s office pretending to be an investor.
Kopas, who hangs in his hotel room with the drapes pulled playing video games, picks up a slick call girl (Melanie Laurent) in the hotel bar. Their pillow talk becomes increasingly intimate and Kopas starts thinking about some kind of a future with her. His bosses, impatiently waiting for news on the hit, threaten him if he doesn’t fulfill the contract. Leo “makes” Kopas and offers him a deal. He needs two days to finish a deal that will leave his daughter financially independent, then promises to cooperate in his own hit. Kopas agrees and shows Leo a surprising traitor in his life. Kopas and Leo both know how this will end, but quite a few unexpected things happen in the provisional world they’ve carved out for themselves before the kill. Not everything in the plot is believable but Anger holds our interest throughout. The wintry Paris locations and detached style echo the taut Anger scripted policier “Le Petit Lieutenant.
Eric Rohmers’ lyrical The Romance of Astrée and Celadon, rumored to be his last film, will please classicists and theater types. Based on Honore d’Urfe’s 17th-century novel, it re-imagines pastoral Fifth Century Gaul. Lithe shepardesses, romantic shepherds, highborn lady nymphs and druids wander through the sensual countryside. Living in harmony, they have time to sacrifice themselves for love, or at the very least argue its merits. Handsome shepherd Celadine (Andy Gillet) passionately loves his beautiful Astrée ( Stephanie Crayencour). Kept apart by parents, jealous suitors and false gossip, Astrée banishes Celadine from her sight. He throws himself in the river and is plucked out by the possessive nymph (Veronique Reymond) who locks him in her castle. Escaping, Celadine lives rough in a hut in the forest, aided by busybody druid priest (Serge Renko) and his niece Leonide (Cecile Cassel).
The priest invites love numb Astrée and her pals to stay at his castle along with Celadine posing in drag as the priest’s daughter. Soon Astrée and the “daughter” are best of friends, holding hands and whispering in each other’s ears. A tentative erotic wakening in the dormitory bedroom the “girls” share reveals Rohmer’s intent to celebrate the spiritual nature of erotic love. An argumentative troubadour Hylas (Rodolphe Pauly) strikes a discordant tone but the rest of the cast is charming to watch. Decked in neoclassical gauze, they seem to have stepped out of a mannerist painting. The naive tone underscores the lengths the love-besotted young will go for love. Rohmer blesses his dreamy characters with the clearest happy ending he’s ever allowed. As in Shakespeare’s comedies, All’s Well That Ends Well.
Based on Frederic Beigbeder’s novel of the same name, 99 Francs, Jan Kounen’s vicious attack on the advertising industry uses every tool in the digital arsenal, reveling in the media fast lane life while setting it up for frontal attack. Kounen (Blueberry) was a commercials director before he went on a two year spiritual Walkabout.
A firestorm of digital images resolves into a blackly comic Billboard. Octave stands on the roof of Ross & Witchcraft’s office building, 40 floors above the city, narrating, “Man is a product like any other, with an expiration date. Everything is transitory: love, art, planet earth, you, me—especially me.” Then leaps. The rest of the film explains his death leap, and what comes after.
Media Uber genius Octave (the irrepressible Jean Dujardin) “decides today what you will want to buy tomorrow,” living in overpaid coke and orgy splendor just for making you dissatisfied with your life. When self-described asshole Octave fails at love, his wetware crashes. Nothing in his g-drive life has prepared him for…feelings. Melting down he sabotages a major Yogurt account, taking his partner Charlie (Jocelyn Quivrin) down with him.
Kounen’s diatribe includes a gonzo animation of a drug-fueled lethal joyride. In another sequence, Octave enters the world of a long running commercial to convince it’s inane characters that they are actors on a set. The disoriented happy “family” stays on script. Smarmy English voiceovers and French dialogue (it’s funny in both languages), hilariously heartless characters, homages to Fellini, Kubrick and Serge Leone-its a virtuoso tour de force, sort of Chayevsky on drugs. ALERT: The world’s first commercial plays after the credits.
Also recommended: Lost In Beijing, and Blind MountainChinese
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