French « Ambival.net

Posts Tagged ‘French’

Heartbreaker

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

“Don’t be offended but you look like a bit of a…”
“…Dickhead.”
“…Exactly.”
“…I feel good with you too…”

I feel a little guilty for not watching this sooner… if you know me at all you should know by now I’m a devout Vanessa Paradis fan and will always watch anything she’s in eventually, but the marketing for this that I saw didn’t really make out her role to be much at all; made the movie out to be a romantic comedy of the likes that I frankly feared could even turn me off her; and the Facebook page was the worst offender, reaching out to Vanessa Paradis fans (who hadn’t yet “liked” the film’s page) with competitions aimed directly at (I can’t think of a better way of saying this; either you know me and it won’t matter or you don’t, in which case, trust me, I mean well) tragically girly girls… y’know, the kind that think no men are capable of liking a movie like this so don’t even give them a chance? (I point to one of the more recent posts on that page: “This movie comes out on DVD in the US, on my birthday!!! I have already alerted my husband…”) (ugh… and since I first drafted this review months ago, the wall is now full of promo for the William and Kate movie… who the f**k is running that sh*t?)

Then there was Mark Kermode’s review… he somehow between watching the movie and talking about it managed to turn it in his memory into a typically xenophobic “French man: romantic; Englishman: evil” tale which it simply isn’t. Andrew Lincoln is in no way made out here to be a bad guy… an infuriatingly good guy, sure, and simply not the right guy in the end. He plays Vanessa Paradis’ fiancé. Romain Duris plays a guy who splits couples up for a living. Don’t let that concept put you off though – like Léon in The Professional, this guy has rules. He only goes to work if the woman is truly unhappy. We can tell when we meet Paradis and Lincoln that she’s not necessarily unhappy, and he’s certainly not the monster we’ve seen Duris work on in the prologue (looking for cracks, at one point Duris is disguised as a homeless man, staking out the couple at a restaurant – Lincoln gets a doggie bag to take his food home in – “Aha! a Cheapskate!” Duris happily proclaims, before Lincoln brings the doggie bag out to give the homeless people…). He usually wouldn’t take this job. But it turns out he likes the girl and he needs the money.

This movie made me laugh tons more than I expected, in fact I feel pretty safe saying it’s the most unashamedly enjoyable movie of 2010. With the Vanessa and the story and the comedy, this movie was already good enough even before the Dirty Dancing stuff came in. At first it’s little nods (Vanessa’s character is a big fan of the movie, Duris tries to acquaint himself with it to win her over)… but it builds to a sequence where they really do the full “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” dance. This would’ve thrilled me any time, but I’ve been really quite particularly into that movie lately and I’m not ashamed to say that this moment I damn near wet my pants with glee. Of course, not everyone will have this response to the movie… but sometimes a movie just comes along where that kind of thing just doesn’t matter, and for me this was that movie.

Tags: comedy, cuties, French, romance
Posted in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »

Charlotte for Ever

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

I actually didn’t even realise this was like a full length movie until I got ahold of it some time in the past year… I might’ve been more anxious/excited about finding it had I known this, but to be honest, even then I was more excited when I got hold of the “soundtrack” to the movie, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s debut CD “Lemon Incest”, which despite being strange, tacky and cheesy, I still think is oddly addictive and I’d even go so far as to say has more to recommend on it than Gainsbourg’s latest album IRM (though her album 5:55, I rush to add, is aeons above anything I’ll mention here…)

The plot, if you can call it that, is simple… Serge Gainsbourg plays an heavily alcoholic (we see him throwing up in the sink – apparently Gainsbourg genuinely doing this for the camera – and pissing blood – it’s not for the squeamish) screenwriter, sole guardian of his daughter, his wife/her mother having died in a car crash which may or may not have been caused by him. Big Gainsbourg is suicidal, Little Gainsbourg apathetic and a teenager. There are arguments, nudity, it’s all very French. That’s… about it lol.

I kinda feel compelled, even though I respect all involved in the movie, to say, it really is pretentious twaddle. But like “Lemon Incest”, there’s just something about it… and maybe it is simply that Charlotte is just such a joy to look at, clothed or not; or that Serge has that non-acting way of acting brilliantly, his face so worn down by a life truly lived. There’s pure aesthetics here that need no human hands to turn into art, and it’s something I’ll come back to likely again and again.

Tags: cuties, father-daughter, French, music, trash
Posted in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »

Sundays and Cybele aka Les dimanches de Ville d’Avray

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

It’s a long time since a movie so quickly became what I’m sure will ultimately be one of my permanent all-time faves, and this one has been sitting in my must-see queue for far too long, almost a year which is crazy considering how long and how badly I wanted to see it following various recommendations.

To me, this is one of the best versions, if not the best version, of the “Lolita story”. I have to explain what that means to me because I know some would be quick to disagree because of all the controversy about the “original” Lolita and direct adaptations thereof. I use Lolita as a shorthand for any story that has this complicated type of relationship between an older man and younger girl… some are sexual, some are not, but they all bring something to the table of what I think one of the most important discussions to be had, and Sundays and Cybele brings heaps to that table.

The movie’s closest recent relative is probably John Duigan’s Lawn Dogs, which bears the same unique quality as Sundays in that the relationship concerned is immediately made somewhat more “appropriate” by the older man being a kind of child himself, a victim of the horrors of war resulting in amnesia. He comes across Cybele (whose name is never actually given until a crucial moment at the end; one could argue the French original title would probably make the whole thing more poignant) sort of accidentally but the nature of his attraction is immediately clear… there’s nothing lecherous here whatsoever, just a lonely man who finds happiness in a beautiful child’s face and then finds that she needs him too. Of course, as in life, not everyone sees it that way.

There is a beauty to the second act, which mostly concerns the man’s regular Sunday meetings with Cybele, which I haven’t seen in a long time and is hard to put into words. As they walk along the river in what seems to be a constantly thickening haze, sometimes seen in the reflection of concentric circles on the water surface (“We’re in our home now,” Cybele says over this image), I lost myself in this movie as I have in few others, and truly didn’t want it to end. Though the movie takes a tragic turn, it’s these earlier, happier scenes that will stay with me, like the best kind of summer romance movies, you almost feel like you had an affair with Cybele too, and no matter where the movie ends, nothing can take those moments away. Cybele not only refuses to tell anybody else her real name at the movie’s emotional climax, but denies the name given to her previously by the orphanage, leaving us the viewers as the only ones left who really “knew her”. Like I say it’s a rare film that breaks through the screen and touches me so powerfully.

Tags: age, crime, cuties, fear, French, friendship, misunderstanding, romance, time
Posted in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »

Hurlevent

Monday, September 7th, 2009

I have to be honest, I had to check what I’d written on Twitter while watching this movie to remind myself what I did or did not like about it, lol, ‘cos it was a while ago now. Luckily, I made a few comments. This is the French take on Wuthering Heights, and as such the only one I’ve seen so far to feature nudity and a lot of flashes of underwear. There’s something perfect about even the idea of a French Wuthering Heights, and not just for the romantical aspects. There is that old thing about European women not shaving under their arms etc, a certain, if not “dirtiness” then at the least earthiness, which suits the love between Heathcliff and Cathy to a T, in my opinion at least. It’s odd that even though this version of the story is a contemporary adaptation, it’s grimier even than some of the more tired TV costumed attempts, and I loved that. It surprised me, too, how faithfully it follows the story. Because of the setting and title I expected something more “inspired by” than the transplanted retelling I got. There are some wonderful touches in bringing certain aspects of the original story into the more modern setting, like for example the feather print Cathy’s nightgown. It’s another interesting version of the story – not a favourite of mine but I’d take it gladly over yet another ITV period drama.

Tags: French, romance, Wuthering Heights
Posted in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »

Le Dîner de Cons

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

I’m going to try and watch as much French cinema for the next week or so before a short and long overdue trip to Paris, mostly pulled from the recommendations of a fantastic podcast I found on iTunes called FrenchPodClass (seems not to have been updated in almost a year but there’s still plenty of free downloadable content). This was the first recommendation and appealed to me in particular as it’s only just over 75 minutes in length.

Well, I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in a long time. This is a true comedy, truly simple, almost entirely set in one room and never actually getting to the dinner mentioned in its title (well, metaphorically notwithstanding). It reminded me of a play by John Godber I once saw (and, by connection I guess, just about all those class war plays) except that as opposed to wealth and status being the great divide here, the French version seems to be the war of intellects (of course, wealth and status come into this too). If you’ve read more than a handful of my reviews you might already know that I don’t usually go for pure comedy, nor do I often like movies about characters so mean as some of the protagonists here, but I guess for this I must make an exception. Though this does take a fairly melodramatic turn in the last act and I liked this part very much, I was still hoping that it was leading up to one final gutbusting gag, and I wasn’t let down. The movie, like those Northern British plays of old, has a very serious point to make on one level, but it’s also incredibly entertaining about it. I don’t know if it’s a movie I’d watch over and over, it really gives you its all in one sitting; but I’m very happy I took the short time required to see it. Highly recommended even if you never watched a foreign film before.

Tags: clash, class, comedy, French, intelligence, personality
Posted in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »

JCVD

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

This one kind of intrigued me and I was far from disappointed. You may have heard the story here: Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a version of himself in much the same way – in an at times similarly surreal story – as John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. Needless to say I haven’t really followed Van Damme’s real life for a while if ever so I was interested before writing this review in finding out how much, if anything, of the truth seeps in here; before realising that any “truth” I found could easily have been doctored to fit in with the film, lol, so I gave up. Which I guess is just one of the many things the movie could be about, that inevitable blur between fact and fiction that exists today, our sense of wanting and wanting to be celebrities and others in high places, and perhaps how they feel about the situation.

Unlike, apparently, many of those who praised the movie when it was released, I wasn’t overly wowed by the big surreal monologue moment here. Van Damme is fantastic for the duration, not just in this slightly too whiney segment, and I prefer the more subtle glances at the camera for breaking the fourth wall. It’s the kind of movie you can take mostly as tongue in cheek, a kind of clever curio, yet still get swept away by the drama. When the chaos is at a maximum inside the post office, I found myself genuinely fearful for the hostages etc. There’s a believability to the whole thing beneath the Brechtian pretense that kind of took me by surprise. It goes without saying that it’s Van Damme’s best film by leaps and bounds, but it works on its own merits as a heist movie too, and its originality is unquestionable.

Tags: celebrity, French, reality, surreal
Posted in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »

La Belle et La Bête

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

I’ve gotta begin by saying I’d still sooner revisit the Disney version having seen this, though that’s probably one of the least objectionable of my “I prefer the remake/sequel/more recent version” statement I’ve ever made here lol. However, though this begins fairly creakily and there is a slight need to stifle a laugh when the Beast first appears, the visuals and the fact that its heart is very much in the right place make it well worth the watch. There are significant differences in the story to the Disney version, particularly its Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty-like setup where Belle is the lowliest of three sisters rather than a quirky loner; and the fact we’re not fully informed as to the Beast’s backstory as in Disney’s prologue makes for a different story too. Something else that struck me about this movie was that, though I had subtitles, I could follow the fairly simple language most of the time; truly proof of great cinema is where the language is almost unnecessary. A movie I would check out again, but likely only in HD or the big screen.

Tags: French, romance
Posted in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »

À Ma Soeur aka Fat Girl

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Okay, these are kind of running together in my mind now, lol. This, the third of Catherine Braillat’s movie’s I’ve watched in the past few days, differentiates itself from the others by its violence right at the very end which I can’t deny kind of stunned me. The movie is all about this ending, not fully making sense re: why Breillat would cover the same area yet again until the very last line spoken almost direct to camera by the girl of the title. It’s kind of worth seeing once for the shock of those final moments, but what precedes them is really the same as RYG and Fillette … being more recent the production values are slightly higher but I don’t know if this is even a good thing for Breillat’s style. I’ve yet to be convinced she’s capable of anything more unique and memorable than her debut.

Tags: adolescence, cuties, French, rape, sex
Posted in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews | No Comments »