PARIS MEMORIES

The new film from Alice Winocour is out from Picturehouse Entertainment on August 4th

Paris Memories is a film that is at once still and about being alive, living but coping with death, Winocour's new film follows Mia (Virginie Efira) our lead protagonist who is present for an atrocious act of barbarity when seeking refuge from a torrential downpour in a Parisian bistro. Her beau has had to return to work and she is alone when the attack happens, she hides under a table holding an African man’s hand they remain safe and are connected by this moment.

For Winocour this was a personal film as she states; 'My brother was at the Bataclan on November 13th. While he was hiding, I stayed in contact with him by text for part of the night. The film was inspired by my own memories of the trauma and by the account my brother gave in the days after the attack. I experienced for myself how events are deconstructed, and often reconstructed, by memory.” 

The Bataclan attacks occured in 2015 and much like the July 7th attacks in London, they are a constant reminder that a threat is around the corner but from the ashes of tragedy the power of healing and resilience can come to the fore.

An admired linguist who is renowned for her professionalism and a sort of rebel or outsider due to her riding a motorbike, she seeks solace following the event. Three months later, Mia is still unable to get her life back in order only remembering fleeting moments of the night, she attempts to investigate her memories to return to happiness. She attends therapy groups at the location as survivors tell their stories and yet she is met in opposition by one lady who accuses her of locking the bathroom door saving herself while others died.

Winocour is a director who engages with the milieu and mise-en-scene of the film, having her characters become one with the location and the location a part of the story. Tellingly the first shot we see post-siege is that of a Paris landmark with cars circling the monument, life goes on for everybody else in the major city yet for those who had to endure the attack the feeling of moving on is one that fills them with dread. A guilt of surviving while others were lost, she learns to cope through the struggle of daily work as anxiety grips her existence.

Winocour and Efira (as the focal point) have created a drama of quiet intensity and introspection about confronting the build up of overwhelming emotion that comes with witnessing a seismic event of tragedy; the film takes care to show that there is beauty in the world (a baby's cry) and yet there are those that will kill innocents willingly.

Yet Efira capably shows envy in her eyes at those who go about their business and how anything from the lighting of candles on a cake can illicit memories of the night. As Winocour mentions in press notes, she was more interested in the traces the attack left on the victims than attempting to explain the attack itself.

Efira deservedly won Best Actress at the 2022 Cesar Awards (French Oscars) for this performance is an actress who usually plays women who are unravelled or provoked (Verhoeven's Benedetta), her she plays Mia as a tightly wrought ball until the emotion finally comes to the surface. The empathy of her work here coupled with natural charm is a primer to the success of the film and how her every-person quality endears her to the viewership as she becomes a sort of detective in her quest for answers as she pieces together the fragments of her memory from that horrific evening.

Shot beautifully by Stephane Fontaine (A Prophet), the film is a message of hope in a sometimes mad world. Photograhed for the majority in medium and close up so that the intensity of the performance never waivers from the viewer and that comes from the quiet brilliance of Virginie Efira. This coupled with the same team of regular collaborators such as Julien Lacheray (Editor) and Pascaline Chavanne (Costume Design), this is a film of maturity and importance.

Paris Memories is the first time Winocour has filmed in her capital city and Paris itself becomes a character within the film wearing its scars for all to see while its inhabitants attempt to make sense of their position in the tragedy.

The recurring trope of hands touching and the need for connection amongst these souls, almost ghosts, is paramount and in Winocour's sympathetic and delicate handling the film touchingly attempts to make sense of the upheaval thrust upon Mia, Thomas and the others.

A film that is both resonant and emotional, touching and clear that there is hope within the world.

Paris Memories is out on 4th August in cinemas nationwide.

Smoking Causes Coughing

 

New Quentin Dupieux film out 7th July from Picturehouse Entertainment

Any film from Dupieux is an event, not one of those Indiana Jones/Mission:Impossible type events, but a reminder that the French film-maker and all around visual medium specialist is back with another great yarn to share with the world.

In this instance, he has offered us Smoking Causes Coughing where he takes a five person superhero troupe who are governed by their puppet leader to combat the world challenging events.

The film begins with a family having to make a rest stop for their child to go to the toilet, during that stop the child sees Tobacco Force (Benzene, Methanol, Nicotine, Mercure and Ammoniaque) fighting a giant turtle whom they destroy with their combined tobacco powers to make him explode.

From the get go you notice this battle is not like anything we see nowadays in superhero films with mass CGI and expert choreography, instead we are treated to an affection tribute to the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers with ill-fitting costumes, over the top costumes and lots of fake blood.

Dupieux has a knack of making loopy and eccentric narratives, which is indicative of his own feverish personality, his attention span flies from one thing to another. Following their triumph, the Force report back to their boss - Chief Didier - a puppet rat who is the head of Tobacco Force and is highly desirable to any woman who encounters him.

Didier sends the team off to a retreat so they can reconvene and rebuild their teamwork which has been lacking on recent assignments, upon this retreat the world learns of a new threat to the world by evil Lezardin who threatens to destroy the Earth. Can Tobacco Force co-exist or will the world be snuffed out?

On their retreat, the team take to telling ghost stories of lore which means we break from the camp and see these stories told from a woman who cannot take off a helmet which shuts out the world to a nephew visiting his aunt at a farm with tragic results. 

The point of these narrative shifts or breakaways is a chance for the viewer to re-focus themselves away from the hectic chaotic world we find ourselves in at the moment - the moments of levity throughout from the supermarket fridge to the macabre moments of body horror are genuinely funny and welcome upon first watch.

Dupieux fortuitously has a game cast amongst his five leads who all play it straight and themselves show enough of the kinship as a group while maintaining individuality from missing their children while saving the world to seeking romance.

A funny yet fleeting film of 80 minutes and a love letter to those crazy Saturday morning superhero shows that stay with you, much like this film does.

Smoking Causes Coughing is out from 7th July via Picturehouse Entertainment

A Woman's Life (Une vie)

Released on Friday 12th January from Arrow Films, Une Vie is a French film adaptation of the novel by Guy de Maupassant from director Stephane Brize (The Measure of A Man) which tells the story of one woman and her life, where she marries a scoundrel, has a son who is difficult and all in all her life does not meet the high mark of ambition she hoped for.

Shot majestically with a regal air, the film has a painterly quality reminiscent of notable French film-making from Eric Rohmer to the renaissance painting of Monet and Vermeer.

Figures standing in medium shot allowing a performance to take hold and come to fruition, you can feel the harshness of the environment helped by the lack of orchestral soundtrack; Brize chooses to use the wind and weather to provide the noise swirling within Jeanne's (Judith Chemla) delicate psyche.

A film for cinephiles and those amour with French cinema especially, the film is both ravishing for the eye and a dramatic film of a life gone wrong; with a brilliant performance by Judith as the woman whose life we watch.

Yet it is a strange film; a male has written this epic sweeping film full of lustrous landscapes and sweeping vistas a la Wuthering Heights, yet she treats her female lead with a certain level of contempt. She is unattractive for large sections of the film, down at heel and treated with contempt by male protagonists - from her lying husband to her stay away son - even to the director himself who does not use capital letters 'une vie' for the film's title page at the film's conclusion.

A Woman's Life is released from Arrow Films on Friday 12th February in selected cinemas.

Life of Riley (Aimer, Boire et Chanter)

The final film of Alain Resnais Life of Riley is his third adaptation of British playwright Alan Ayckbourn after Smoking/No Smoking (1993) and Private Fears in Public Places (2006), is a farewell to the world from a truly great artist.

In the midst of rehearsals for a new play, amateur dramatists Colin (Hippolyte Girardot) and Kathryn (Sabine Azema) receive the news that their friend George is fatally ill.  Life begins to come apart at the seams - not just for the lead pair, but also their friends Tamara (Caroline Silhol) and Monica (Sandrine Kiberlain), who along with Kathryn all hold a candle for the dying George. Long buried dreams begin to surface, and much to the chagrin of their husbands the three women fight amongst themselves to see who accompanies George on his final journey on holiday to Tenerife.

Placing the action in an almost entire studio world, Resnais succeeds in creating an artificial world for the characters to perform in.  The fact they are breaking into reading of lines from time to time, whilst discussing the welfare of George, means the wall is broken in terms of performance by the couples.  Especially Colin and Kathryn who break character to carry on bickering about their marriage.

In some ways, Resnais being the natural observer of life he is, he allows his characters to follow their hopes and desires to the extreme and have it front and centre instead of repressed and simmering under the surface.

Shot with full of colour in the set design and the costumes worn by the characters especially the three women who all wear bold colours throughout, the film stands as a testament to the Resnais oeuvre and a fitting finale to his career.

Life of Riley is out now from Eureka Entertainment

Grand Central

 

GRAND CENTRAL stars two of France’s most exciting and talented actors - Léa Seydoux, winner of the Palme d’Or in 2013 for her stunning performance in Blue Is The Warmest Colour, and Tahar Rahim who received many accolades for his gripping performance in A Prophet including two César Awards and Best Actor from the European Film Awards. 

Gary (Tahar Rahim) is young, agile and a quick learner.  He's one of those guys who's never been promised anything.  After a succession of odd jobs, he’s taken on at a nuclear power plant.  There, amongst the reactors and their high doses of radioactivity, he finally finds what he's been looking for: money, a team, a family.  But the team also includes Karole (Léa Seydoux), the wife of his colleague, Toni (Denis Menochet), with whom he falls in love.

While the film may follow the familiar narrative arc of forbidden love and thou shall not covet thy neighbours wife, the film is elevated beyond the average by having two starlets such as Rahim and Seydoux, who are head and shoulders above the rest of French actors currently.  Menochet does well with the idiot husband role, Menochet starred in the brilliant French drama The Returned, which has provided a springboard to many a French actor in recent years.

At times beautifully shot when in the countryside, and the young director Rebecca Zlotowski (Belle epine) has an observant eye to relationships and garners electrifying performances from the actors involved, evoking passion and a certain enigmatic quality not to be missed.

The film is released on Home Entertainment DVD and Download on Monday 10th November by StudioCanal. 

www.studiocanal.co.uk

Les Enfants du Paradis

Originally released in 1945 at the tail end of the Second World War whilst Paris was still burning, Marcel Carne's film Les Enfants du Paradis is considered one of the greatest if not the most notable French film of all time, in the same vein and scale as Hollywood's Gone With The Wind from six years previously.

It is a rare slice of art house cinema from the French 1940s and tells the story of Parisian courtesan Garance (Arletty) and the four men who are in love with her - an aristocrat, a thief, an actor and a mime - based upon actual larger than life people from the 1820s and 1830s, where the film is based.

Carne originally released the film into two parts - beating Harry Potter and Twilight by 70 years - Boulevard du Crime and L'Homme Blanc.  As Paris was still under Nazi occupation, Carne attempted to get past censors by splitting the film in two, and then restore the film to its original length once the war was over.

It is important to understand and appreciate the lengths Carne went to in his production.  The sheer scale of the film in terms of extras, production, costume and art direction is immense and to consider that this film was done under enormous levels of oppression is all the more staggering when you see the final results.

The script written by Carne and in collaboration with Jacques Prevert, a surrealist poet is indicative of the input.  The film feels like one long poem visually and sonically due to the sumptuous score by Joseph Korma.  Carne's vision of Paris is a romantic notion of fonder times and persuasions.  The fact that the film was made shows the defiant French backbone which withstood the Nazi invasion.

Whilst the film is at times a bum-numbing 190 minutes, it does suffer from a pacing issue after all the main male characters are introduced; but the richness of the production wins out in the end, rewarding those who do stick it out.

Carne mixes all form of cinema and artistry; great soundtrack, wonderful acting with piercing dialogue and even mime performed by Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault), especially in one of the opening scenes when he performs a sequence to save Garance from a wrongful accusation of theft by a buffoon.  The scene is not rushed and allowed to gestate, to the benefit of all in view. We watch the mime, the audience in the square watch him, all are transfixed.

Carne would continue directing into the 1980s absorbing the bashing of La Nouvelle Vague, yet he would never hit the same heights of Les Enfants du Paradis - a wonderful and breathless love letter to Paris and France, when it most needed it.

Les Enfants du Paradis is released on two-disc DVD or Blu-ray by Second Sight Films on Monday 17th September.
My thanks to Aim Publicity for the check disc.

Bertrand Bonello Q&A

French director Bertrand Bonello returns with his fifth film, House of Tolerance (L’Apollonide), a languid yet compelling story of a Parisian brothel at the beginning of the 20th Century. Featuring an ensemble cast of female talent, including Hafsia Herzi and Jasmine Trinca, the story rigorously shows daily life in the house – the camaraderie, the anguish and the horrors of serving men in this age-old profession. Below, Bonello reports how the film came to him in a series of dreams, how scared he was working with a dozen women and gives an insight into his next film, a biopic of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.  

Q: What interested you about this era? 

A: I started to work on this because I really wanted to do a film with a bunch of young girls. And I didn’t want to do a film that would tell love stories today. So I tried to find a strong image of young girls, and then I came to this image of the girls in brothels in the beginning of the twentieth century. I had read some books and I was very impressed by their strength. So after that I started to do some research, and the second thing that really excited me was not prostitution but the location. The idea of setting up a film in a brothel…for me was a fantastic location for a movie, a fantastic place for cinema. 

Q: It feels very claustrophobic and oppressive inside. Was that the kind of atmosphere you were looking for? 

 A: Yes. For me the fact there is no possibility to go outside, and no windows opened, you’re cut from reality. The outside does not exist. So for me, it was the possibility to make a film that would become more and more mental to the brain! To me, the brothel is like a movie theatre. When you come into a movie theatre, there are no windows, you don’t hear the sound outside and you’re ready for fantasy. 

Q: How did you find working with all these women on set? 

 A: I was a little scared before. It’s twelve girls so you never know! But the casting was nine months, a very long casting, and I was very obsessed with finding good actress I like, but most of all finding the group. So I think I did, and they really got on together very, very well. I felt more like a football manager – though that’s eleven and not twelve! 

Q: Are many of the actresses well known in France?  

A: Only one – Hafsia Herzi, who won the César for the Kechiche film Couscous. And there is another one [Jasmine Trinca] who is Italian and very famous in Italy.  

Q: But there wasn’t any pressure to cast a well-known face in the film? 

A: Not too much, not too much. I accepted to meet some famous actresses, but the distributors agreed that they were not so good for the part. If you have someone too famous, it’s difficult to make a group, because you see just her.  

Q: You use split-screen and contemporary music at times. What was behind your stylistic choices? 

A: There were many things. First of all, I decided not to feel free about everything I wanted to put in the film. One fear when you make a film in one location is that it’s going to be theatrical. So I wanted to give myself the possibility to use all the tools of cinema. Split screen is one of them, and so are the flash-forwards. And for me, the split-screen was…I saw the film very much as a film of prison, and the split screen was like security cameras. This idea that you’re never alone; even in the bathroom there is someone watching you. And the music…it’s soul music from the Sixties. I don’t know why but for me the soul music represents very well the idea I had of this bunch of women in a brothel. Maybe because there is a relationship with slavery, maybe because it’s soul, but really the sound of the girls for me was this music. I don’t have a theory about why, it was just a sensation.  

Q: You also show a contemporary shot of Paris at the end. Why? 

A: Well, it’s a fake documentary – but it’s meant to show foreign students. It’s true that now, most prostitutes are from abroad. First of all, there is one character who is the same, and it shows that it was her destiny to be a prostitute for life. Even a hundred years after, she’s still a prostitute. It’s something about destiny. I like the idea that we showed it this way, because only cinema can do that. The other thing is, for me, I saw the film as a matrix. And how do you get out of a matrix at the end, and back to reality?  

Q: The most powerful image is the facial scar that Madeleine endures. Is it true that this was based on the Victor Hugo novel, L’Homme Qui Rit?  

A: In fact, the film that was made of the novel. It’s a film that was made in the twenties – The Man Who Laughs. It’s a silent film by Paul Leni. I saw that when I was a kid, and the images really stayed very strongly inside of me. When I started to write, three nights in a row I dreamed of this film. I don’t know why. So when I woke up on the fourth morning, I said ‘OK, I’m going to try to put it inside the film to see how it goes.’ And then as soon as I started to write the first sequence I had a skeleton for my film with this character.  

Q: Do you think because you were reading about the subject a lot, that’s why you were dreaming about it? 

A: Ha! Yeah, maybe. And this film of Paul Leni, it’s one my very few strong images from childhood, in terms of film. I saw it again when I was writing, to see if there were some details I could pick up. It’s a heartbreaking film.  

Q: Have you had any problems with censorship with the film?  

A: Not problems. A little bit in Asia. I don’t remember exactly which countries – I think Taiwan and Singapore. But the film also sold well abroad. I didn’t have many problems. I’ve had my problems with my other films, Tiresa and The Pornographer.  

Q: Obviously, you’re showing it exactly as it was, so the nudity is not gratuitous… 

A: Exactly. And at the same time, if you think about the film, there are no real sex scenes. So there’s no real point of using censorship. 

Q: And the men often seem to be clothed, with the women naked around them… 

A: Yes, that’s what I read. Even women, you see the breasts but they are not totally naked. They have so many clothes on them that if you get totally undressed, and dressed again, it takes a long time.  

Q: The women talk very frankly about sex. Why? 

A: I wanted to show that sex is an everyday job. There is nothing sacred about that. It’s just normal. Like if a baker was talking about his bread!  

Q: In England, at least, sex was never talked about then… 

A: In France also. At that time, even married couples, they didn’t see each other naked. They dressed under the sheets. Even in France, people were very shy. I think that’s why brothels existed.  

Q: Did doing the film change your views on prostitution? 

A: Well, it’s difficult to have one truth. It’s a very complicated subject. My opinion is that prostitution always existed and will always exist. So I think it’s worth trying to give these women the best working conditions, in terms of social help and health. It’s too difficult to close your eyes and say ‘I want to forbid prostitution.’ Closing your eyes is not a good solution!  

Q: Are you working on a new film now? 

A: Yes, I’m working on a biopic about the life of Yves Saint Laurent. It’s François Pinault who has got the rights to his life. We are half way through writing the script. And we are starting to do the casting, but I don’t think it will be someone famous.  

Q: What fascinates you about Laurent? 

A: I think he’s unique. I think he’s maybe the only one I can say who is not only a fashion designer, he’s a real artist. And he died of that.

House of Tolerance is released on DVD on Monday 28th May courtesy of Universal Pictures.

The Round-Up DVD review

Directed by Roselyne Bosch, The Round Up is a faithful retelling of the events of July 1942 when more than 13,000 Parisian Jews (including 4,000 children) were rounded up and taken to the now notorious Velodrome d'Hiver sports stadium, by the Nazis in a then form of ethnic cleansing.

Based on meticulous research and the individual accounts of those who witnessed the events and survived them, the construction of the narrative is based around certain strands that come together to the Velodrome.  We follow Schmuel Weissman (Gad Elmaleh), a noble gentleman who is also a war veteran and is the intelligent one of the group who can speak for everyone with calmness against the Nazis. 

Jean Reno plays Jewish doctor David Schlenbaum, assisted by Protestant nurse Annette (Melanie Laurent), in caring for the 13,000 Jews crammed into the tiny stadium with little water and no food.  The first time we witness the full extent of the horror at the Velodrome we see it through the eyes of Annette - it is played with a choral singing over the wails of people and the noise of masses spilling onto each other.  Part mass crowd, part CGI the sight is horrifying and haunting for the soul.

Cleverly shot are the scenes of the round-up itself, played for naturalism with effective acting and editing, you are left in no doubt at to how unfortunate and frightening it must have been to be evicted from your family home all on account of your ethnicity.

What the film does tell you, and is quite critical of is the French government who allowed the round-up to take place so that the French police could patrol the capital city themselves, in a way they gave up the French Jews and made a deal with the devil.  In that instance, it is surprising that this story has taken so long to reach the screen - perhaps in part due to the delicate satirical nature of the material or maybe in part due to the fact that children were hoarded onto the trains to their deaths along with adults.

When watching the Holocaust films of recent years (The Pianist, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) you get a sense that maybe the Nazis could have had some humanity, but the detail of killing children also makes it hard to believe.  Another factor may also be the sheer fatalism of such a film, where the ending is pre-determined and no matter how benevolent a nurse is, she alone cannot stop the rampaging tyrannical force of Nazi Germany.

The problem also with Holocaust films is that after Schindler's List, a lot of films pale in significance, whilst this is a fabulous story in need of a larger audience (already more than 3million people in France have seen the film) and the box-office records in France suggest it may travel well; you get a sense that it would be better served in schools as an educational tool.

That is not to discredit the sterling acting from an experienced cast including the stellar child actors, along with the esteemable art direction from Olivier Raoux and costumes by Gilles Bodu-Lemoine; the film works well as both a political comment on a dark moment in French history, and a wonderful production in current French cinema.

The Round-Up (La Rafle) is released on Monday 18th July by Revolver Entertainment on DVD and Blu-Ray

Two In The Wave - DVD review

Emmauel Laurent's insightful documentary charts the rise of French cinema's two brightest stars Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard as they gave fresh impetus to their nation's cinema in the form of the Nouvelle Vague, or the New Wave to give it it's English translation.

Starting in 1959 with the Cannes premiere of Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), Truffaut's triumphant debut feature, the film shows how Godard responded in kind with Breathless (1960); how the two men were shaped by their cinema going youth, how their journalistic freedom at Cahiers du Cinema in Paris helped define them as filmmakers and then slowly how their friendship disintergrated without it being resolved before Truffaut's premature death in 1984.

The film uses a voiceover by Antoine de Baecque - a prolific cultural historian - who lends a sense of gravitas and appreciation to proceedings, he is helped by the use of film extracts from both Godard and Truffaut, archive interviews and perhaps most perplexingly, a young actress turning pages of vintage magazines as the voiceover tells us what she is looking at.

This is where the documentary falls short; with such a distinctive subject matter and with a brilliant conflict of interests between the urbane Truffaut and rebellious Godard taking place there were surely stories aplenty to share here. For instance, this is the first time I realised the backstory to the triumphant 400 Blows screening was that Truffaut, being critical of the Festival in his famous magazine the year before, had been banned from Cannes so making his film premiere sweet revenge. This type of information was not taught us at film school, it was a common belief that Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer et al, all just picked up a camera and went guerilla like Godard did for Breathless.

However, looking back on these films you get the sense that Truffaut had a sense about what he was doing with 400 Blows and the way it was shot gives it that one foot in the authentic cinema, and one foot in the new wave owing to the depicition of youth - a polished rebellion if you will.

Whilst the documentary may serve as reliant in academic circles and film classes seeking background information on such established directors, much like that actress (Isild Le Bosco) turning the pages of archives, there is a whole lot more to be learnt from reading books, especially Richard Brody's Godard biography Everything is Cinema (2008) and for Truffaut seek out the Interviews with Hitchcock (1954).

Two in the Wave is released by New Wave Films on DVD and Blu-Ray and is out now.