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New French Shorts 2020

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If you read my festival coverage, you’ll know that I am a proponent for short films. I enjoy the chance to take in a program or two of shorts when I attend film festivals. Shorts are more than just practice for aspiring filmmakers. Shorts get to the point quickly and often very effectively. Usually, the only chance you have to see shorts is by attending a festival. But Kino Lorber is screening a two and a half hour program entitled “New French Shorts 2020” from Young French Cinema, a program of UniFrance and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. The program is made up of seven shorts varying in length and style.

Ahmed’s Song (30 minutes, directed by Foued Mansour) is the story of an attendant in the public baths who is nearing retirement and a young man on probation who is also sent to work in the baths. It is a chance for each of them to learn and grow—and to find new ways forward in their lives.

The animated film Sheep, Wolf, and a Cup of Tea (12 minutes, directed by Marion Lecourt) is an adventure in magical realism as a child going to sleep invokes a wolf from under the bed. Think of wolves in sheep’s clothing, and vice versa.

In Tuesday from 8 to 6 (26 minutes, directed by Cecilia de Arce) we follow Névine, a middle school monitor through her day as she tries to stand up for a troublesome student. She finds herself in the middle between students, teachers, and administrators.

The Distance between Us and the Sky (9 minutes, directed by Vasilis Kekatos) is the story of two men who meet at a gas station late one night. One is there to fill his tank, the other is trying to get a few euros to get home. It becomes very flirtatious as the two men banter back and forth. This film won the Short Film Palme d’Or and the Queer Palme at Cannes 2019.

The Tears Thing (25 minutes, directed by Clémence Poésy) tells of an actress who must go to a gun range to prepare for an upcoming role. She discovers that her instructor is a former girlfriend who abandoned her. How will that past impinge on the present?

Another LGBTQ+ themed film is Magnetic Harvest (24 minutes, directed by Marine Levéel). Mickael is a pig farmer who’s trying to get his organic certification. Living in a remote area, there’s little opportunity for romantic connections. He has an app on his phone that rarely shows nearby prospects. But through it all a returned neighbor, Paul, is beginning to work his way into Mickael’s life.

The Glorious Acceptance Speech of Nicolas Chauvin (26 minutes, directed by Benjamin Crotty) is marked as a “special bonus short”. It is mostly a time-bending monologue by the Napoleonic soldier who gave his name to super-patriotism. The film relishes anachronism as he tells his boastful story. Of course, he’s also confronted with the idea that he was a literary creation and never really existed. But for a man like Chauvin, what does reality even mean?

As my wife and I watched these shorts, we gave them separated scores (as if at a festival). For us the top film was Ahmed’s Song. It was a touching human story of wisdom that can flow between generations.

“New French Shorts 2020” is available on Kino Lorber’s Virtual Cinema site, KinoMarquee

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: Doomed Love

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I try not to mansplain things. But being a male reviewing Portrait of a Lady on Fire makes me feel as if I’m doing so. That is not to say that the film needs mansplaining. Writer director Céline Sciamma has crafted a wonderful story of women seeking love and fulfilment in a world that treats them as beings of lesser value. Although the film is set in the 18th century, the emotive underpinnings of the story are immortal (as is seen in the way Greek mythology is brought in as well).

Marianne (Noémie Merlant) has been commissioned to paint a wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Héloïse’s mother (Valeria Golino) has arranged a favorable marriage of her daughter to a man in her native Milan. Originally it was to be Héloïse’s sister, but after her death (possibly suicide to avoid marriage) Héloïse is brought home from the convent. She, too, is uninterested in this marriage, and has refused to sit for a portrait. So Marianne has been called to be a companion, and surreptitiously paint her.

The two women spend their days together, slowly establishing a bond. After confessing to Héloïse, Marianne destroys the painting, but Héloïse agrees to sit for another. While her mother is away for a week, the two women continue to get to understand each other and their relationship develops into romantic and sexual love. But still, Héloïse’s marriage looms as a given that darkens the possibilities of their happiness. As the romance blossoms, the love the two women share is clearly not acceptable to the world around them. Their love will not be allowed to interfere with the arrangements that have been made for the marriage. But that love is the truest they will ever have.

This is a film with very few scenes that include men. It focuses on the relationship between the women, not only Marianne, Héloïse, and her mother, but also the family’s servant Sophie (Luàna Bajrami). But even though there are no men present, the weight of paternalistic culture bears down on them all in oppressive ways. Each has her own way of being oppressed. For Héloïse it is obviously being forced into marriage. She has had no voice in the matter. When speaking about the advantages of life in a convent, she includes “Equality is a pleasant feeling.” Marianne has a certain freedom because since she will take over her father’s painting business, she is not required to marry. But even then, we learn later, she must submit her paintings under her father’s name to get them accepted. For Sophie, an unwanted pregnancy must be dealt with in unpleasant ways.

The film makes use of the Greek story of Orpheus and Eurydice, a story of lovers separated by death. Orpheus convinces the gods to allow Eurydice to return from Hades, but he fails to comply with the conditions just before they reach the outer world, and he loses his love forever. Héloïse, Marianne, and Sophie discuss this story and offer reasons why Orpheus may have done what he did. Through it all the sense of doomed love is a constant presence.

This is a film of both the big and the small. There are sweeping vistas and strong emotions, but it is the little things that often carry the most weight. In the beginning, there is a sense of great isolation, especially for Marianne when she is dropped off on the island where Héloïse lives with her mother. That isolation is chipped away slowly. There are also little bits of conversation that we discover were of great importance only later in the film. (E.g., a discussion of organ music in the convent compared to the sound of an orchestra will come to mind in the final scene.) It is the kind of film that has viewers thinking back and connecting ideas.

It is through this attention to small things that the film manages to speak volumes about women’s struggles in the world without really speaking about that directly. Instead we are engulfed in these lives that are prevented from fulfilment because the world will not allow such things for women. The world today may have improved in these respects, but is by no means free of such issues.

Photos courtesy of Neon.

By the Grace of God – The Sin of Silence

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“Deep down I knew. We all knew. We did nothing.”

Although it is not limited to the Catholic Church, sexual molestation of minors by clergy is an issue that continues to burden the church. In France, a notable example centered on a priest, Bernard Preynat, and the Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Barbarin, who oversaw the coverup. François Ozon’s film By the Grace of God, is a fictionalized version of this affair of how a group of survivors challenged the church and its silence. The film won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

The film is not so much about the sexual assaults as it is about the way the institutions of the church failed to act to stop them. The first victim we meet is Alexandre (Melvil Poupaud), an ardent Catholic, who discovers that the priest who molested him as a child is still working and has access to children. He writes to Cardinal Barbarin (François Marthouret) to raise his concerns, sure that the Cardinal, who has spoken out against pedophilia, will respond. Alexandre is invited to tell his story to Régine Maire (Martine Erhel), the diocese’s psychologist who dealt with victims. He also asks to meet with the Cardinal, and they begin a correspondence about the process. Alexandre writes to the police who open an investigation, but because the statute of limitations has expired, there is nothing that the police can do with Preynat—unless they find more recent cases.

Such a case is Emmanuel (Swann Arlaud), who has written on the website. He is convinced to go to the police and press charges. Now the archdiocese faces even more attention. Press is following the story now. More and more victims make their stories known. Eventually seventy people will tell of their molestation. During much of this time Fr. Preynat continues to serve in the church.

When Alexandre meets François (Denis Ménochet) another victim of Fr. Preynat, they begin to form a community, using a website to encourage others to tell their stories. This increases pressure on the archdiocese. Alexandre is invited to meet with Preynat, with Régine Maire in attendance. Preynat admits to everything, but claims he has gotten help. He does not, however, ask for forgiveness.

I found it of some interest that the film marks the passing of time (it covers about a two year span), not by a calendar, but via the liturgical year, noting various feasts and holidays as they pass. This creates an atmosphere that reminds us that this is not so much a secular issue as it is a religious one. And although secular issues, such as statutes of limitation, play a role in the film, the story we see deals with spiritual concepts in the lives of the characters.

Chief among those spiritual issues is the question of forgiveness. The question arises frequently about if the victims can or should forgive Prevnat. Forgiveness is a key part of Christian life, but it is often very hard to do. This conflict is evident in the scene in which Alexandre and Preynat, meet. At the end of the meeting, Régine Maire has the three of them join hands to pray the Our Father. When the forgiveness clause comes up, Alexandre is unable to say the words.

Another recurring issue is faith. Two of the three victims we follow continue to be devout. Only François has renounced faith and the church. For Alexandre and Emmanuel, they are clear that they are doing this for the church, not to the church. They see what has happened not just as something that has harmed them, but has harmed and continues to harm the church itself. Their continued faith in the face of betrayal—first by Preynat, and continuing with the institutional lack of response—is a reminder that the church and the Gospel are powerful in people’s lives. But that makes the betrayals all the more treacherous. By the end of the film, the faith of those who have come forward is being tested greatly.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, clergy sexual misconduct is not limited to the Catholic Church, even if they get most of the press about it. This film brings the victims to the foreground. It does not set out to bash the church, but rather to shine a light on the institutional abuses that prevent accountability and by so doing fail to bring healing to victims and to the church itself.

The film has some title cards at the end of the film that give the status of Fr. Preynat and Cardinal Barbarin as of the time the film was completed. However, since that time there have been new developments. An ecclesiastical trial was held that led to the defrocking of Preynat. Cardinal Barbarin continues to hold the title of Archbishop of Lyon, but has been removed from all administrative oversight of the diocese.

Photos courtesy of Music Box Films

Cyrano, My Love – So Many Loves

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Cyrano, My Love is an intersection of live and art. It could be debated which is imitating which as we follow fin-de-siècle French poet/playwright Edmund Rostand as he struggles to create the play which brought him fame and success, Cyrano de Bergerac.

The film opens as Edmund (Thomas Solivérès) is opening an unsuccessful play. He is gaining a reputation as “a young poet who writes flops”. His supporting wife encourages to continue. But then, a few years later, the realities of life (and two young children) are creating pressure. But writer’s block has set in. Sarah Bernhardt (Clémentine Célerié) suggests he write a play for the famed actor Constant Coquelin (Olivier Gourmet). Coquelin needs a play by the end of the year (three months off) or he will lose his lease on the theater. Edmund promises him a play, in verse, but so far all he has is the title.

Edmund has an actor friend, Léo Volny (Tom Leeb), who has fallen in love with Jeanne (Lucie Boujenah), a costumer. He wants to woo her, but doesn’t know how to make an impression. One night below her window, Edmund feeds Léo lines. When Jeanne goes to a different town, Edmund (in Léo’s name) begins a correspondence with Jeanne. Jeanne is falling in love with Léo (she thinks) through the letters. But for Edmund, Jeanne has become his muse as he channels this experience into the play. Those familiar with Cyrano de Bergerac will recognize the parallels with that story.

Edmund is writing the play on the fly. Rehearsals begin with just the first act written. As preparations continue, he must balance demands from his wife, from the play’s producers, and various actors and actresses. As with the real play, Cyrano, My Love evolves into farce, but with a satisfying ending for everyone.

There is a topical and tonal similarity to the 1999 Best Picture Oscar winner Shakespeare in Love, which director Alexis Michalik cites as an inspiration in press notes. The relationship that Edmund cultivates with Jeanne is one of love, but a very different kind of love (from Edmund’s perspective) than the romantic love of Shakespeare in Love. However, the way that relationship becomes embodied in the play Edmund is writing is similar to the earlier film not only thematically, but also as entertainment.

What makes this an interesting love story is that we get a multifaceted view. Various aspects of love twist and intermingle through the plot. Love here ranges from sexual attraction (Léo for Jeanne), emotional attraction (Jeanne for Edmund), intellectual aspects (Edmund for Jeanne), and the committed life of marriage between Edmund and his wife). Each of those experiences of love is important, but being able to bring them together in our lives is truly golden.

Photos courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Santa Claus (Le Père Noël) – A Parisian Adventure

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‘Tis the season of heartwarming holiday movies featuring cute kids, Santa Claus, and the joy of the season. The French film Santa Claus (Le Père Noël), available this Christmas season on VOD, fits these criteria, but in a bit of a twisted way.

Six year-old Victor (Victor Cabal) writes his letter to Santa on Christmas Eve. He wants things most kids want, but more than anything, he wants a ride in Santa’s sleigh. That night, after he’s gone to bed, he hears a noise on the balcony, and there is Santa (Tahar Rahim), who has just descended by rope.

Victor is beside himself, but Santa tells him to go back to bed. But when Santa then drops down to the next floor down, Victor follows. It turns out that the “Santa” is a burglar hitting empty apartments on Christmas Eve, looking for enough gold to pay off a debt to a thug. He tells Victor his sleigh is broken down and he needs gold to make it fly. Victor is eager to help. When Santa gets injured, he teaches Victor how to break into apartments and where to look for gold. They spend the night traveling around the rooftops of Paris and trying to avoid the thugs.

It turns out, though, that Victor will not be satisfied unless he can get that ride in Santa’s sleigh. It is important to him, because there is a special trip he wants to make. He is grieving his father and wants to go to his father’s star to see him.

As the night advances, Victor becomes more and more aware that what they are doing is wrong. He begins to doubt that this is the real Santa Claus. His doubts increase his grief, now having lost both this father and his ideal of Santa. Yet as befits a holiday movie, the interaction between Victor and Santa changes them both. These are the most important presents these two will receive this Christmas.

I can understand how some people might be a bit offended by the way Victor is corrupted in the film. Not only is he taught how to burglarize a home, but Santa encourages him to swear. (Victor is not quite as innocent as we might think.) But that is the way this film seeks to bring some darkness into the holiday story. And without darkness, we may never realize when the light begins to shine. And the interaction between Victor and Santa as the night progresses is, in the end, a star shining in the darkness.

The holiday spirit celebrated in this film is not really holiday specific. Christmas Eve is the setting for telling a story of the encounter between two strangers, and the way the faith of one can transform them both.

Photos courtesy of Under the Milky Way

 

Memoir of War – Morass of Emotion

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Memoir of War (La Douleur) is a semi-autobiographical story of writer Marguerite Duras recounting her time late in World War II and its aftermath. Duras was a part of the French Resistance and went on after the war to have a career as a writer and a filmmaker (including an Oscar nomination for her screenplay of Hiroshima Mon Amour).

This is a story of Marguerite (Mélanie Thierry) and her angst as she awaits news of her husband Robert Antelme who has been arrested and deported to Dachau. As the film opens (shortly after the war’s end) she is waiting at the train station watching various returnees coming back to Paris, yet Robert is not among them. We then move back to 1944 when she goes to the German Headquarters in Paris to try to get word of where he is. Here too, she waits and waits before anyone will see her. She befriends a Nazi sympathizer, Rabier (Benoît Magimel), in hopes of getting more information, but this is also very dangerous for her Resistance cell.

At about the halfway mark of the film, Paris is liberated. Days, weeks, and months pass as she awaits any news of Robert. All the while one of her cell colleagues, Dionys (Benjamin Biolay) remains constant with her, offering both encouragement and affection.

Because this is a memoir, it is a bit internal. More than anything else we note Marguerite’s emotional state. Throughout the film it seems she never eats—even as others do. While the rest of Paris celebrates the end of the occupation, Marguerite is totally despondent. As a neighbor puts it, “Waiting keeps her alive.” Her pain becomes the center of her life. Others may think she is too consumed by her suffering, but she can see no way out. Dionys asks her at one point, “Are you more attached to your pain or to Robert Antelme?”

For Marguerite in the film, her fear and depression are overwhelming. Even the people around her and their love and attention cannot bring her out of her “slough of despond”. While viewers (and even her friends in the film) may think she is wallowing in sorrow, this is a reminder that often people’s pain can become debilitating. Often all we can do is be present with them. But to be with them is what is called for.

Photos courtesy of Music Box Films

 

Custody – A Child’s Pain in Divorce

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Custody is a moving look at the pain that can come from a family disintegration—especially as that pain manifests in a child. Mariam (Léa Drucker) and Antoine (Denis Ménochet) are divorcing. The key issue to be decided is the custody arrangement for their son Julien (Thomas Gioria). Antoine has changed jobs to be close to Julien and be a part of his life. (A daughter, who is about to turn 18 and gain adulthood, is not included in the arrangements.) Mariam would just as soon have Antoine far away from her family. While the specter of physical abuse is alluded to, there is not compelling evidence to substantiate it. When the judge determines that she can’t tell “which of you is the bigger liar”, she grants joint custody with Antoine getting weekend visits.

Julien wants nothing to do with his father. When he is forced to go with him for a weekend, he is sullen and silent. Antoine may understand that it will take time to rebuild a relationship with his son, but he quickly becomes impatient and vindictive. This pushes Julien into a deeper sullenness. Mariam does what she can to try to protect Julien, but soon the relationships deteriorate. The film does a good job of letting our discomfort grow as things edge slowly to a violent climax.

To what extent to we consider the parent-child relationship sacrosanct? In the opening courtroom scene, as the judge listens to Antoine, Mariam, and their attorneys, Antoine’s case is that he desires to be a part of his son’s life and provide a fatherly role. It sounds good, but there are clouds even at this stage of the story that make us wonder if it is appropriate. One of those hints is the written statement by Julien in which he says he wants nothing to do with his father. After the judge reads the statement, it is essentially ignored—as children often are in society.

This film also brings forward the issue of domestic violence and the damage it does to families, especially when it remains hidden.

Photos courtesy of Kino Lorber

False Confessions – A Farce in the Wrong Time

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Farce, to me, occupies a place between the Shakespearean comedies of people falling in love and the modern romcom. False Confessions is a twenty-first century update of an eighteenth century French farce. If it seems stagy it is because of more than just its historical roots. It was partially filmed in a theatre during the day at the same place that the cast was performing the play in the evenings.

Araminte (Isabelle Huppert) is a wealthy widow. She hires Dorante (Louis Garrel), a young man who is smitten with her, as her personal secretary. As her mother makes plans to connect her to a count who needs her money, Dorante and some of Araminte’s servants make plans to facilitate her falling in love with Dorante. At times it seems like a scam might be in the works, but in the end it is all about finding love in unexpected ways.

As in modern romantic comedies, the story revolves around the vagaries of falling in love. The upstairs/downstairs aspect of the story, as well as the inclusion of nobility into the mix reflect a world that doesn’t quite fit with the modern-day setting. The original play comes from a time before democracy and egalitarianism. The class consciousness that the original play exploited is not really evident in this film, which makes it lose it edge.

Photos courtesy of Big World Pictures

The Midwife – Life’s Transitions

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Life is a series of transitions, bookended by the two great transitions of birth and death. But along the way there are many more shifts in our lives—some trivial, others more profound. The Midwife is a story of the transitions of life that are–like life itself–a mixture of humor and poignancy.

Claire (Catherine Frot) is a French midwife who has settled into her life. She gets a call from Béatrice (Catherine Deneuve), asking to meet. Béatrice is the former mistress of Claire’s father. She abandoned them when Claire was a teenager, contributing to her father’s suicide. Claire is understandably cool with Béatrice. Even when Béatrice reveals that she is dying, Claire is slow to welcome her back into her life. But Béatrice really has no one else in all the world. She has lived “the life I wanted”, which has been totally self-centered.

Claire and Béatrice are both people who long for control in their lives, but have found that control by very different methods. Claire has tightly constructed her life. She leads a quiet existence without extremes. Béatrice, on the other hand, seeks to be in control by living free from societal constraints. Yet they both wish that the other could have been the mother-figure or daughter that has been missing in their lives.

While Béatrice deals with her mortality, Claire continues her work as a midwife, bringing new life into the world. (The film includes real-life birth sequences.) But even though those existential events provide for a contrast, the kinds of everyday transitions are what really drive the film. The clinic where Claire has worked for years is about to be closed. She can’t bring herself to work at the new regional birthing center (she calls it a “baby factory”) where even the term midwife is being replaced by “birth technician”. Her son is dropping out of medical school and is about to become a father (making Claire a grandmother). Although she’s not sought out a romantic relationship, one develops with the truck driving son of the neighbor at her garden. But the real transitions grow out of the interaction between Claire and Béatrice as they slowly come to understand and appreciate each other.

Both women must struggle with the loss of control as the lives they have constructed for themselves under go changes. Yet even though their worlds are turning upside down, the changes they meet bring them a something they have been missing. For Béatrice there is a sense of belonging to another that empowers her at the end of life. For Claire, it is an opening of new possibilities in her life.

We all experience transitions in our lives. Some are painful, others quite pleasurable. At times, we may seek ways of controlling all these changes. But through it all, we discover that our lives are constantly leading us to someplace new.

Photos Courtesy of Music Box Films

Elle – Obsessions and Revenge

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“It’s twisted.”

That brief line of dialogue defines Paul Verhoeven’s Elle in more ways than one. The plot certainly has very interesting turns along the way, but the convolutions of the personalities are what really make this entertaining and interesting. This is an intense psychological thriller, with the accent on psychological.

Michèle (Isabelle Huppert) is a strong, domineering woman. She runs a video game company in a no-nonsense style. She brings that into her personal life as well. The first hint we have of her past is when she is in a café and another customer walks by and dumps food in her lap muttering about “you and your father.” Michèle’s mother is keeping a much younger man—something Michèle finds somewhat pathetic. We learn her father is in prison with a parole hearing approaching. But things really heat up when Michèle is attacked and raped in her home. She seems to go on like nothing happened, but she fantasizes about killing the attacker. When she learns who did it a tense and very perverse game begins to unfold.

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But this is more than just a revenge film. In fact, we may not even see it as such because we’re never quite sure if that is really what is driving Michèle. Perhaps for all the terror of the attack, she may find it perversely stimulating. Perhaps it provides a balance for the sense of control she manifests in the other aspects of her life. Perhaps, as we learn more about her past, we might wonder if she is emotionally disturbed. Likewise her attacker is also something of an enigma. Between the two of them the tension grows both sexually and emotionally to levels we know can only lead to disaster.

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The film is essentially about obsessions. Certainly sexual and violent fantasies often play out together (compare the video game Michèle’s company is working on). Such obsessions are central to the developments between Michèle and her attacker. For Michèle’s mother it is an obsession with youth. Michèle’s history tells of strange issues her father dealt with that had lasting effects on her and of people’s perception of her. Obsessions such as these take control of lives. So all the emotional protection that Michèle has built around herself comes falling down when the attack brings chaos into her life. That struggle between chaos and control creates a dangerous atmosphere that threatens to undo her and twist her life even more than it has been.

Yes, It is all very twisted (especially all the characters). Delightfully so.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics