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PANORAMA SECTION
Panorama is the part of the Renault French Film Festival devoted to titles by established directors featuring such big name stars as Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, Carole Bouquet, Jacques Villeret, Sandrine Bonnaire, Sabine Azema, Nathalie Baye, and Daniel Auteuil, and from the younger generation Romain Duris, Roschdy Zem, Julie Gayet, Jalil Lespert, Audrey Tautou and Isabelle Carre. Themes range from school rebellion, mature romance, a maverick filming himself, to home hijinks, adoption, old-fashoned suspense, political conspiracy and police ethics. Variety is the lynchpin.
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The anarchic impulse that for many is the very definition of childhood
has been a staple of French cinema at least since Vigo's Zéro
de Conduite, and Jean- Jacques Zilbermann's Bad Spelling is an excellent
example of that proud tradition. Daniel Massu is 15 but looks 13.
His father and mother are, There's an extraordinary sense of warmth to André Téchiné's new film which comes not only from the powerful Moroccan sunlight that fills almost every scene, but even more from the tremendous rapport between the director and his actors. Gérard Depardieu plays Antoine, an engineer who's been sent to Tangiers to oversee a construction project. But his real reason for coming is to re- establish contact with Cécile (Catherine Deneuve), a woman he loved and lost 30 years before. For her part, Cecile has created her own arrangement with her Moroccan husband, Nathan (Gilbert Melki), a quiet understanding that makes few demands on either of them. Add to the mix Samy (Malik Zidi), Cécile and Nathan's son, who returns home from Paris with Nadia (Lubna Azabal), a single mother. Techiné allows each actor the space to fully explore their characters' dilemmas, carefully delineating the difficult process that will lead each to make a kind of leap of faith that could change their lives. Zidi was nominated for the César for best promising actor. Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Catherine Deneuve, Gilbert Melki, Malik Zidi and Lubna Azabal. Dir: André Techiné 2004 98mins
Eleven years after his screen version of Balzac's Colonel Chabert Yves Angelo's adaptation of Philippe Claudel's award-winning novel, is an absorbing whodunit set in a small town close to the First World War front where thousands of soldiers are butchered every day. Two of France's finest character actors, the veteran Jean-Pierre Marielle, shortly to appear in The Da Vinci Code, and Jacques Villeret, who died in January 2005 aged 53, give absorbing performances in a compelling and sombre account of provincial life at a time of intense social stress. Marielle plays Destinat, an elderly state prosecutor who comes under suspicion after a young girl is found strangled by the side of a canal a few hours after he was seen alone with her. The case is taken up by the local examining magistrate Mierck (Villeret), an ingratiating, bombastic individual. As the investigation proceeds more murky secrets come to the surface ... Between dark and light, this subtle drama emphasises the duality of human nature. Cast: Jean-Pierre Marielle, Jacques Villeret, Denis Podalydès, Marina Hands, Michel Vuillermoz, Serge Riaboukine, Thomas Blanchard, Agnes Sourdillon Nicole Dubois, Franck Manzoni and Josephine Japy. Dir: Yves Angelo. 2005. 106mins. Full of vitality and humanity, Bertrand Tavernier's new film deals with the total and visceral desire to have a child. Pierre (Jacques Gamblin) and Géraldine (Isabelle Carré) cannot have children of their own. Determined to adopt, they travel to south-east Asia, where they confront emotional and physical obstacles as they face French and Cambodian authorities, corruption and child trafficking in their quest to adopt a baby. Tavernier collaborates again on this script with his daughter Tiffany and son-in-law Dominique Sampiero, both novelists who worked with him on It All Starts Today about the teaching profession. The director treads the tightrope successfully between a documentary style and fiction in a film that exudes intense waves of emotion and fragility. Tavernier (the subject of the Renault French Film Festival's retrospective ) treads the tightrope successfully between a documentary style and fiction in a film that exudes intense waves of emotion and fragility. Cast: Isabelle Carré, Jacques Gamblin, Bruno Putzulu, Maria Pitarresi, Anne Loiret, Philippe Said and Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus. Dir: Betrand Tavernier. 2004. 125mins. Anyone who has ever had to contend with a squad of workmen and living with them cheek by jowl as they revamp their home will instantly identify with Housewarming, a madcap comedy starring Carole Bouquet as a liberal lawyer and single mother who hires Colombian immigrants to do the job. The film's good social intentions and high-spirited direction widen the appeal of this infectious romp which features Hugh Grant in a surprise cameo. Director Brigitte Rouan (Outremer, Post Coitum Animal Triste) rolls out the laughs in a breezy, ironic way. Bouquet dons her best comedienne attire to carry the tale with elegant aplomb. The rest of the cast is fast-footed and suitably outrageous. Meanwhile production designers Guy-Claude Francois and Thierry Francois have great fun wrecking their sets and rebuilding them. Cast: Carole Bouquet, Giulia Dussolier, Ferdinand Chesnais. Dir: Brigitte Rouan. 2005. 95mins. Take two extremes of French society - youths raised in concrete housing estates and small-minded farmers living off the land (and European Union subsidies) – and throw them together. The result is this idiosyncratic comedy from Jean-Pierre Sinapi who made/Uneasy Riders / (Nationale 7) and/Life Kills Me. Social assistant Amar (Roschdy Zem) is in charge of six small-time wheeler-dealers whose only chance of staying out of prison is to serve a month in a volunteer work experience programme. The surprisingly gung-ho female mayor (Nadine Marcovici) of a small farming community welcomes the ragtag mixed-race miscreants with greater enthusiasm than do most of her all-white rural constituency. One notable exception is Anais (Julie Delarme) who lives with her father (Jean-Francois Stevenin) and slightly retarded younger brother Leo (Mickael Masclet ). The film takes its cue from 1970s-style Italian comedies, but there's biting social commentary lurking just below the surface. Cast: Roschdy Zem, Julie Gayet, Nadine Marcovici, Julie Delarme, Jean-François Stevenin, and Dominique Pinon. Director: Jean-Pierre Sinapi 2005. 92mins An epic, dramatic love story set in the rough and peculiar milieu of Ouessant, a remote island off the coast of Brittany, The Light is a film about a close-knit community of lighthouse keepers shattered by the arrival of a stranger. Featuring compelling portrayals from its main cast, the film was nominated twice for the 2005 César: Torreton as best actor, and Nicola Piovani (Life is Beautiful) for best score. It boasts a degree of incandescent emotion that is rare in contemporary French cinema. Although sombre it is an ultimately satisfying drama of simmering passions that unfolds in an arrestingly atmospheric setting. Played with a slow burning intensity by its accomplished leads. Philippe Lioret has directed over 60 TV commercials, as well as three acclaimed feature-films: Mademoiselle (2000), Tenue Correcte Exigée (1997), and Lost in Transit (1993). Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Philippe Torreton, Grégori Deranger, and Emilie Dequenne Dir: Philippe Lioret. 2004. 105 mins A journalist-cum-detective is literally on the scent of his long lost mother in The Perfume of the Lady in Black, an old-fashioned period suspense drama that revels in slight-of-hand, concealed identities, mounting intrigue and pure deductive reasoning. This latest confection from Bruno Podalydes starring his brother Denis has more than a whiff of success about it. It wallows in old-fashioned eccentricities, spyglasses and various contraptions including a submersible. The cast obviously are having a blast while Philippe Sarde's score is a perfect fit. The ending leaves the field open for a third feature inspired by the atmospheric writings of Gaston Leroux. Cast: Denis Podalydes, Sabine Azema, Pierre Arditi, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Gourmet, Zabou Breitman, Jean-Noel Broute, Bruno Podalydes, Vincent Elbaz, Julos Beaucarne, Isabelle Candelier, Dominique Parent, Michel Vuillermoz, and Claude Rich. Dir: Bruno Podalydes. 2005. 117mins Set in 1940 at the beginning of the Occupation, the recently widowed Odile (Emmanuelle Béart) flees Paris with her two children, 13-year-old Philippe (Leprince-Ringuet) and 7-year-old Cathy (Clémence Meyer) in tow. When German planes bomb the road filled with refugees, Odile's car is destroyed, and she escapes into the woods with her children. There they encounter Yvan (Gaspard Ulliel), a 17-year-old illiterate delinquent whose survival skills and charm soon prove indispensable. After spending a night in the open, the four fugitives stumble upon an abandoned house and Yvan breaks in. Empty of its inhabitants, the house becomes a desert island paradise and the setting for a makeshift family. Odile, at once suspicious of and attracted to the mysterious stranger, soon finds herself at the centre of a fascinating set of personal and sexual dynamics. An official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, Strayed is an unforgettable epic film about the struggles of war and the intimacies of the heart. Unlike many directors who've explored the war period, Techine (Wild Reeds, Alice and Martin and Changing Times) focuses not on large-scale destruction but rather on the smaller, personal story. Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Gaspard Ulliel, Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet, Clémence Meyer, Jean Fornerod and Samuel Labarthe. Dir: André Techiné. 2003. 95mins. The brothers Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu fashion a fanciful tale about the fine line between boredom and unbridled sensuality. Set in the shadow of handsome mountain peaks, the film poses the question: Is there life after 30 years of marriage? Madeleine (Sabine Azema) runs a thriving firm specialising in refurbishing homes. Her husband, William (Daniel Auteuil), is at a loose end since taking early retirement. Their grown-up daughter Elise (Florence Loiret-Caille) has won a scholarship to study in Rome. Madeleine unwinds by driving to a nearby valley to set up her easel and paint the Vercors landscape. From the distance, a blind man smells the paint and turpentine and cuts across a field to speak to whoever's there. The man is Adam (Sergi Lopez), the village mayor, who mentions that a nearby house is for sale and he has the key. The couple move in but later when Adam's house burns down, William and Madeleine decide to provide accommodation for him and his partner (Amira Casar) and an unexpected four-some develops. Cast: Sabine Azema, Daniel Auteuil, Sergi Lopez, Amira Casar and Florence Loiret-Caille. Dir Arnaud and Jean-Pierre Larrieu. 2005. 98mins.
A delicately observed, no-budget autobiography by 74-year-old Alain Cavalier, a French cult director whose maverick films have struck a chord with the most refined festival audiences. Be warned: leave all expectations behind, however, because instead of recounting anecdotes and events, Cavalier wryly crafts an artistic jumble of fleeting impressions, profound thoughts and just plain silly moments, many of which manage to be fascinating. This is actually the filmmaker's third go at autobiography after This Machine Does Not Accept Messages (1978) and The Encounter (1996), but it marks the first time he has filmed himself. Here he shows his own handsome face as it suffers the torments of three surgical operations to remove a small skin cancer. Since the film was shot over 11 years, viewers watch his face heal over and over again in a beautiful illustration of passing time. Young filmmakers can draw an inspiring lesson from the mileage
Cavalier gets out of a simple mini-DV camera, visible in some of
the mirror shots. In his The result emerges as a careful observation of judge, prosecutor
and the ever- changing accused while displaying an unquenchable
sense of curiosity for character. The star of the show is Madame
Justice Michèle Bernard-Requin, a stern but fair |
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Philippe Garrel casts his eye and memories over that tumultuous period of recent French history, May 1968 when students and workers almost toppled a government. Garrel who shot the film in black and white in the style of the period, deservedly won the Silver Lion for best director for at last year’s Venice Film Festival. Antoine (played by his son Louis Garrel) and his friends, a group of Parisian students find themselves caught up in the chaotic excitement of the events. Garrel plunges into the thick of the riots and then follows this band of disconsolate young people trying to make sense of what happened. In the aftermath friends fall out with each other, divisions become exposed, and the personal gradually replaces the political. Antoine watches as his group metamorphoses and, as he falls in love with a young woman and starts to make new commitments, feels himself changing as well. The director understands fully the complex dynamic of the time in which they live. The voyage of his protagonists is troubling, touching and in the end, a perfect representation of a heady time and place. Cast: Louis Garrel, Clotilde Hesme, Mathieu Genet, Nicolas Bridet, Eric Rulliat. Director: Philippe Garrel. 2005. 179 mins. UK Release: Artificial Eye. >>TOP |
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In the latest of his ensemble pieces set in Marseilles, director Robert Guediguian offers a socially and politically engaged observation of race, humanism and social ideals in a changing world. Doctors Natacha (Ariane Ascaride) and Jeremie (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) have been sweethearts since childhood, their lives intimately connected by love and profession. But while the idealist Natacha is committed to the Marseilles' working-class, mixed-race district of L'Estaque, Jeremie has sought the broader world of Paris and politics. The film opens with the couple arriving in Marseilles for Christmas: she the Virgin Mary and Jeremie her Joseph in a modern-day retelling of the birth of Christ. But this allegory is merely an imagining of Natacha, who, mute and inert, has spiralled into a state of catatonia. News of her ill health brings Jeremie back to Marseilles, where he attempts to find the cause of her unforeseen malady. What he discovers is a mesh of intolerance, hypocrisy, betrayal and failed dreams, linked to forbidden love between a young white girl and an Arab boy. My Father is an Engineer is by turns moving, angry and buoyantly life-affirming. Cast: Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gérard Meylan |