ANOTHER YEAR / A BALCONY ON THE SEA / ARMADILLO / PRESIDENT / MYSTERIES OF LISBON
The Christmas period is conducive to the outputs of all kinds. Here is a selection of feature visible during the holidays.
The Christmas period is conducive to the outputs of all kinds. Here is a selection of feature visible during the holidays.
start with "the great forgotten Cannes Film Festival" according to many newspapers, the aptly named Another Year Mike Leigh an ordinary year in the life of an ordinary couple with people who are a little less. Since Secrets and Lies , we like the humanistic bias of Mike Leigh knows that portray characters in their vulnerability and their distress at never forgetting a hint of humor here and there. This time the filmmaker has no major story (new motherhood, abortion), he filmed bewildered beings who will find Tom and Gerry (nice find!) The comfort expected. A couple like you see more, peaceful, sincere, loving after thirty years together. Their family life is as uneventful. The filmmaker does not affect that well-regulated life but slightly disrupts the peripheral characters who revolve around them. Lesley Manville, a faithful of the director, portrays an alcoholic and Mary dropped, finds its place nowhere. Tom's brother, handsome taciturn character, brings the gravity in the film falsely gay. Mastery of staging, interpretation suitable actors, Another Year is a well-oiled mechanics of the seasons. Refusing dramatization, Mike Leigh films the passing time with a precision and economy of every moment, but nothing new in his filmography.
A balcony overlooking the sea should give the beloved Jean Dujardin his great dramatic role. Alas, the actor, pretty good, not save the new movie with Nicole Garcia. The filmmaker has been more inspired we wanted to run too many things at once: the forgotten children, the thriller hitchockien , the identity crisis. She lost in the meanders of a past that he is Algerian staff (she was born there) without the involvement we feel sufficient. Rest of beautiful images of Oran in the morning, a disturbing interpretation of Marie-Josee Croze and successful passages. But, with explanatory flashbacks winded dialogues, the director never finds the right tone. After the mediocre Charlie Says , Nicole Garcia is definitely a bad pass.
Grand Prix of the Semaine de la Critique at Cannes Armadillo is a documentary impact on young conscripts Danish parties in Afghanistan. From the first sequence, very "Hollywood," have doubts about the veracity of the images. Following confirmation of such unpleasant impression of manipulation. Like a good script that recalls the excellent Jarhead, the soldiers are bored and then, after losing one of their own, are pleased by running the Taliban. Tendentious, highly ambiguous, the film can be seen as a clear pro-militarist particularly unpleasant. Without opinion, the director Janus Metz follows his men in the middle of a quagmire and as if the film featured. Aesthetic, this "fake" documentary makes no geopolitical perspective on a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives even if we can see the widening gap between soldiers and people, first victim of the Taliban. Much to see or Minesweeper review s Kathryn Bigelow did not bother to psychological considerations, but proved devilishly effective.
No feeling Diversion in contrast to the vision of great literature Yves Jeuland President devoted to Georges Freche died last October. The former president of the Languedoc-Roussillon had agreed to be filmed without any right to inspect the final assembly. A rare initiative that allows the director to paint a picture of this cruel and incisive maverick. Always a good distance from his subject, or not yielding to convenience or ease, Jeuland Frêche films and his entourage on the campaign trail. In the storm of his statements questionable Fabius, the Harkis and black team France, Frêche proves to be a "killer" as he himself admits, daunting and affable populist at times, themselves as the victim of a Socialist Party that was excluded. The director shows most local political mores that have nothing to envy to those of our national tenors. In a chilling sequence, probably the most important films Jeuland Frêche and his court eating, drinking, carousing where "the President" admits to having lied about his father at a rally to stir the crowd. Cynicism, manipulation, power seem then that the only engines of men desperate to stay in place. Advisers Communication obsessed by the image of their master reporters seduced by this iconoclastic President is the authentic portrait of a king Almighty. Essential.
Finally, we can not end this review without mentioning briefly the Prix Louis Delluc 2010, one of the most prestigious French film awards, given to Mysteries Lisbon Raul Ruiz. Filmed mostly in Portuguese, the film intersect an abbot confidant, a countess injured, a marquis as mocked and other characters gravitating through the ages. In an impressive narrative virtuosity, the Chilean filmmaker takes us on this romantic drama with a duration of 4:25! (Admittedly a bit long). Atypical project in the world cinema scene, Mysteries Lisbon deserves to lose because the elegance and sophistication of the staging we offer beautiful caskets. But we regret that the director has not pushed his more formal experiments as he had known so well in his beautiful adaptation of Proust, Time Regained . If you can not find on the big screen, the number rooms are very limited, you can catch up soon which will broadcast on Arte television version of six hours! A word to the wise.
