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Among New York City’s annual cinephilic
events, only the New York Film Festival and the New Directors/New Films series gathers
more attention than The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Rendez-vous with
French Cinema” program at the Walter Reade theater. From
the very beginning with the Lumieres, France, has had as rich a film history as the U.S.
and every new generation brings its own notable talents. This
year, the theme seems to be out with the old, in with the new. Among the few veteran filmmakers in the line-up, only
Olivier Assayas and Benoit Jacquot have any sort of wide prominence today. (So as not to worry the Francophiles, Claire Denis
and Gaspar Noe’s most recent efforts will receive U.S. releases imminently.)
Two of the best films in the series, Carnage and C’est
le bouquet, are ensemble pieces whose many characters are often linked in only the
most tenuous fashion. In Carnage, those
links are supplied primarily by a bull named Romero.
Romero gores bullfighter Victor (Julien Lescarret) sending him into a coma
(echoes of the recent Talk to Her). Preadolescent Winnie (Raphaelle Molinier) has a big black Great
Dane, Fred, who gets one of Romero’s bones as a doggie treat; Winnie’s teacher,
Jeanne (Lucia Sanchez), and her mother, Alicia (Ángela Molina), observe Romero’s
carcass being hauled away; struggling actress Carlotta (Chiara Mastroianni) sells
Winnie’s parents Romero’s bone; former philosopher, now aspiring skater Alexis
(Clovis Cornillac) witnesses an accident involving Carlotta’s car; enormously
pregnant Betty (Lio) is wife to Jacques (Jacques Gamblin), a scientist who studies
Romero’s eyes; and finally, middle-aged Luc (Bernard Sens) who collects and sells
preserved animals gets Romero’s horns as a gift from his kleptomaniac mom, Rosie
(Esther Gorintin). The structure of
Carnage has a resemblance to that of Short
Cuts and the thematic exploration of The Hours,
but with its mysterious, surreal style, it is more of a visual poem than a real narrative
with characters pursuing set goals. Carnage
is striking as director Delphine Gleize’s debut feature. It brims with meticulous widescreen compositions
and memorable images – a dog shedding a tear, an injured matador and a dead bull
being dragged off together, an old woman ambling over train tracks, and a corpse encircled
by flocks of white ducks and rabbits. But it also suffers from pretension in its schematic
contemplation of life and death, its theme of animals as commodities, and its
every-woman-hides-a-secret parallels.
C’est le bouquet
(aka Special Delivery) is much lighter. For
an initial, brief moment, it threatens to be one of those French roundelays of illicit
romances, but the film turns out to be quite the opposite – a transformation of banal
everyday trifles into a charming delectable romp. It
has an amazing cast filled with faces of unconventional beauty, which also describes the
movie itself. Emmanuel Kirsch (Richard
Debuise) gives married Catherine (Sandrine Kiberlain) a bouquet of flowers as an apology
for calling her too early in the morning after no contact for fifteen years. At the same time, Catherine’s husband,
Raphael (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) gets fired by boss Stephane (Mathieu Amalric). The two events together spiral out of control to
involve nosy neighbors Antoine (Maurice Benichou) and wife Alice (Helene Lapiower), Raph’s horny
co-worker, Edith (Dominique Blanc), playwright Robert (Jean-Claude Brialy), and his
live-in partner Laurent (Dominique Besnehard). The
cast is truly all-star, collecting some of France’s best and brightest actors. Just looking at Amalric (My
Sex Life), France’s answer to Steve Buscemi, is funny. And how Darroussin (Marius
and Jeannette) can hold so much screen presence while looking like a schlub is a
minor miracle. There are teasing lessons in
geography, political correctness, and corporate politics to be had amid the amusing word
play and comically absurd situations. While
the film pokes fun at French obsession with intellectualism, it is seemingly pure,
delightful fluff until a touching ending that reveals the human need to reach out that
started it all. Writer-director Jeanne
Labrune’s choice of some classic Philip Glass (Dance
VIII, Akhnaten)
along with Bruno Fontaine’s Poulenc-like score give the movie that extra oomph.
Another comedy, Monique, is proof that French farce can be just
as idiotic as American ones. The story is of
a despondent and aloof family man, Alex (Albert Dupontel), who falls for a state of the
art sex doll after his son leaves for school and his wife, Claire (Marianne Denicourt),
starts cheating on him. Replace all realistic
human psychology with lame contrivances, and somehow the $6,000, silicon-molded 34E-22-35
“Monique” rejuvenates Alex’s life and that of all those around him. For much of the film’s length,
writer-director Valerie Guignabodet’s style is naturalistic. Only when she brings out the outright wacky in the
last quarter of the film does it pick up as tone finally meshes with content. Denicourt wielding a rifle and her first meeting
with Monique are easily the movie’s highlights.
Exactly how the uniquely sexy Denicourt (La
Belle Noiseuse) has been so quickly relegated to playing a middle-aged mother with
a son in his late teens is as much a mystery as why a man would prefer a sex doll to her.
Paul (Sami Bouajila) spends the entirety of Life Kills Me (Vivre
me tue) swimming upstream. Born into a
middle-class Moroccan immigrant family and nabbing a Masters degree with a thesis on Moby
Dick, Paul scrapes out a living delivering pizza while failing every professional job
interview he gets. His close brother, Daniel
(Jalil Lespert), fares no better. Having a
body three sizes too big for his rectangular head, goofy, dim-witted Daniel has no
self-discipline except when it comes to body-building, an obsession to match Paul’s
amateur boxing hobby. Not a terrible lot
happens in terms of story or character and director Jean-Pierre Sinapi shoots every event,
major or minute, with the same level of bland intensity.
But the main problem is that every single supporting character from
girlfriend Myriam (Sylvie Testud) to cabby pal Diop is more interesting than protagonist
Paul. Testud (La Captive, Murderous
Maids) is especially outstanding. She has
one of the most distinctive faces in all of cinema. A
large fleshy nose gives extra character to her ferret-like cuteness. She displays a casual childlike vulnerability on
the surface but harbors a slow-baking mixture of complex emotions underneath. Testud’s mighty presence sucks up attention
like a black hole in every scene she’s in.
Olivier Assayas (Irma
Vep, Late August, Early
September) has divided audiences in festivals around the world with his latest, Demonlover,
a film about corporate savagery, anime (Japanese animated) porn, and bondage/domination. Set in Paris, it has a colorful cast in
Danish-born, now American actress Connie Nielsen (The
Devil’s Advocate, Gladiator),
Americans Chloe Sevigny and Gina
Gershon, and Frenchman Charles Berling. Assayas,
known for his vivid character-driven work, may just be experimenting by going in the
opposite direction after the period-piece epic Les Destinees, but corporate espionage
thrillers are just not his genre. Ultimately the movie is not as provocative as its
subject matter and Assayas couldn’t film an action set piece to save his life.
- George
Wu
Internet Movie Database: