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Un homme idéal (2015)
Thriller? Yes but that's not all
Despite some inconsistencies in the plot--I can't figure out why Mathieu's in debt, he doesn't have expensive tastes--this is a pretty gripping murder thriller. Plagiary has been used before (remember Morvern Callar when the girl steals her dead boyfriend's book) but rarely with such entertaining results. To go from labourer to acclaimed novelist must be the dream of many; here it really happens. Pierre Niney has made some fine films in the last few years--Yves Saint Laurent, Frantz--here he shows how desperate this man can get when he's cornered. Ana Girardot plays his fiancee; she's somewhat spoiled but that doesn't prevent her from starting to suspect Mathieu's intentions. Marc Barbe plays a really slimy blackmailer, dripping with malice and faux-friendliness. Great cast, fine entertainment.
Tapage nocturne (1979)
A curiosity
Here's a real curiosity. This film isn't mentioned in my film guides; it seems to have disappeared from view over the decades, and the stars have all died young or had their careers cut short for various reasons. Dominique Laffin had a promising career in film--she was excellent in comedy--but died at 33. Bertrand Bonvoisin died of cancer at 39. Marie-Helene Breillat, sister of the director, had to give up her career owing to mental problems. Only Catherine Breillat has gone on to a solid career.
So, what of TAPAGE NOCTURNE? It's a feeble effort about a girl who sleeps around for no real reason; the production is almost primitive, sets austere (no money), script weak. I gave up trying to analyze the characters' motivations--they didn't appear to have any. Laffin wasn't even given any real zingers to liven things up; all she had to do was show us her splendid breasts. I must thank Criterion Channel for allowing me to see this.
Madeleine Collins (2021)
When we practice to deceive...
I thought of Tom Ripley desperately trying to keep all his balls in the air, in THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, of how he almost went nuts trying to play one character off against another--and that was a murder story. Judith/Margot hasn't killed anybody, yet her distress at having to keep up this act is crushing her, and even the viewer a little. The script is either unintentionally vague or deliberately so--I was never able to decide which. We are left with some excellent performances: Quim Gutierrez is outstanding as the extremely frustrated Abdel, never sure of where he stands with 'Margot', and Bruno Salomone as the conductor just drips with self-satisfaction; rarely have I seen a man so unconcerned with being a cuckold. The distress shown by Judith's parents in one amazing scene has to be seen to be appreciated. It's a shame that the story had to be so confusing with performances like these.
I'm a great admirer of Virginie Efira; I've seen a half-dozen or so of her films and she's excellent in both comedy and drama. She's going to have a long career, as Catherine Deneuve has had.
Running on Empty (1988)
Gus Winant
Nobody has written about Winant--of the reviews I read--so I'll have to. When he erupts into the placid household of Arthur Pope, ready to turn everything upside down, there's a dramatic shift of focus. The gentle socialism we've been getting from Arthur and Annie disappears and we now are confronted by an American-style Baader-Meinhof gang--guns and craziness. For the first time since the film's beginning, we see where violence leads to, and the awful consequences of these choices.
Arthur is shown to be a humourless martinet who's only too willing to dictate tastes in music (in everything, really) to Annie and the boys. Annie thinks Gus is the best thing she's seen in years, and you wait for her to run off with him. Why does she not? An instinct for self-preservation of course.
The performances are mostly very fine. Phoenix and Plimpton are excellent as the young lovers, while Lahti's frustration and bitterness show with great clarity in her face; it's her best movie I think. L. M. Carson as the Nietzschean superhero is superb. Only Hirsch with his monotonous voice fails to impress me--I'd have preferred Sam Shepard.
Age of Consent (1969)
Australia is lovely...
... but the people can be awful. Take Jack MacGowran's character, the worst kind of leech and thief you can imagine; a guy you would really like to bash with a tire iron if you had one. He'll trade on a past acquaintance to invite himself into your cabin, then eat your food, drink your beer and proceed to steal your money and some art work into the bargain. Then there's Granny, played by Neva Carr-Glynn, a real piece of work. Bigoted and stupid in equal measure, she steals from Cora and calls her a prostitute, while drinking constantly. James Mason has to suffer these people while trying to overcome Helen Mirren's prudish reluctance to posing naked. Four good performances, plus some supporting actors doing well. Fun.
Eo (2022)
The wrangler is the star
As a kid, I sat down every week to watch Lassie, it was one of the more engrossing shows on TV. She and Rin-Tin-Tin were very well trained dogs indeed; they were great crime solvers.
Eo is the opposite of those dogs: he just dumbly accepts whatever misfortunes come his way. The human characters have no effect on the story, it's all Eo all of the time. When Bresson made Au hasard Balthasar, he carefully constructed a story for his human characters to work out, but Skolimowski has made no attempt to do the same. The result is a boring story with indifferent people (the circus worker who uses Eo to haul his cart doesn't seem fazed when the officials descend on the circus to seize the property). I felt that the real star of the movie was the wrangler; it must be hard to get a dumb obstinate animal to go through his paces.
Seules les bêtes (2019)
Bleak French mountains, torrid Ivory Coast slum
Dominik Moll has given us some great thrillers in the past: Harry, un ami..., Lemming, La nuit du 12. This one is harder to unravel, as it deals with multiple points of view. You are not even sure there has been a murder until near the end. Who could have killed the rich bisexual woman? There are a number of suspects, and the police, in the person of Bastien Bouillon (who played the cop in La nuit du 12) really have no leads. There is some fine acting from the leads: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi as the rich woman who wonders how she can disentangle herself from a messy infatuation with a woman young enough to be her daughter; Nadia Tereszkiewicz as the young woman dangerously obsessed with her indifferent lover; Denis Menochet as the farmer whose chat room usage turns out to be disastrous for him and the people around him. There are some weaknesses in the third act which prevent me from giving this a 10.
Men (2022)
Seen it all before
Gee... you'd be pardoned for thinking that you'd seen it all before. The many versions of Jane Eyre (poor Jane having to deal with Mr Rochester's crazy wife), Julie Harris in The Haunting, stuck in that death trap house in the country with the crazy servants, Deborah Kerr in The Innocents, having to deal with a sinister family setup: all these examples of women in jeopardy because of the paternalistic attitudes of the supporting characters.
Well now we have yet another tale of a woman in danger in a remote country house--it will take four hours for her friend to drive there to give support--and the only difference is the men are all played by Rory Kinnear, who is a fine actor but overworked here. I have to admit I'm really not a fan of Alex Garland: his films seem to play to well established patterns that audiences will go for. The blood all over the set does look real.
Le scandale Clouzot (2017)
Why I don't like HGC
I think about the directors of the period 1930-1960 that I admire--Renoir, Clair, Carne, Gremillon, Duvivier and others--and I realize that I have little admiration or affection for Clouzot. His obsessive, paranoid style of filmmaking has little attraction for me. There's no joy in being the French Hitchcock, in bullying your actors and putting nightmarish scenes up on the screen. Take Les diaboliques, with the awful scene of Paul Meurisse lying in the bathtub, then rising slowly to frighten Vera Clouzot to death: only a sadistic personality could shoot a scene like that. It's Clouzot's Psycho, and just as worthless as art. A collaborator is interviewed: she says his flaw was in not having any imagination. He'd ask his actress Suzy Delair to make up some dialogue because he couldn't think of anything to write down.
The end of this 60 minute documentary came not too soon. I've got some films by Jacques Becker I want to rewatch... now there was a real filmmaker.
The Comfort of Strangers (1990)
It's no classic
Hmmm... As I watched this my mind kept slipping off to great movies about Venice I've seen over the years: Death in Venice with Dirk Bogarde wandering through the city, besotted with Tadzio; Don't Look Now, Roeg's finest film, that makes the city look really menacing; Eva with Jeanne Moreau as the femme fatale for a lost Stanley Baker; Senso, one of Visconti's best films with Farley Granger and Alida Valli working out their doomed love affair. Four films that I'd take with me to a desert island (which would not have canals, of course).
Then I had to return to this limp noodle of a story. Everett looks like he's been making Calvin Klein briefs commercials, Richardson sounds chirpy and fun and you can't figure out what she's doing with these people, Walken and Mirren don't look like they could be married to anybody anywhere. Some nice exterior shots, and the music is fine.
Sound of Metal (2019)
Not the classic some expected
I was continually reminded of Children of a Lesser God while watching this. That movie from the 80's had William Hurt, showing warmth for once, and a really fine performance from Marlee Matlin as a deaf girl; it is much preferable to this well meaning but confused story about a heavy metal drummer who loses his hearing. The second act, at the deaf school, is full of platitudes about what deafness means. I shook my head when the director told Ruben to sit down and write every morning, even if he couldn't stand to do so. And Ruben of course hates the very idea of putting pen to paper--if it were me I'd feel greatly relieved at the chance for self expession. It only remains to say that there is no chemistry between Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke.
Mozart: Don Giovanni (2019)
The Don lives
Well, I wanted to get this off my chest first-off: IMDb makes it hard for users. Carlos Alvarez, the wonderful Spanish baritone who sings Don Giovanni here, is listed as Carlos Alvarez VII in the database; it took me a quarter hour to locate him and find this video to review. I can't believe that the other Carlos Alvarezes are that important they need to be billed over the singer.
But enough of that. We have a fine production here, albeit in the cavernous venue of the old Roman amphitheatre in Verona, big enough for twenty horses at least, floats and banners, and completely lacking in intimacy. Watch it for the singers and the costumes which are splendid.
Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season 2019/20: Don Giovani (2019)
Wonderful Don Giovanni
The Royal Opera House really excelled in their production of Mozart's most often performed opera (I'm guessing). The sets are terrific: a house with balcony that revolves is a super idea by Es Devlin. The costumes are attractive: Donna Elvira wears a sleek black gown that mirrors her disturbed emotional state very well; Giovanni is dressed in a stylish blue suit and vest that make him look more conventional than he really is. Erwin Schrott is the best Giovanni I've seen in a long time, with a very expressive voice and gestures, Myrto Papatanassiu is angry and forgiving in equal measure, while Roberto Tagliavini is just about perfect as the hapless Leporello--he will have to find a better master.
El bruto (1953)
Routine, with some flashes of brilliance
After watching four Bunuel films from his Mexican period, I conclude that by working in Mexico he was forced into making movies with sober stories and sober, even though corrupt, characters. El bruto could have been made by any American B movie director; Sam Peckinpah might have made a tight little classic out of it. There's no surrealism at all in this one.
Pedro Armendariz uses his enormous star power to give an unforgettable performance as the brute, a 'slow thinker' as he calls himself--he's a Victor McLaglen type only a lot sexier. Katy Jurado, the female equivalent of Armendariz in popularity, is wonderfully mendacious here. And Andres Soler as the grasping landlord reminds me so much of Walter Huston; they could have been brothers. Enjoyable to watch, because of the performances, just don't expect the usual Bunuel touches.
Deux heures à tuer (1966)
Routine noir from the 60's
From the Michel Simon 6-pack I recently bought. Two of my favourite actors from the 1930's, Michel Simon and Pierre Brasseur, and Raymond Rouleau one of the handsomest stars in France after the war, plus two singing stars, Jean-Roger Caussimon and Catherine Sauvage join forces to make a fitfully absorbing noir set in a railway station in a sleepy French town. There's been a murder, or a series of murders, I wasn't too sure, and the police seem helpless to solve the case. The married couple played by Caussimon and Sauvage are too offputting to engage our interest, Simon throws a temper fit for some reason I couldn't discern, and Brasseur is left to hold the story together which he does pretty well. This film is primarily for people who feel sentimental about train stations going to seed in towns that time has passed by.
Cécile est morte! (1944)
Albert Prejean ineffective as Maigret
Kino Lorber has once again done a fine job with this restoration; the b/w cinematography comes through with utmost clarity in this Blu-ray reissue. The performances by Germaine Kerjean as the greedy aunt and Jean Brochard as the crooked charity worker are excellent, so to is that by Santa Relli as the hapless Cecile. The problem lies with Prejean's Maigret, always sarcastic and bullying, the opposite of the Maigret of the novels. I guess the scriptwriter had to pay tribute to Prejean's working class background--he'd been a boxer and stunt man--but it's hard for me to accept. Gabriello's character is blown out of proportion, he's given lines to say that just don't fit Lucas' role in the novel. If you can ignore these flaws, you'll enjoy a good story.
Une femme à sa fenêtre (1976)
A certain tradition of quality
It's passed into legend: how the young Turks of French cinema--Truffaut, Chabrol, Godard and the others--wanted to sweep away the dusty relics of the previous generation, the so-called well made films. What's less known is how those young Turks went on to make some of the stuffiest movies of the late 60's and 70's: I'm thinking of Resnais's Stavisky, Chabrol's Juste avant la nuit and La decade prodigieuse, Truffaut's Dernier Metro. The art decoration and costumes are impeccable; the stories often leave you falling asleep. Pierre Granier-Deferre is the same age as the men I've mentioned, but never gave in to the urge to experiment. As a result he never fell into total boredom, just as he never excites us.
Drieu la Rochelle killed himself in 1945 before he could be charged with collaborating with the Germans, so he's always been a little daring for film directors. Louis Malle, who would take on any project, made a great film out of Le feu follet. Granier-Deferre is careful not to upset the sensibilities of those who remember the war, and the horrors of collaboration. I'm sure he makes Boutros out to be a more sympathetic character than he is in the novel. Victor Lanoux plays him with a lot of charm, making him a great foil for Romy Schneider who is at the peak of her glory here. Philippe Noiret gives excellent support as the rich man who wants to support Romy. It's a shame the direction is so stodgy; the camera hardly moves in those overdecorated rooms.
Les inconnus dans la maison (1942)
Great performance by Raimu
First let me say the Kino Lorber blu ray edition is a beautiful job; the black and white tones come through wonderfully well. A seventy year old film looks almost new.
Some people may dislike the idea of a great star moving out of his comfort zone--movies like Carnet de bal, the Marius trilogy, or the Guitry films--but for me it is wonderful to see Raimu playing an almost terminally cynical and used up man in this one. Loursat seems only one disappointment away from death, and the power of his performance is only increased when we see the supporting cast going about their routines in a boring provincial town. (I wondered why Nicole stayed in that mouldering house--it certainly wasn't for love of her father.) Some famous French movie people--Gabin, Renoir, Clair--left for Hollywood when the war broke out, but the ones who remained made some wonderful pictures, like this one.
La femme d'à côté (1981)
Fanny Ardant carries the film
Depardieu is capable in this role of a happy middle class guy who is ready for a crazy adventure that will threaten his marriage and security, but it is Fanny Ardant as the woman who will upset the apple cart decisively who really shines in this movie. She's like a classical heroine in her recklessness and willingness to grab all the happiness she can find in this small town. Her husband is devoted to her, thoughtful and pragmatic--that's probably why she risks everything pursuing Depardieu.
My enjoyment was diminished by the insertion of Mme Jouve's character who offers a commentary on the events on screen, for reasons I can only guess at. Did Truffaut not trust his own story telling skills that he had to write in this superfluous character, or did he owe a favour to Veronique Silver? We'll never know.
Mado (1976)
Disappointment
Mado came as part of a Romy Schneider 3-pack from Panoceanic films, the other two being Les innocents aux mains sales and Le mouton enrage. It's the weakest of the three because of Claude Sautet's clumsy direction: this man always packs his movies with as many bit players as he can, possibly because he doesn't trust his ability to make a scene work using only two actors in the frame. The finale in the rainstorm with the road turned to mud is made even worse by the fifteen or so actors who have to create some stage business out of nothing.
Another cavil: as others have pointed out, Romy Schneider is onscreen for barely five minutes and gets equal billing with Piccoli and Piccolo who have so much more to do. The supporting actors are thankfully very good: Michel Aumont and Julien Guiomar are villainous as corrupt real estate moguls, and Charles Denner, whom I've loved in many films, does a great job with a crook who wants to see justice done, on his terms.
Le mouton enragé (1974)
How to rise to the top, if you have no scruples
Michel Deville was of the same generation as Truffaut, Chabrol and Godard, but resembles them not at all. He seems to belong to an older generation, like Carne and Renoir, but much more eroticized. The story is that of mentor and student (sort of Svengali and Trilby, but with two men). The homosexual undercurrent of the story should not be too hard to see for most viewers. Trintignant is the shy 'sheep' of the title, his overbearing mentor, who has emotional problems owing to his club foot, is Cassel, one of his most impressive performances.
I don't know who is really the female lead--is it Birkin or Schneider? They both have very important roles. Florinda Bolkan, so great in Investigation of a Citizen..., has another memorable role here. Mary Marquet, almost 80 at the time, has a superb cameo as the very rich woman Trintignant has to romance.
Une intime conviction (2018)
Long but rewarding
You won't like Nora very much; her interest in the Viguier case has tipped over into obsession. She's neglecting her son who resents her for this, she's treating her boyfriend almost like a servant... she's a piece of work. But she has one saving grace: she's really committed to the case, and she manages to get a first-rate lawyer interested in defending the man who'd already been tried once for murder.
The lawyer, played by Olivier Gourmet, turns out to be almost a magician. His closing speech is a barn burner, it recalls Raimu in Les Inconnus dans la maison in its power. For this finale alone, the film deserves to be seen.
The box gives the title as CONVICTION, which is a concession to tthe North American market which I regret.
Au poste! (2018)
Keep an eye (in the strict sense) out
When I see Benoit Poelvoorde's name on a movie, I always watch. He's become the new Pierre Richard, if you remember The Blond Man With a Brown Shoe from the 70's. Only thing, Poelvoorde is much tougher than the benign Richard. Watching him can be a little exhausting.
Whatever, here we have a surrealist caper masquerading as a police procedural. I think Dupieux must have been influenced by Bunuel and by Argento, for the surreal aspects and the violence. What happens to Philippe in the office has to be seen to be believed (it involves a protractor). The acting is first rate, from Poelvoorde as the bullying detective and Gregoire Ludig as the harried suspect. There's a wonderful turn by Anais Demoustier as Philippe's girlfriend, constantly saying 'actually' to everyone's exasperation. I'll be looking out for more of Dupieux's work.
The Pretendians (2022)
Very useful, very timely
Drew Hayden Taylor has given us the best description of the 'pretendians' that we are ever likely to have. These white people pretending to be native Canadians are occupying teaching posts at the universities, and draining tax money from our governments. Imagine people calling a car dealer and asking for delivery of a car to a reserve, then showing a fake 'status card' which means they don't have to pay sales taxes on the vehicle.
Liana Constantino is interviewed; she is a Cherokee who has taken pains to expose a 'pretendian' named Robert Lovelace who teaches at Queen's University. Professor Lovelace proves to be very hard to locate, and the band he claims to belong to seemingly doesn't exist. Thanks to Mr Taylor for exposing a blight on our society.
This Angry Age (1958)
Plodding version of Duras novel
Rene Clement will be remembered for Plein Soleil, in which Alain Delon played Ripley perfectly, and Jeux interdits, which brought a whole new dimension, that of children's impressions of war, to the war film. If This Angry Age (AKA Barrage contre le Pacifique, The Sea Wall) is very forgettable that doesn't detract from Clement's well earned reputation. Jo van Fleet creates another in a line of formidable mother figures--she indulges in some scene-chewing in some scenes. Anthony Perkins plays a petulant teenager; it's so annoying to watch him pout and squirm. Silvana Mangano brings some class and talent to the enterprise; you can at least imagine that her heart has been broken over the flawed diamond. Richard Conte is solid and believable. Thanks to somebody on Youtube, I was able to watch this.