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36,
QUAI DES ORFEVRES
36 (18)
LONDON NATIONAL FILM THEATRE Fri 3 March 6.30pm Gala
Screening
CINEWORLD DIDSBURY Fri 10 March 11.45am, 3pm, 5.45pm, 8.15pm
CINEWORLD BIRMINGHAM
Wed 15 March 11.45am, 3pm, 5.45pm, 8.15pm |
Influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville and the thrillers
of Michael Mann, Olivier Marchal, a former police
officer, revisits the film noir tradition with this
adaptation of a true story. Léo Vrinks (Daniel Auteuil),
in charge of the anti-gang squad, and Denis Klein
(Gérard Depardieu), head of the organised crime unit,
work together to arrest a violent gang of armoured
truck robbers, while competing to replace Robert
Mancini (André Dussollier), the retiring chief of police.
Marchal left the force to become a film-maker, while
the man whose exploits inspired the film, Dominique
Loiseau, also collaborated on the script.
Stylish, and relentlessly moody the film benefits from
ace scripting, intriguing motivations and excellent
performances. The title address is Paris’ answer to
Scotland Yard, as immortalised in Henri-Georges
Clouzot’s 1947 Quai des Orfèvres, a nod to France’s
policier heritage. Drawing heavily on actual events
of the mid-1980s, Marchal has fashioned a narrative
that, with its bloody shootouts and heartbreaking
betrayals, depicts police work as a risky profession in
which loyalty and experience can sometimes, though
not always, trump bad luck. This thriller became
one of France’s biggest box-office hits of last year.
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu, André Dussollier,
Roschdy Zem, Valeria Golino, Mylène Demongeot,
Catherine Marchal, Stéphane Metzger, Daniel Duval.
Director: Olivier Marchal.
2004. 110mins.
UK Release: Tartan.
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COCKLES
AND MUSCLES CRUSTACéS
ET COQUILLAGES (18)
FILMHOUSE EDINBURGH Wed 1 March 8.30pm Gala
Screening
CINEWORLD SHAFTESBURY AVE LONDON Thu 2 March 8.30pm Gala
Screening
CINEWORLD BIRMINGHAM Fri 10 March 11.45am, 3pm, 5.45pm, 8.15pm
CINEWORLD CARDIFF Tue 14 March 11.45am, 3pm, 5.45pm, 8.15pm
GLASGOW FILM THEATRE Wed 22 March 6pm Thur 23 March 3pm
ABERDEEN BELMONT Sun 26 March 8.45pm Mon 27 March 8.45pm
DUNDEE CONTEMPORARY ARTS Wed 30 March 8.30pm Thur 30 March
6pm |
A pleasurable comedy of love and sexual identity
unfurls over a balmy summer holiday. Marc (Gilbert
Melki) takes his wife Béatrix (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi)
and their two children to the seaside house of his
youth. The Mediterranean wind blows and the
heat of summer strokes their passions and desires.
Nineteen-year-old daughter Laura, has a rendez-vous
with her biker boyfriend and then heads off to Spain,
while their son Charly, 17, roams with his best friend
Martin. Béatrix is sensitive to the erotically charged
atmosphere that exists between the boys, and
imagines that her son is gay. Marc meanwhile is
upset at the prospect of a gay son, although Béatrix
is determined to be open.
The mood is determinedly good-natured, a disarming
lack of moral judgment prevails and it is all stylishly
executed. Attractively cast with inventive actors such
as the deliciously free-spirited Bruni-Tedeschi and a
super-muscular Jean-Marc Barr providing mainstream
appeal. Ducastel and Martineau purvey their own
distinctively contemporary take on sexual mores.
Cast: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Gilbert Melki, Jean-Marc Barr,
Jacques Bonnaffé, Édouard Collin, Romain Torres,
Sabrina Seveycou, Yannick Baudin, Julien Weber.
Director: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau.
2005. 90mins.
UK Release: Parasol Peccadillo.
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HELL
L'ENFER (18)
CINEWORLD SHAFTESBURY AVE LONDON Fri 3 March 8pm Gala
Screening |
Danis Tanovic’s Oscar-winning No Man’s Land
demonstrated a fondness for allegory. His second
feature draws upon Greek mythology, Euripides’
Medea and the interplay of destiny and coincidence.
Based on a script by Krysztof Kieslowski and his
long-time screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz it was
designed before Kieslowski’s death.
In Paris in the 1980s, a man,fresh from his release
from prison, is rejected by his wife. After a violent
confrontation he throws himself from his apartment
window, witnessed by his three young daughters.
In present day Paris, the sisters, played by Emmanuelle
Béart, Karin Viard and Marie Gillain, now grown up,
live their own lives. The family bonds are broken.
Béart’s Sophie, the eldest, is married with young
children, but suspects her photographer husband
(Jacques Gamblin) of having an affair. The youngest
sister, Anne (Marie Gillain), is a student involved in a
messy relationship with one of her tutors. Middle sister
Céline (Karin Viard) lives a solitary and joyless life,
caring for her difficult mother (Carole Bouquet).
When a young man (Guillaume Canet) starts to take
an interest in her, little does she suspect the true
motive behind his approaches.
Tanovic is adept at depicting a bourgeois Paris where
everyone can live a wretched existence – in considerable
comfort. He has assembled a cast that sparkles with
lively and provocative dialogue.
Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain,
Carole Bouquet, Jacques Gamblin, Guillaume Canet,
Jacques Perrin, Jean Rochefort.
Director: Danis Tanovic.
2005. 101mins.
UK Release: Momentum.
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| LEMMING
(18)
GLASGOW FILM THEATRE Wed 1 March 7.30pm Gala
Screening
CINEWORLD HAYMARKET LONDON Thu 2 March 8pm Gala
Screening |
Dominik Moll made his Cannes competition debut in
2000 with the edgy thriller Harry He’s Here To Help
which scored considerable international success. He
returns to the fray with Lemming, a psychological
thriller with just as many twists and turns. Laurent
Lucas plays Alain, a successful high-tech engineer
who leads a neatly ordered life with the seductive
Benedicte (Charlotte Gainsbourg).
Things are thrown seriously off balance one evening
when Alain’s boss Pollock (André Dussollier) and his
wife, Alice (Charlotte Rampling), come to dinner. The
trouble all seems to start with a sink mysteriously
blocked by a lemming – a rodent normally only found
in Sandinavia and not normally in French drains. Then
the Pollocks are extremely late. Their tardiness, Alice
announces to stunned silence, is because her husband
took more time than usual with one of his whores.
Moments later, she empties her wine glass into Richard’s
face, and the evening is pretty much a disaster.
The star power of the two Charlottes – Gainsbourg
and Rampling – underpins the proceedings which
unfurl with considerable wit and a mordant sense
of irony. And in the process Moll reveals something
of the dangerous passions that lurk within us all.
Cast: Laurent Lucas, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Charlotte
Rampling, André Dussollier.
Director: Dominik Moll.
2005. 129mins
UK Release: Artificial Eye.
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RUSSIAN
DOLLS LES POUPEES RUSSES
(15)
CINEWORLD SHAFTESBURY AVE LONDON Sat 4 March 5pm Gala
Screening
CINEWORLD CARDIFF Fri 10 March 11.45am, 3pm, 5.45pm, 8.15pm
LONDON CINE LUMIERE Wed 15 March 8.45pm
EDINBURGH FILMHOUSE Wed 22 March 2.30pm Thur 23 March 8.30pm
GLASGOW FILM THEATRE Sat 25 March 8.15pm
DUNDEE CONTEMPORARY ARTS Mon 27 March 8.30pm Tue 28 March
6pm
ABERDEEN BELMONT Fri 24 March 8.30pm Thur 30 March 1.30pm
& 8.45pm |
We last saw Xavier (Romain Duris) five years ago
at the end of L’Auberge Espagnole (aka Pot Luck)
literally running away from his new life as a civil
servant. After the youthful exuberance of his time
in Barcelona chronicled in that film, who’d want to
measure out their life with coffee spoons?
Picking up half a decade after the events of L’Auberge
Espagnole, Cédric Klapisch’s sequel continues in the
same light-hearted, Generation X vein, resulting in a
consistently entertaining, episodic film with hilarious
moments of magical realism.
It combines farce, romance and not a little drama
that despite its exotic mix, is at its heart a fairly
conventional romantic comedy – and in these
troublesome times that’s no bad thing. So if you’re
looking for a fun, easy-going date movie appealing
across the ages... then seek no further. And if
you’re put off by subtitles then don’t be because
almost half the film is in English.
Cast: Romain Duris, Cécile de France,
Audrey Tautou, Kelly Reilly, Kevin Bishop.
Director: Cédric Klapisch.
2005. 125mins.
UK Release: CineFile.
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TIME
TO LEAVE LE TEMPS QUI RESTE
(18)
CINEWORLD HAYMARKET LONDON Wed 1 March 8.30pm Gala
Screening
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The second in François Ozon’s planned trilogy on
the subject of mourning, Time to Leave, resonates
with a sincerity you might not expect from the
director of 5 X 2, his last film. But if you recall Under
the Sand then that might not be so surprising.
Romain (the excellent Melvil Poupaud), a goodlooking
young fashion photographer with a successful
career, a cute boyfriend and seemingly everything to live for,
collapses during a shoot.
His initial concern that he might have AIDS is
trounced by a diagnosis which reveals untreatable
terminal cancer. Faced with the knowledge that
he has only a few months to live, he decides to tell
no-one except his grandmother (the inestimable
Jeanne Moreau), who herself is close to death.
As Romain bears the weight of his knowledge alone,
Ozon views his struggle through anger and denial,
to reach an acceptance of sorts. The character is never
sanctified or made heroic, and the reconciliations he
makes are with himself rather than with others.
Intimate, moving and minimalist.
Cast: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau,
Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi.
Director: François Ozon.
2005. 85 mins.
UK Release: Artificial Eye.
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