Best of 2013: #10. In the House (François Ozon)

#10. In the House (Dans la maison). François Ozon. France.

Following the international success of his first English-language feature, Swimming Pool, François Ozon’s output has been a curious mix of understated melodramas and playful farces. In the House fits somewhere in between and calls to mind the wickedness of the director’s earlier work, back when certain critics dubbed him the “garçon terrible” of French cinema. Winner of the top prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival, In the House stars Fabrice Luchini as a French teacher who enters a world of questionable ethics by encouraging a clever high school student (Ernst Umhauer) who begins writing episodic short stories of his plans to seduce a classmate’s beautiful mother (Emmanuelle Seigner) and shatter the bonds of this suburban family. Things naturally get hairier when the teacher’s wife, played by the always exceptional Kristin Scott Thomas, starts getting invested in the lurid stories.

In the House is available on Blu-ray and DVD in the U.S. from Cohen Media Group and is currently streaming on Netflix. It is also available on Blu-ray and DVD in the U.K. from Entertainment One, and in France from France Télévisions Distribution.

With: Fabrice Luchini, Ernst Umhauer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner, Denis Ménochet, Bastien Ughetto, Jean-François Balmer, Yolande Moreau

Gallo, Ozon, Reichardt, Schnabel, Hellman, Kechiche, Coppola, etc, Screening at Venice

The complete line-up of the 67th Venice Film Festival was announced yesterday, with twenty-two films competing for the the Golden Lion, the festival's highest honor which was awarded to Samuel Maoz's Lebanon last year. Not paying attention to films in production has its benefits; quite a few of the filmmakers presenting their works this year came as a pleasant surprise. Among those surprises: Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff which re-teams the director with her Wendy & Lucy star Michelle Williams; a brand new film written, directed, starring, composed and edited (naturally) by Vincent Gallo called Promises Written in Water; Pablo Larraín's follow-up to Tony Manero, Post mortem; Abdellatif Kechiche's Vénus noire [Black Venus], his first film since La graine et le mulet [The Secret of the Grain] which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 fest; Tran Anh Hung's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood; and Road to Nowhere, the first feature-length film from Monte Hellman in twenty-one years (following, uh, Silent Night, Deadly Night 3) which stars two former "It" girls Shannyn Sossamon and Dominique Swain. Gallo will also be presenting a short entitled The Agent as part of the Horizons sidebar, which–like Promises–stars Sylvester Stallone's son Sage. Other high profile filmmakers in competition: Sofia Coppola with Somewhere; Julian Schnabel with Miral; François Ozon with Potiche; Tom Tykwer with Drei [Three]; Tsui Hark with Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame; Takashi Miike with 13 Assassins; Darren Aronofsky with Black Swan; and Álex de la Iglesia with Balada triste de trompeta [A Sad Trumpet Ballad]. Four Italian films will be screening in competition, and unfortunately the national titles have proven to be the weakest entries in recent history. The sore thumb of the lot appears to be Barney's Version, whose fine cast feels overshadowed by the fact that the last film outing from the director, Richard J. Lewis, was a direct-to-video sequel to the buddy-cop-and-dog classic K-9 (starring, uh, Jim Belushi). Tran Anh Hung and Darren Aronofsky are the only past Golden Lion winners in competition, for Cyclo in 1995 and The Wrestler in 2008 respectively. The competition line-up can be found below. The festival runs from 1-11 September.

- 13 Assassins, d. Takashi Miike, Japan
- Attenberg, d. Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece, w. Yorgos Lanthimos
- Balada triste de trompeta [A Sad Trumpet Ballad], d. Álex de la Iglesia (Dance with the Devil), Spain/France, w. Carmen Maura, Fernando Guillén Cuervo, Antonio de la Torre
- Barney's Version, d. Richard J. Lewis, Canada/Italy, w. Dustin Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver
- Black Swan, d. Darren Aronofsky, USA, w. Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Bruce Greenwood, Scott Speedman
- Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame, d. Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time in China), China/Hong Kong, w. Andy Lau, Carina Lau, Li Bingbing, Tony Leung Ka-Fai
- Drei [Three], d. Tom Tykwer, Germany, w. Devid Striesow
- Happy Few, d. Antony Cordier (Douches froides), France, w. Marina Foïs, Élodie Bouchez, Roschdy Zem, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Jean-François Stévenin
- Meek's Cutoff, d. Kelly Reichardt, USA, w. Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson
- Miral, d. Julian Schnabel, France/Israel/UK/Italy/USA, w. Hiam Abbass, Freida Pinto, Willem Dafoe, Vanessa Redgrave, Alexander Siddig, Stella Schnabel
- Noi credevamo, d. Mario Martone (L'odore del sengue), Italy/France, w. Luigi Lo Cascio, Toni Servillo
- Norwegian Wood, d. Tran Anh Hung, Japan, w. Rinko Kikuchi
- La passione, d. Carlo Mazzacurati (La lingua del santo), Italy, w. Stefania Sandrelli
- La pecora nera, d. Ascanio Celestini, Italy, w. Maya Sansa
- Post mortem, d. Pablo Larraín, Chile/Mexico/Germany
- Potiche, d. François Ozon, France/Belgium, w. Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini, Karin Viard, Judith Godrèche, Jérémie Renier
- Promises Written in Water, d. Vincent Gallo, USA, w. Gallo
- Road to Nowhere, d. Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop), USA, w. Shannyn Sossamon, Dominique Swain, John Diehl, Fabio Testi
- Silent Souls, d. Aleksei Fedorchenko (First on the Moon), Russia
- La solitudine dei numeri primi [The Solitude of Prime Numbers], d. Saverio Costanzo (In Memory of Me), Italy/France/Germany, w. Filippo Timi, Isabella Rossellini
- Somewhere, d. Sofia Coppola, USA, w. Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Benicio del Toro, Michelle Monaghan, Benicio Del Toro
- Vénus noire [Black Venus], d. Abdellatif Kechiche, France/Italy/Belgium, w. Olivier Gourmet

Out of competition, you'll find directorial efforts from both the Affleck brothers. The elder will follow his well-received (but, still, not that good) Gone Baby Gone with The Town, a crime thriller about a Boston-area gang of thieves. Casey's directorial debut is I'm Still Here, a documentary that received a lot of press last year which follows Joaquin Phoenix's retirement from acting to pursue a career as a rapper. In addition to 13 Assassins, Takashi Miike's Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City will premiere, likely as part of the festival's midnight screenings, which will open with Robert Rodriguez's star-and-"star"-studded Machete. Julie Taymor's return to Shakespeare, The Tempest, will close this portion. Below you'll find a selection of the films playing out of competition.

- 1960, d. Gabriele Salvatores (I'm Not Scared), Italy
- The Child's Eye 3D, d. Oxide Pang, Danny Pang, Hong Kong/China
- I'm Still Here, d. Casey Affleck, USA, w. Joaquin Phoenix
- The Last Movie, d. Dennis Hopper, USA, w. Hopper, Tomas Milian, Samuel Fuller, Sylvia Miles, Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, Henry Jaglom, John Phillip Law, Michelle Phillips, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Toni Basil
- Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, d. Andrew Lau, Hong Kong/China, w. Donnie Yen, Shu Qi
- A Letter to Elia, d. Martin Scorsese, Kent Jones, USA
- Lope, d. Andrucha Waddington (House of Sand), Spain/Brazil, w. Leonor Watling, Pilar López de Ayala, Sonia Braga, Luis Tosar
- Machete, d. Robert Rodriguez, USA, w. Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal, Don Johnson, Rose McGowan, Tom Savini
- Passione, d. John Turturro, Italy
- Přežít svůj život [Surviving Life], d. Jan Švankmajer, Czech Republic/Slovakia
- Raavanan, d. Mani Ratnam, India, w. Aishwarya Rai
- Reign of Assassins, d. John Woo, Su Chao-Bin, China/Hong Kong/Taiwan, w. Michelle Yeoh, Kelly Lin
- Shock Labyrinth 3D, d. Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on), Japan
- Showtime, d. Stanley Kwan (Lan yu), China, w. Carina Lau, Tony Leung Ka-Fai
- Sorelle mai, d. Marco Bellocchio, Italy
- The Tempest, d. Julie Taymor, USA, w. Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Djimon Hounsou, David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, Alfred Molina, Alan Cumming, Ben Whishaw
- That Girl in Yellow Boots, d. Anurag Kashyap (Dev.D), India
- The Town, d. Ben Affleck, USA, w. Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively
- Vallanzasca - Gli angeli del male, d. Michele Placido (Romanzo criminale), Italy/France, w. Kim Rossi Stuart, Filippo Timi, Moritz Bleibtreu, Paz Vega
- Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City, d. Takashi Miike, Japan

The Horizons portion of this year's selection will open with La belle endormie [Sleeping Beauty], another fairy tale adaptation from Catherine Breillat following last year's Barbe Bleue; like its predecessor, La belle endormie was produced by Arte Télévision and employs a cast of unknowns. Hong Sang-soo's Oki's Movie will close the section; Oki's Movie is Hong Sang-soo's second film to premiere in 2010 following Ha Ha Ha, which was awarded the Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes in May. Not a whole lot of information was available about the rest of the films (some of them shorts), but I listed below the films from directors I knew. And following that is a selection of the films screening as part of the Venice Days, one of the festival's autonomous sidebars.

Horizons

- The Agent, d. Vincent Gallo, USA, w. Sage Stallone, Gallo
- La belle endormie [Sleeping Beauty], d. Catherine Breillat, France
- Better Life, d. Isaac Julien, UK/China, w. Maggie Cheung
- Cold Fish, d. Sion Sono, Japan
- Guest, d. José Luis Guerin, Spain
- The Leopard, d. Isaac Julien, UK/Italy
- A Loft, d. Ken Jacobs, USA
- News from Nowhere, d. Paul Morrissey, USA
- Oki's Movie, d. Hong Sang-soo, South Korea
- Painéis de São Vicente de Fora, Visão Poética, d. Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal, w. Ricardo Trêpa
- Red Earth, d. Clara Law, Hong Kong/China

Venice Days

- L'amour buio, d. Antonio Capuano (Luna rossa), Italy, w. Valeria Golino
- Le bruit des glaçons [The Clink of Ice], d. Bertrand Blier (Beau-père), France, w. Jean Duhardin, Albert Dupontel
- Cirkus Columbia, d. Danis Tanović (No Man's Land), Bosnia & Herzegovina/France/UK/Slovenia/Germany/Belgium/Serbia, w. Miki Manojlović, Mira Furlan
- Hitler à Hollywood [Hitler in Hollywood], d. Frédéric Sojcher, w. Maria de Medeiros, Micheline Presle
- Incendies, d. Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique), Canada/France, w. Lubna Azabal
- Noir océan, d. Marion Hänsel (The Quarry), w. Adrien Joliver
- La vida de los peces, d. Matías Bize (En la cama), Chile, w. Santiago Cabrera, Blanca Lewin

The 2010 Rendez-vous with French Cinema

The 15th annual Rendez-vous with French Cinema, presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance, was announced recently, though the line-up isn't much to get excited over. Rendez-vous with French Cinema usually highlights the previous year's Gallic offerings that hadn't already premiered at the New York Film Festival. Last year's series screened the new films from Claire Denis, Agnès Godard, Claude Chabrol, Costa-Gavras, André Téchiné and Benoît Jacquot. While there are some big(-ish) names represented this year like François Ozon, Michel Gondry, Christophe Honoré and Claude Miller, the line-up as a whole doesn't read as "thrilling" by any stretch (keep in mind I haven't actually seen any of the films yet). On the bright side, Alain Guiraudie's Le roi de l'évasion [The King of Escape] will make its US premiere at the festival (and, really, I am quite anxious to see the new Ozon and a couple of the others).

Jules Dassin's The Law [La loi], a French/Italian co-production from 1959 with Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Melina Mercouri and Yves Montand, is the only feature more than a year old that screens this year. Recently remastered in a new 35mm print, The Law will make the rounds theatrically and on DVD later this year from Oscilloscope Pictures. Thierry Frémaux, artistic director of the Cannes Film Festival, will also bring a collection of newly restored shorts from the Lumière brothers. The selection of short films will include a film called The Girls, the directorial debut of actress Anna Mouglalis. Of the 2009 features, four currently have US distribution (with Lorber Films announcing their acquisition of L'armée du crime earlier today). The complete line-up is below, but click here for short synopses, screening dates and online ticketing.

- À l'origine [In the Beginning], d. Xavier Giannoli, w. François Cluzet, Emmanuelle Devos, Gérard Depardieu
- L'affaire Farewell [Farewell], d. Christian Carion, w. Emir Kusturica, Guillaume Canet, Alexandra Maria Lara, Fred Ward, Willem Dafoe, Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann
- L'armée du crime [The Army of Crime], d. Robert Guédiguian, Lorber Films, w. Simon Abkarian, Virginie Ledoyen, Robinson Stévenin, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Yann Trégouët, Adrien Jolivet
- Les beaux gosses [The French Kissers], d. Riad Sattouf, w. Noémie Lvovsky, Valeria Golino, Irène Jacob, Emmanuelle Devos, Marjane Satrapi, Christophe Vandevelde
- Le bel âge [Restless / L'insurgée], d. Laurent Perreau, w. Michel Piccoli, Pauline Etienne, Eric Caravaca
- L'épine dans le cœur [The Thorn in the Heart], d. Michel Gondry, Oscilloscope Pictures
- La famille Wolberg [The Wolberg Family], d. Axelle Ropert, w. Serge Bozon
- Le hérisson [The Hedgehog], d. Mona Achache, w. Josiane Balasko
- Huit fois debout [8 Times Up], d. Xabi Molia, w. Julie Gayet, Denis Podalydès, Frédéric Bocquet
- Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante [I'm Glad That My Mother Is Alive], d. Claude Miller, Nathan Miller
- La loi [The Law], d. Jules Dassin, Oscilloscope Pictures, w. Gina Lollobrigida, Yves Montand, Marcello Mastroianni, Melina Mercouri, Pierre Brasseur
- Mademoiselle Chambon, d. Stéphane Brizé, w. Vincent Lindon, Sandrine Kiberlain
- Non ma fille, tu n'iras pas danser [Making Plans for Lena], d. Christophe Honoré, w. Chiarra Mastroianni, Marina Foïs, Jean-Marc Barr, Louis Garrel, Julien Honoré
- OSS 117: Rio de répond plus [OSS 117: Lost in Rio], d. Michel Hazanavicius, w. Jean Dujardin, Louise Monot, Rüdiger Vogler
- Rapt, d. Lucas Belvaux, w. Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny, Alex Descas
- Le refuge [The Refuge], d. François Ozon, Strand Releasing, w. Isabelle Carré, Melvil Poupaud
- Les regrets, d. Cédric Kahn, w. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Yvan Attal
- Le roi de l'évasion [The King of Escape], d. Alain Guiraudie, w. Ludovic Berthillot, Hafsia Herzi
- Welcome, d. Philippe Lioret, Film Movement, w. Vincent Lindon

Douglas Sirk + Barbara Stanwyck + Daria; DVD Update 12 February

Universal has announced a Barbara Stanwyck box set as part of their Blacklot Series. The six titles included are listed below, but the two that are most alluring are the two Stanwyck did with Douglas Sirk: All I Desire and There's Always Tomorrow. The set will be available on 27 April.

A couple of weeks ago, E1 Distribution announced their plans for a 50th Anniversary DVD and Blu-ray edition for Fellini's La dolce vita, set to be released sometime in 2010. In addition to that, they also acquired the rights to a quartet of Italian films: Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine [Sciuscià] and Luchino Visconti's La terra trema, Bellissima and Ossessione. Image released Shoeshine, La terra trema and Ossessione previously.

And in distribution news, Strand acquired François Ozon's latest, The Refuge [Le refuge], which stars Isabelle Carré and Melvil Poupaud. Keep in mind that the date for The White Ribbon is likely to change if it wins the Oscar. The DVDs below are in descending order of release.

- The Crucifier of Blood, 1991, d. Fraser Clarke Heston, Warner, 30 March, w. Charlton Heston
- Marina Abramovic: 7 Easy Pieces, 2007, d. Babette Mangolte, Microcinema, 30 March
- The Italian Straw Hat [Un chapeau de paille d'Italie], 1928, d. René Clair, Flicker Alley, 6 April
- Lord, Save Us from Your Followers, 2008, d. Dan Merchant, Virgil Films, 20 April
- The Descent: Part 2, 2009, d. Jon Harris, Lionsgate, 27 April
- The End of Poverty?, 2008, d. Philippe Diaz, Cinema Libre, 27 April
- Euro-Fantastico Double Feature [The Black Cobra (Die schwarze Kobra) / No Survivors Please (Der Chef wünscht keine Zeugen)], 1963/1964, d. Rudolf Zehetgruber, Hans Albin, Peter Benies, VCI, 27 April
- Georgia O'Keeffe, 2009, d. Bob Balaban, Sony, 27 April
- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, 2009, d. Terry Gilliam, also on Blu-ray, Sony, 27 April
- Is Everybody Happy But Me?, 1981, d. Bob Emenegger, VCI, 27 April
- The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band], 2009, d. Michael Haneke, Sony, 27 April
- California Dreamin' (Endless) [California Dreamin' (Nesfârşit)], 2007, d. Cristian Nemescu, IFC Films, 4 May
- Eye for an Eye, 2008, d. Ahn Kwon-tae, Kwak Kyung-Taek, Cinema Epoch, 4 May
- Paper Covers Rock, 2008, d. Joe Maggio, IFC Films, 4 May
- Daria, The Complete Series, 1997-2001, Paramount, 11 May
- Jermal, 2008, d. Ravi L. Bharwani, Rayya Makarim, Orlow Seunke, IndiePix, 11 May
- American Bandits: Frank and Jesse James, 2010, d. Fred Olen Ray, E1 Distribution, 18 May, w. Peter Fonda
- Gamera: The Giant Monster, 1965, d. Noriaki Yuasa, Shout! Factory, 18 May
- The Girl on the Train [La fille du RER], 2009, d. André Téchiné, Strand, 18 May
- Stigma, 1972, d. David E. Durston, Code Red, 18 May
- Bottomland, 1992, d. Ed Radtke, Facets, 25 May
- Dany Laferrière: Films from a Poet's Imagination [On the Verge of a Fever (La goût des jeunes filles) / How to Conquer America in One Night (Comment conquérir l'Amérique)], 2004, d. John L'Ecuyer, Dany Laferrière, Art Mattan/Facets, 25 May
- Kamikaze Hearts, 1986, d. Juliet Bashore, Facets, 25 May, w. Sharon Mitchell
- What's Underground About Marshmallows?, 1996, d. Jill Godmilow, Facets, 25 May
- Yesterday Girl [Abschied von gestern - (Anita G.)], 1966, d. Alexander Kluge, Facets, 25 May

Barbara Stanwyck Collection, Universal, 27 April
- Internes Can't Take Money, 1937, d. Alfred Santell
- The Great Man's Lady, 1942, d. William A. Wellman
- The Bride Wore Boots, 1946, d. Irving Pichel
- The Lady Gambles, 1949, d. Michael Gordon
- All I Desire, 1953, d. Douglas Sirk
- There's Always Tomorrow, 1956, d. Douglas Sirk

Blu-ray

- Dune, 1984, d. David Lynch, Universal, 27 April
- The Jackal, 1997, d. Michael Caton-Jones, Universal, 27 April
- Out of Africa, 1985, d. Sydney Pollack, Universal, 27 April
- Traffic, 2000, d. Steven Soderbergh, Universal, 27 April
- Escape from L.A., 1996, d. John Carpenter, Paramount, 4 May
- K-19: The Widowmaker, 2002, d. Kathryn Bigelow, Paramount, 4 May
- The Getaway, 1972/1994, d. Sam Peckinpah, Roger Donaldson, Warner, 8 June
- Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935, d. Frank Lloyd, Warner, 16 November

The Decade List: Le temps qui reste (2005)

Le temps qui reste [Time to Leave] – dir. François Ozon

Fans of François Ozon, once dubbed the garçon terrible of French cinema in the late ‘90s, seem to diminish with each passing film. Though few will argue that the year 2000 marked the highest point of his career (with Under the Sand and Water Drops on Burning Rocks both bowing in that year), I haven’t fallen off the bandwagon, despite a number of reservations I have toward his two most widely-seen films, 8 Women [8 femmes] and Swimming Pool, both blissfully entertaining but severely lacking beneath their polished veneer. Ozon’s thematic sequel to Under the Sand, Le temps qui reste (correctly translated as The Time That Remains), shares the same traits that bothered me about 8 Women and Swimming Pool, but they feel like less of a disguise here.

Le temps qui reste, 8 Women and Swimming Pool all follow closely to their own genre allusions; more than its predecessor, Le temps qui reste pays tribute to melodrama, a genre which Ozon has always toiled with in smaller doses. In the film, Ozon gives himself completely over to the idea, dislodging the tongue-in-cheek sensibilities of his previous flirtations with his Sirkian tendencies. While much of the film relies on artifice, I sense a peculiar, refreshing honesty in what Ozon’s trying to do.

While he situates an attractive gay male in central role, a position often held for women in the genre, Ozon doesn’t set his sights on redefining or updating the genre. While spotted with bits of superficiality (Melvil Poupaud seems to get more handsome the closer he gets to death), the moments of beautiful clarity truly resonate. From the point early in the film when Romain (Poupaud) discovers he’s a few months away from death as a result of a spreading tumor, the film follows his grief process through the designed closures Romain concocts for the people closest to him, some successful, others not. For his unhappy, older sister Sophie (Louise-Anne Hippeau) and his younger, German boyfriend (Christian Sengewald), Romain uses his remaining time to sabotage these relationships, while finding a solitary comfort in his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau), the person in the film he finds the closest bond, both in personality and in approximation to death.

While Ozon does strive on some level to avoid overt sentimentality, it’s more accurate to say that he keeps his drama on a low flame. I hope my friend Tom doesn’t mind, but he highlighted one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about Le temps qui reste in an e-mail exchange earlier this year. He said, “Ozon's formal restraint may have suited his subject matter, but… I thought a showier technique wouldn't be so much inappropriate as less bland.” Perhaps it’s in Le temps qui reste’s blandness that I find the “honesty” I think Ozon is producing. In keeping the film on the subtle(r) side, Ozon delivers a number of rich moments, especially when Moreau is onscreen, that the showiness he painted 8 Women and Swimming Pool with would have only clouded. Le temps qui reste isn’t a grand triumph for the director, but it’s one that has always lingered for me, whether I can successfully defend my feelings or not (likely the latter).

With: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Daniel Duval, Marie Rivière, Louise-Anne Hippeau, Christian Sengewald, Henri Le Lorme, Walter Pagano, Ugo Soussan Trabelsi
Screenplay: François Ozon
Cinematography: Jeanne Lapoirie
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 16 May 2005 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 14 July 2006

Final Toronto '09 Titles: György Pálfi, Dogtooth, Ozon, von Trotta, Gitai

After weeks of slowly revealing its 2009 line-up, the final roster has been set, adding a number of notable world/North American premieres and some of the big names from Cannes and Venice. The Big Names: Claire Denis' White Material, Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, Lars von Trier's Antichrist, Marco Bellocchio's Vincere, Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth, Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody, Tales from the Golden Age. The world/North American premieres: György Pálfi's I Am Not Your Friend, Cesc Gay's V.O.S., Margarethe von Trotta's Vision, François Ozon's Le refuge, Amos Gitai's Carmel. All of the final additions are below. Check out TIFF's official site for all the titles, and expect the second round of posters soon.

Masters

- Antichrist - d. Lars von Trier
- Carmel - d. Amos Gitai
- Honeymoons [Medeni mesec] - d. Goran Paskaljevic (How Harry Became a Tree)
- Hotel Atlântico - d. Suzana Amaral
- Melody for a Street Organ - d. Kira Muratova (The Asthenic Syndrome)
- Le refuge - d. François Ozon - w. Isabelle Carré, Melvil Poupaud
- Vincere - d. Marco Bellocchio
- Vision [Vision - Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen] - d. Margarethe von Trotta - w. Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch
- White Material - d. Claire Denis
- The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] - d. Michael Haneke
- The Window - d. Buddhadeb Dasgupta (A Tale of a Naughty Girl)

Contemporary World Cinema

- 25 Carats [25 kilates] - d. Patxi Amézcua
- Adrift - d. Bui Thac Chuyên (Living in Fear)
- Ajami - d. Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani
- At the End of Daybreak - d. Ho Yuhang (Rain Dogs)
- Backyard [El traspatio] - d. Carlos Carrera (The Crime of Padre Amaro) - w. Jimmy Smits
- Balibo - d. Robert Connolly (The Bank) - w. Anthony LaPaglia
- Bran Nue Dae - d. Rachel Perkins (One Night the Moon) - w. Geoffrey Rush
- Castaway on the Moon - d. Lee Hey-jun
- Cell 211 [Celda 211] - d. Daniel Monzón (The Kovak Box) - w. Luis Tosar, Carlos Bardem
- Deliver Us from Evil [Fri os fra det onde] - d. Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch)
- Dogtooth - d. Yorgos Lanthimos
- The Double Hour [La doppia ora] - d. Giuseppe Capotondi
- Help Gone Mad - d. Boris Khlebnikov (Roads to Koktebel)
- I Am Not Your Friend [Nem vagyok a barátod] - d. György Pálfi (Taxidermia, Hukkle)
- If I Knew What You Said - d. Mike Sandejas (Just Like Before)
- Jean Charles - d. Henrique Goldman (Princesa)
- The Last Days of Emma Blank [De laatste dagen van Emma Blank] - d. Alex van Warmerdam (The Dress, Little Tony) - w. van Warmerdam
- My Year Without Sex - d. Sarah Watt (Look Both Ways)
- Le père de mes enfants - d. Mia Hansen-Løve (Tout est pardonné)
- Prince of Tears - d. Yonfan (Bishonen)
- Same Same But Different - d. Detlev Buck (23 Tage) - w. David Kross
- The Search - d. Wan Ma Cai Dan
- Tales from the Golden Age - d. Cristian Mungiu, Ioana Maria Uricaru, Hanno Hoefer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu
- V.O.S. - d. Cesc Gay (Nico & Dani)

Discovery

- Crab Trap [El vuelco del Cangrejo] - d. Oscar Ruiz Navia
- Mall Girls [Galerianki] - d. Matarzyna Roslaniec
- The Man Beyond the Bridge - d. Laxmikant Shetgaonkar
- Nora - d. Alla Kovgan, David Hinton
- Saint Louis Blues [Un transport en commun] - d. Dyana Gaye

Others

- Mr. Nobody - d. Jaco Van Dormael [part of the Special Presentations section]
- She, a Chinese - d. Guo Xiaolu (How Is Your Fish Today?) - w. Huang Lu [part of the Vanguard section]

R.I.P. Yasmine Belmadi

Tragic news from France, young actor Yasmine Belmadi was killed in a car accident over the weekend. Belmadi made his debut in Sébastien Lifshitz's Les corps ouverts, later co-starring in Lifshitz's made-for-television Les terres froides in 1999 and the exquisite Wild Side in 2004. His other credits include François Ozon's Criminal Lovers [Les amants criminels], Gilles Marchand's Who Killed Bambi? [Qui a tué Bambi?], Robert Salis' Grande école and, most recently, Nassim Amaouche's Adieu Gary, which won the Grand Prix at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes this past May.

The Decade List: Dans ma peau (2002)

Dans ma peau [In My Skin] - dir. Marina de Van

After five years of collaborating with François Ozon as both co-writer and actress, Marina de Van unveiled her directorial debut in 2002 with her metaphysical horror film In My Skin. With an ode to David Cronenberg, de Van examines the final frontier of horror films, the body and its dangerous levels of elasticity. After suffering a fall at a party, Esther (de Van) discovers a fascination with her body and its threshold for not simply pain, but sustainability. What follows is expectedly grotesque and ghastly.

The parables to Esther's fascination are abundant, some surprising and others effective despite the foreseeable correlations to the subject matter. The initial flesh wound doesn't introduce itself as a physical manifestation of Esther's lifestyle as a moderately successful businesswoman in a nominally happy relationship with Vincent (Laurent Lucas), but it becomes her obsession, something that seems initially impulsive but also weirdly natural. Esther's self-mutilation evolves into a search for feeling, something of a substitute for the falseness of the people around her and even herself.

While de Van is pointedly critical of the business world Esther places herself in, its treatment of women and even the carnivorous eating habits of these people, In My Skin isn't simply leftist propaganda masking as psychodrama. Both de Van and Esther approach this fascination with that oh-so-Cronenberg clinical eye. While she never avoids the shock aspects of In My Skin, particularly in the film's nauseatingly effective sound design, the suggestions and ramifications of Esther's "disorder" cut deeper than any of her literal knives.

With: Marina de Van, Laurent Lucas, Léa Drucker, Thibault de Montalembert
Screenplay: Marina de Van
Cinematography: Pierre Barougier
Music: Esbjorn Svensson
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Wellspring

Premiere: 27 September 2002 (San Sebastián Film Festival)
US Premiere: 7 November 2003 (New York City)

Antichrist Comes to America

Not to be outdone with its Cannes acquisitions, IFC has picked up Lars Von Trier's hot potato Antichrist for US release. The cut will be the same as the one which screened a few days ago, though no date has been mentioned. IFC previously released Von Trier's The Boss of It All and Manderlay. The studio also picked up the more crowd-pleasing Looking for Eric, from director Ken Loach, bringing their total count to 4, which is 2 ahead of their biggest competetor Sony Pictures Classics. In non-Cannes news, IFC also announced it snagged François Ozon's Ricky for a 2010 release.

The Decade List: Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (2000)

Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes [Water Drops on Burning Rocks] - dir. François Ozon

Water Drops on Burning Rocks was the first of François Ozon's bountiful offerings in 2000, the year in which he presented the two best films of his career (I have yet to see Ricky, however). Adapting the film from an unpublished play written by a nineteen-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ozon mapped out his own career, in both his finer and weaker points. Unlike fellow second generation Douglas Sirk admirers like Todd Haynes or Pedro Almodóvar, Ozon's fascination with the melodrama could be attributed best to Fassbinder. While Haynes took a more direct approach, Ozon drew inspiration through the filtration of Sirk's legacy in Fassbinder, acknowledging his own (intended) similarities to the director with Water Drops on Burning Rocks and later Sous le sable, Le temps qui reste and Angel. The film, then, would showcase the talents of both artists before Ozon ventured on his own later in the year.

For Fassbinder, the play wonderfully embodies the sinister humor of his notable early works, like Katzelmacher and Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, but it's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant where the most similarities can be found. With all the action confined within the walls of a single apartment, the single set piece transforms into the carefully adorned fighting ring for the four characters. It could be suggested that the claustrophobic restriction of the set would be the catalyst for the uncoiling misery in Franz's (Malik Zidi) life in the same way Catherine Deneuve's apartment in Repulsion would trigger her own demons. However, the apartment better represents the incubation chamber of Franz's despair, being left alone for weeks while his older lover Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau) travels on business. The key to Franz's unhappiness, like Petra von Kant's, lies within him as he becomes unable to extinguish the fact that he's fallen in love with someone who (likely) doesn't love him; the walls just amplify the anguish. Also like Petra (Margit Carstensen), he finds the outlet for its release in other people, spitting malice in the face of his former fiancée Anna (Ludivine Sagnier) just as Petra would to her secretary Marelene (Irm Hermann). Anna, though, is hardly the innocent witness to Franz's transformation. Between the two films (Petra von Kant was released nine years after Fassbinder would have written Water Drops), the most noticeable difference can be seen in the reversal of roles between the two central pairs of lovers, pegging the older Léopold as the predator in contrast to the younger Karin (Hanna Schygulla), whose involvement with Petra suggests self-advancing manipulation.

For Ozon, traces of Water Drops on Burning Rocks can be found in almost all of his subsequent works. Divided into four acts, the film moves from the playfully sexy to the dreadfully bleak, though the path isn't as straightforward as one might assume. Water Drops on Burning Rocks doesn't descend into the austere with each passing act; in fact, it retains its borderline misanthropic humor even after things get hopeless for Franz and Véra (Anna Thomson), Léopold's former lover who had a sex change in order to rekindle the spark in their dying relationship. The moment where Léopold phones Franz's mother at the end of the film painfully recalls the final moments of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?; this coldness is shared by both of Franz's lovers, with Anna's line "Who's going to father my children now?" placing her on the same careless plane as Léopold.

In terms of characterization, Véra becomes the film's most tragic figure. Officially entering the film in the fourth act after showing up earlier at Léopold's door twice, she is subjected to Léopold's cruelty within her first steps into the apartment. Despite these initial signs of hostility from Léopold (he purposefully refers to Véra as an old "copaine" in order to correct himself with the masculine form of the word to insult her), she plays along with his game of sexual manipulation until it becomes clear that she's only being used to hurt Franz and to seduce Anna. For Franz, Véra's return gives him a glimpse of his own doomed future; however, he succumbs to the hopelessness before Véra even reveals her own inability to stop loving Léopold. Véra emerges as the tragic figure when the film lets her humanity surface. Unlike Franz, she didn't succumb to the unbearable mimicry that occurs in Franz during the third act. She retains the sad hope Franz holds in the second act, when his awareness of Léopold's nature is still balanced by attempts to reconcile his lover's terminal dissatisfaction. Thomson, who enjoyed a wave of popularity in France after the starring in Amos Kollek's Sue and Fiona, gives Véra the perfect amount of compassion and sorrow, which makes the film's final shot, in which the audience learns all they need to know about her future, ever so desolate.

Looking back at Water Drops on Burning Rocks, you can almost see Ozon's entire career up to now inside of it. Between the amazing fourth-act dance number to Tony Holiday's "Tanze Samba mit Mir" (8 femmes), the crippling aspects of a relationship gone sour (5x2), the knowing touches of melodrama (Le temps qui reste), the pop music cues of Françoise Hardy's version of "Träume" (Une robe d'été) and a character's inability to accept the end of a relationship (Sous le sable), all of his films appear to have stemmed from this one film. Although his body of work may vary as much in quality as it does thematically, the same can't be said for Water Drops on Burning Rocks.

With: Bernard Giraudeau, Malik Zidi, Ludivine Sagnier, Anna Thomson
Screenplay: François Ozon, based on play Tropfen auf heiße Steine by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Cinematography: Jeanne Lapoirie
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Zeitgeist Films

Premiere: 13 February 2000 (Berlin International Film Festival)
US Premiere: June 2000 (New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival)

Awards: Teddy Award: Feature Film (Berlin); Best Feature Film (New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival)

The Decade List: Sous le sable (2000)

Sous le sable [Under the Sand] - dir. François Ozon

The term "growing up" always comes with a hint of condescension. I try to gravitate toward the word "maturing," but isn't that just an euphemism? So for lack of better terminology, Under the Sand was the once-labeled garçon terrible of French cinema's coming-of-age. His fourth feature after a plethora of shorts (and Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes earlier that year), Under the Sand was a step forward for the director, who, with Sitcom and Les amants criminels, seemed unable to resist the fleeting charm of shock and disturbance. Pairing with actress Charlotte Rampling, whose career resurgence could be attributed single-handedly to Ozon, Under the Sand was the director's own L'avventura (though it also bares resemblance to Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply with a rigid tonal difference). Within the first twenty minutes of the film, Jean (Bruno Cremer), the husband of English literature professor Marie Drillon (Rampling), vanishes without a trace on a beach during the couple's vacation. Stricken with grief (or is it denial?), Marie returns to Paris as if nothing had happened.

Under the Sand's strength comes not only in Rampling's riveting performance but in Ozon's reluctance to diagnose Marie's condition. At a dinner party hosted by colleague and friend Amanda (Alexandra Stewart), Marie casually suggests that Amanda's husband Gérard (Pierre Vernier) should join her gym as it would convince Jean to start exercising as well. The rest of the party looks on, uncomfortably, as the subject is quickly averted. As she returns home, after being escorted by publisher Vincent (Jacques Nolot) whom Amanda is trying to set up with Marie, Jean appears in the shadows of the apartment. Was he still alive? Or was this just a figment of Marie's imagination, a way of coping? When it becomes clearer that Jean wasn't found that day at the beach, Marie's mental and emotional state becomes more disoriented. She speaks of Jean in the present tense, even correcting Vincent at a pivotal moment, but it seems that the more the audience discovers, the less Marie appears to know about what's going on in her world.

Our understanding of Marie's condition reaches a turning point after a doctor's visit, in which she's asked to settle her husband's bill as well as her own. With reservation (or is it confusion?), she asks the receptionist when his last visit was. At this point, we realize Marie isn't in a conscious state of denial, though it might have felt that way earlier when she adamantly denies recognizing one of her students who happened to be one of the lifeguards searching for her husband that summer. Things take a further turn when Marie visits her mother-in-law (Andrée Tainsy), who naively (?) suggests that Jean didn't drown and had disappeared purposefully to get away from Marie. It's the feistiest scene in the film, and it's to Ozon's credit that, like the rest of the film, the explosion comes calmly, resisting the urge to show a pair of proper ladies duking it out; he would give in fully to that urge with 8 femmes. Like Lea Massari's Anna in L'avventura, Jean is riddled with ennui, something that isn't apparent to his lover. Marie and Jean's relationship, seen in the film's early scenes, had been reduced to silence and impersonal small-talk. Marie never senses his distance, but after seeing the way she handles his disappearance, this might be a result of living in a constant state of denial.

By remaining implicit about Marie's coping, Ozon permits Rampling to brilliantly shape her character. In bouts of girlish exuberance, Rampling takes Marie through not just the stages of grief but of self-discovery. Mercifully, this isn't a film about reinventing and discovering yourself late in life, so there's a greater level of intrigue when Marie blushes at Vincent's courting and giggles uncontrollably when they start to have sex for the first time. The moments, in which Rampling returns Marie to the seemingly forgotten days of youthfulness, revive her, if only momentarily, as the dread sinks in when things become more familiar the night Jean decides to stay the night. The complex relationship between the knowledge of the viewer and of Marie wouldn't have worked without Rampling, whose beauty seems eternally preserved. Her performance keeps Under the Sand mysterious, an effort that would prove less successfully when she re-teamed with Ozon in 2003 with Swimming Pool.

Under the Sand is just one example of a common sentiment among French filmmakers in relation to the beach and les vacances. Alongside films like Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl, Sébastien Lifshitz's Presque rien, Julie Lopes-Curval's Bord de mer, Anne-Sophie Birot's Les filles ne savent pas nager and Ozon's later Le temps qui reste, the expected relation between summer and relaxation or frivolity appears to have been replaced by layers of coldness and despair (Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's Crustacés et coquillages would provide the counter to these films). I plan to address this in later posts about a few of the aforementioned films.

With: Charlotte Rampling, Bruno Cremer, Jacques Nolot, Alexandra Stewart, Andrée Tainsy, Pierre Vernier
Screenplay: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Marina de Van, François Ozon, Marcia Romano
Cinematography: Antoine Héberlé, Jeanne Lapoirie
Music: Philippe Rombi
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Wellspring

Premiere: 11 September 2000 (Toronto International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 4 May 2001 (New York City)

Awards: Audience Award: Best Actress - Charlotte Rampling (European Film Awards)

Trailering Ozon

I've read a number of blogs commenting on the wonderful trailer for François Ozon's Ricky, which premiered at Berlin a few days ago to lukewarm reception (although Andrew Grant felt differently). The bande-annonce is posted above, and don't worry for those who don't speak French, it really isn't necessary. I'm quite disappointed that I can't find the US trailer for Water Drops on Burning Rocks, which is even more brilliant than Ricky's. Here's the scene in question, which will have to suffice... and tell me, who wouldn't want to see the film after this?

IFC Films in 2009, including Assayas, Ozon, Garrel, Sang-soo, Arcand, Tarr

In a press release, IFC Films laid out a number of films they'll be presenting through their various platforms of release, which includes theatrical, Festival Direct Video-On-Demand and their DVD rental partnership with Blockbuster (which seems to have stopped their releases of DVDs elsewhere, which is extremely disappointing). I use Netflix, and my cable provider doesn't offer Festival Direct... so I'm sort of fucked when it comes to their releases, but I have to hand it to them for getting so many films out there. Their 2009 release schedule includes:

Angel - dir. François Ozon - with Sam Neill, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Fassbender
Frontier of the Dawn [La frontière de l'aube] - dir. Philippe Garrel - with Louis Garrel, Laura Smet
Summer Hours [L'heure d'été] - dir. Olivier Assayas - with Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche, Jérémie Renier
La belle personne - dir. Christophe Honoré - with Louis Garrel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
Let It Rain [Parlez-moi de la pluie] - dir. Agnès Jaoui - with Agnès Jaoui
Days of Darkness [L'âge des ténèbres] - dir. Denys Arcand - with Diane Kruger, Rufus Wainwright, Emma de Caunes
Night and Day - dir. Hong Sang-soo
Disengagement [Désengagement] - dir. Amos Gitai - with Juliette Binoche, Jeanne Moreau
Dog Eat Dog [Perro come perro] - dir. Carlos Moreno
Everlasting Moments [Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick] - dir. Jan Troell
Fear Me Not [Den du frygter] - dir. Kristian Levring - with Ulrich Thomsen, Paprika Steen
I'm Going to Explode [Voy a explotar] - dir. Gerardo Naranjo - with Daniel Giménez Cacho
The Man from London [A Londoni férfi] - dir. Béla Tarr - with Tilda Swinton
The Necessities of Life [Ce qu'il fait pour vivre] - dir. Benoît Pilon
Paris - dir. Cédric Klapisch - with Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini, François Cluzet, Albert Dupontel, Karin Viard
When a Man Comes Home [En Mand kommer hjem] - dir. Thomas Vinterberg
White Night Wedding [Brúðguminn] - dir. Baltasar Kormákur - with Hilmir Snær Guðnason
A Year Ago in Winter [Im Winter ein Jahr] - dir. Caroline Link
Alexander the Last - dir. Joe Swanberg - with Jess Weixler, Justin Rice, Jane Adams, Josh Hamilton
Zift - dir. Javor Gardev

There are more titles at the link above, and I've also heard from elsewhere that Jean-Claude Brisseau's À l'aventure and Antti-Jussi Annila's Sauna are on the roster for 2009. I could be wrong, as I thought both Paris and Disengagement belonged to Samuel Goldwyn and Sony Pictures Classics, respectively. Expect plenty more acquisitions throughout the year following 2009's big film festivals.