AT YOUR OWN RISK

Les Petits ruisseaux *1/2 (vo French)   A film about an oldie discovering life after his buddy dies and leaves a collection of funky nude paintings. Pleasant but quickly forgotten.

L’Age de raison *1/2 (vo French) A career woman’s childhood comes back to haunt her in letters arriving from herself as a child. Go figure. If the film were as good as Sophie Marceau, we would have one gorgeous movie.

L’Italien *1/2 (vo French)  Kad Merad is everywhere these days, but is he really that talented or attractive? This repetitive tale of double identity is neither as deep nor as amusing as it wants to be, nor is Merad charismatic enough to carry it.

Insoupçonnable * (vo French)   Two rich brothers; a new girl and her “brother” enter their life; they all live the high life in Geneva. This is supposed to be an elegant thriller; it’s unfortunately only an embarrassing film noir caricature. What is the fine actor, Charles Berling doing here?

Film socialisme -   (vo French)   This is just a collage of badly-filmed banalities masquerading as art and intellect, for Jean-Luc Godard has been riding on his association with the Nouvelle Vague all these years with very little talent. He did have a few novelties in the early 60s (A Bout de Souffle), but few new ideas or emotions since then. Heresy! – I know, but it’s a case of the emperor’s new clothes…

Enter the Void -   If you’re into drugs, psychedelic nightmares or 60s-style abandon, this is your cup of tea. The title says it all – you’ll be entering empty, boring, vulgar garbage. And it’s directed by Gaspar Noé, the man responsible for the ultraviolent, indigestible Irrévérsible. Forget it.

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Why not?

Tournée (On Tour) ** (vo French and English) Desperately trying for a comeback, a failed entrepreneur (Mathieu Amalric – actor and director) brings a troupe of buxom, feminist showgirls from the U.S. over to France. Going from one sleazy joint to another, they begin to get to know each other better. It’s at times touching and gritty, at other times merely depressing and degrading. Shades of Cassavetes.

The Karate Kid **  This franchised film is simplistically obvious and too long and slow, but Jacky Chan is a cutie and Will Smith’s son, Jaden Smith, is a true and striking talent as the new kid on the block – watch him rise.

Crime d’amour *1/2 (vo French)  With Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier overacting to the hilt, this crime thriller à la All About Eve is entertaining but a bit too slick to be convincing.

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At The Movies

Superb  ****    Very Good  ***     Good  **      Mediocre   *    Forget It  -

Worth your While

Cinco Dias Sin Nora (Nora’s Will) *** (vo Spanish)     Mexican director Mariana Chenillo charms and amuses with this wry drama about a woman who plans her own wake. It features a stubborn atheist ex-husband who gets stuck with arranging the funeral while the local rabbi wants to take over the corpse. It’s Passover, the table has been set and the maid is preparing the Seder meal that the woman has left in the fridge. Close friends and the son and his family are arriving while the ex begins to discover some long-hidden facts about their past. Fernando Lujàn is fine as the husband in this revealing gem of a social comedy of errors.

Solutions locales pour un désordre global  *** (vo French)     From the socially-crusading director Coline Serreau, of such films as La Belle Verte, La Crise and Chaos, this documentary is a vital message about the killing of the soil and our atmosphere as a result of pesticides that have been disingenuously forced down the throats of farmers of the world by huge conglomerates (such as Monsanto, the biggest and most ruthless of them all). To put it in a nutshell, when you next sit down at the table, instead of saying good appetite, say good luck! That’s how far we’ve come in this battle between money and common sense. Serreau has a myriad of experts and workers tell of the perils of pesticides and the possible solutions. Both frightening and hopeful, this is an important, informative film for all who care about their health and that of our earth. (The site: www.solutionslocales-lefilm.com.)

Cold Souls (Âmes en Stock) *** Sophie Barthes directs this weird, metaphysical film about a depressed actor (Paul Giamatti playing himself – like Malkovich in the film Being John Malkovich) who decides to store his soul with a specialized company in N.Y that keeps them in vaults. But things get complicated when it is trafficked to Russia (in the shape of a chickpea!) and borrowed by the spoiled wife of an oligarch. Something between a farce and a serious metaphor on the state of our lives in a morally and financially corrupt world, this is both touching and amusing – a tongue-in-cheek change from big Hollywood productions.

Rabia *** (vo Spanish)     Here’s another fine film from the southern hemisphere – this time from Ecuadorian director Sebastian Cordero via Columbia/Spain. A love story between two South American immigrants in Spain turns perilous when the man, who is tired of being treated as a second-class citizen, accidentally kills his foreman and then hides out in the huge house where his girlfriend is working as a maid. This is a torturous study of an upstairs/downstairs situation, with tension that is palpable and an outcome that is like a Greek tragedy still valid in our modern times.

L’amour c’est mieux à deux  **1/2 (vo French)     It’s trés French, it’s a sweet romantic comedy, and it has the always charming Clovis Cornillac (powerful in dramas such as A la petite semaine or hilarious in Brice de Nice) along with an adorable Virginie Efira as the girl he wants to fall in love with, but only accidentally! You’ll see – check it out for a heartwarming feeling…

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At The Movies

Superb  ****    Very Good  ***     Good  **      Mediocre   *    Forget It  -

Unmissables

El Secreto De Sus Ojos ( The Secret in their Eyes) **** (vo Spanish)  It seemed an upset when The White Ribbon from Austria/Germany did not receive the best foreign film Oscar and this Argentinean film picked it up instead. Well, I just saw the film and am still in awe as I write this. Using flashbacks to some 25 years ago, director Juan José Campanella has woven an elegant tale of love, injustice, loyalty and empty lives around a crime of rape and murder that was never quite resolved. This intricate account is exceptional on many levels. It’s about a retired justice official (Ricardo Darin) who is writing a novel on the unsolved crime that will not leave his mind. It’s a love story that has remained locked in the hearts of the two colleagues (Darin and Soledad Villamil) involved in the old investigation. It’s a reminder of the duplicity and power politics of revolving-door governments. And above all, it’s a manifestation of the exquisite quality of South American and especially Argentinean cinema – the dialogue, direction, the subtlety of the acting, cinematography and editing – you name it, they excel.

Une Exécution Ordinaire  **** (vo French)  During the last days of Stalin’s life, an infernal triangle forms between a doctor who has extraordinary healing powers in her hands, her physicist husband and the father of the country himself, who summons her to alleviate his pains. Marina Hinds continues her brilliance (after her tender portrayal of Lady Chatterley) as the frightened healer, while André Dussollier becomes Stalin, in all his power, ruthlessness and enigma. This is quite an intimate foray into what was the terrible pressure on common citizens under Stalin’s vicious reign. With great sensitivity and discretion, the multi-awarded writer Marc Dugain directs here his first film based on his own book. Impressive!

Romans d’Ados 1- 4  **** (vo French)   Béatrice Bakhti as director and her husband Nasser as producer, backed by the Swiss TSR, have created an exhaustive documentary about a group of teenagers in Yverdon whom they followed from the ages of 12 to 18. This is an amazing, caring work about personable characters as well as a psychological quest through the turmoil of growing-up. The families give of themselves completely, without inhibition, while the individual teenagers grow on us with their emotional disclosures. The four episodes of approximately two hours each are as gripping as any fine work of fiction, beautifully filmed, paced and edited, as well as being important pedagogically. This is truly a revelatory tour-de-force of courage, pain and joy in a cycle of continuity.

Troubled Water (En Eaux Troubles)  ***1/2 (vo Norwegian)  A kidnapping gone terribly wrong and the guilt over a child’s death are shown from two points of view – that of the kidnapper who has been released from prison and that of the child’s mother. Brilliantly and delicately balanced, it bares the truest of reactions on all sides – responsibility, revenge, redemption – casting the spectator in the role of Solomon. The acting is superb all around (young Pal Sverre Valheim Hagen has the makings of a world star – might help to drop a few of those names) and the Norwegian director, Eric Poppe, grabs our attention from the first tentative minutes till the end, using music as a balm for so much sorrow.

Moon  ***1/2 Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) has deservedly picked up a slew of awards for this first feature film, a science-fiction tale about a lone man on the moon who works for a company that extracts helium for energy use on earth. Impatiently waiting for the end of his three-year stint, he begins to have delusions that develop into some sinister realities. Sam Rockwell is excellent, as is the voice of Kevin Spacey as Gerty, his indispensable computer. There are obvious shades of Kubrick’s Hal and 2001, A Space Odyssey, though this one is a far more personal, engrossing and well-written version of what can happen up there. Sorry Stanley, but I never could warm to that film of yours.

Robin Hood (Robin des Bois) *** The dynamic Oscar-winning duo of Ridley Scott as director and Russell Crowe as star are back again (They’ve done Gladiator, A Good Year,  American Gangster and A Body of Lies together.), this time with an old classic which they’ve decided to turn on its head, by telling it as a historical prequel. You will be surprised, for this is not your everyday outlaw-in-green-tights. As Crowe (who’s also producer this time) puts it, “It’s anarchy, violence and adrenaline… with an instinctively heroic Robin Hood who could have really existed…With research you discover the story is probably based on up to 30 real people” in the late 12th century when King Richard the Lionhearted was returning from the Crusades. With a top-notch cast including Cate Blanchett and Max Von Sydow, it blends history, grand battle scenes (the one of the French invasion at the cliffs of Dover is reminiscent of the sea landing in Saving Private Ryan), the struggle between royal power and a just social order and a tender love story growing between Robin and Lady Marion. As always, Crowe is simply riveting.

La Tête en friche  *** (vo French)  Jean Becker tends to make nostalgic films of bucolic friendships, such as his Les Enfants du Marais or Dialogue avec mon Jardinier. This one, with the monumental Gérard Depardieu (the Marlon Brando of France, in so many ways), is a wonderfully gentle tale of a simple man who meets an elderly lady (Sophie Guillemin) on a park bench and gradually becomes what he could have been, through her love of books. It’s moving, amusing and so human, with an array of quirky characters. Don’t listen to the negativism of snob critics.

Kick-Ass  *** How can one say that a film is entertaining and super fun if it’s also terribly violent, with an 11-year-old girl who ends up pulverizing more men than Schwarzenegger?! But it is brilliantly done, which makes it that much more dangerous for the kids who will end up seeing it. It’s smart and a treat on various levels – the reality of being a nerdy teenager, the fantasy of becoming a super-hero, and the collision of a criminal gang (headed by Mark Strong), a surrealistic father/daughter revenge machine (Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz) and the wannabe Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson). British Matthew Vaughn (producer of Guy Ritchie’s films and husband of Claudia Schiffer) does an amazing job of creating thrills and comedy drenched in violence. I guess you could just say it’s kick-ass…

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Movies – Films

Superb  ****    Very Good   ***     Good **       Mediocre  *      Forget it   -

Why Not?

Blanc comme Neige (vo French)   **1/2  A happy and successful man living in the south of France, with a thriving car dealership and a gorgeous wife, has a crooked partner and two ne’er-do-well brothers on his back. Inevitably, things begin to unravel badly as he gets in deeper with a Nordic mafia that was involved with the partner. Excellent acting by François Cluzet and Olivier Gourmet saves this taut crime story with some holes in its scenario.

Remember Me **  Looks like Robert Pattinson produced this film to further enhance his brooding aura that has teeny boppers crying for more since the Twilight franchise. A sullen young man who resents his tycoon father (Pierce Brosnan) and misses his deceased brother falls in love with a cop’s daughter who also has a dark death in her past. But their happiness is jeopardized by a momentous happening, which actually makes the film. Powerful ending!

Chicas (vo French)   **  The fine playwright (Art, The God of Carnage) Yasmina Reza has written and directed her first film and it’s moving and effective. About a mother and three sisters, it feels autobiographical, with the bitter theater actress probably her own character. Introspective and revealing.

The Bounty Hunter **  Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler have a great time bugging each other while trying to forget they were ever married (but oh, they look so good together). She’s on a police wanted list and he’s the bounty hunter. Good laughs if you’re not expecting much.

Valentine’s Day **  This is a light pastiche of several lives around Valentine’s Day and the hopes and disappointments that all the related hype entails. The fun comes from the multitude of stars in cameo roles, but Demi’s boy, Ashton Kutcher, is the most charming and convincing.

Greenberg **  Ben Stiller’s gone serious. He’s a depressive New Yorker who comes to stay at his brother’s California home and ends up with a younger, similarly lost girl. Curious, meandering, but what’s the point?

La Danse (vo French)  **  This lengthy documentary observes the Paris Opera Ballet, its choreographers, classes and performances. It’s for those who love dance – the daunting and intricate sculpting of the body in movement. But it could have been cut by a quarter and given more character through the dancers rather than repetitive shots of corridors and exterior scenes.

At Your Own Risk

Sherlock Holmes *1/2  Just love Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch), but why has he turned scholarly Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his sidekick Watson (Jude Law) into violent action heroes?! All the explosions and noise wipe out any semblance of a plot.

L’Arnacoeur (vo French)   *1/2  A supposedly seductive conman falls for his victim in Monte Carlo. Vanessa Paradis is adorable, but would you fall for the guy (Romain Duris)?

L’Immortel (vo French)   *1/2  A mafia-type rivalry in Marseilles (based on a true story) is heightened by the always “sympathique” Jean Reno, but the excruciatingly violent scenes are outrageous. A Goodfellows wannabee.

Nenette (vo French)   *1/2  Orangutans are such fun to watch, but more than an hour and a half of old Nenette, mostly immobile, is a bit much. One can watch similar things on the nature channels.

Law-Abiding Citizen *  More blood and gore, in minute detail, in the genre of the Silence of the Lambs or Seven. This may give impressionable adolescents cause to act likewise. Shame on Gerard Butler (he’s everywhere these days), who produced this and plays the devious protagonist.

North (vo Norwegian)  *  Boy, do you know you’re north – icy, slow, pale, frigid emotions.  A chain-smoking, drinking, depressed ski-lift operator goes farther north to connect with a neglected son…..

Couples Retreat - Juvenile, light garbage. Save your money!

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Movies – Films

Superb  ****    Very Good   ***     Good **       Mediocre  *      Forget it   -

Worth your While

Alice in Wonderland ***  The fantabulous team of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter is back to enchant us once again, after such delights as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd. It’s of course the classic tale of Alice, who is somewhat older this time, with a wonderfully dazed and touching Mad Hatter, as only Johnny Depp could portray.

How to Train your Dragon ***  Dreamworks is inching in on the brilliance of Pixar animation with exuberant tales like this one about a Viking village that is constantly attacked by dragons. But the son of the village chief just doesn’t feel like killing them, to his father’s shame. In fact he ends up befriending one of them …This is an invigorating and humorous tale of understanding those whom we have mistakenly come to fear and hate. Wonderful!

Men Who Stare at Goats (Les chèvres du Pentagone) ***  Don’t take this film seriously and just enjoy a super team of actors including George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey. You’ll laugh yourself silly at the antics of an “anti-war” unit in the U.S. Army. Weird, goofy and a hoot!

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang ***  Set in the English countryside, this is a magical, feel-good film for the whole family, with a disguised Emma Thompson (who also wrote the screenplay) as an amazing nanny who is transformed with each good deed she teaches her young brood. The kids are great, as is the versatile Maggie Gyllenhaal as their mother, along with a woozy Maggie Smith. It’s a moving, funny and adventurous story of a family waiting for Dad to come home from war.

Les Invités de mon Père (vo French)   ***  With a super cast that includes Fabrice Luchini and Karin Viard as his sister, this is a film    about a close-knit family that wonders what’s up with their father when he takes in a dubious mother/daughter duo from an Eastern-bloc country. Anne Le Ny’s refreshing French comedy manages both to amuse and dissect a multitude of family quirks and prejudices.

Shutter Island ***  If this is not an homage to Hitchcock, I don’t know what is. There’s the twisted plot, the heightened colors and fake backdrops (especially at sea), the winding staircase in a lighthouse (Vertigo) and even a cliff-hanging scene (North by North West). Scorsese and DiCaprio give us the shivers until the brilliant ending, better than any of Hitchcock’s. I didn’t want to see the film, as it seemed so creepy, but it was finally well worth the chills.

The Ghostwriter **1/2  Here is Roman Polanski’s take on a Tony Blair-like British leader’s memoirs and intrigues – an interesting, austere political thriller with Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan.

Tetro **1/2  A young sailor from Europe arrives in Argentina to find his long-lost older brother. Francis Ford Coppola has turned to dramatic black & white to tell this tale of a family torn apart by an overbearing, illustrious father with some deep secrets. Intense and esthetically sumptuous, it’s a grand old melodrama set in Buenos Aires.

Precious **1/2  Highly acclaimed and Oscarized, this downer of a film is about a terribly abused black girl who gradually comes out of her shell through a caring teacher. Fine acting all around, especially by the abusive mother, but the whole tragic process leaves you feeling queasy.  Can any of this relentless scrutiny help somehow, somewhere?

Chloe **1/2  There are films that grab you from the outset and don’t let go. This is one of them, though it leaves you with a disturbing sense of guilt for having watched it. This slick psychodrama, about a wife who hires a call girl to get at the truth about her husband, is an intense observation of the twists of life by the renowned Canadian/Armenian director Atom Egoyan (Exotica). Julianne Moore is especially effective in this remake of the original French film, Nathalie, which starred Fanny Ardant and Emmanuelle Béart.

Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec (vo French)  **1/2  Luc Besson (Le Grand Bleu,Subway, Angel) knows how to make films, even if critics regularly drub him – jealousy? This one is pure action/fun entertainment (in the genre of Indiana Jones or Romancing the Stone) based on a well-known comic-book series set in the Paris of the early 1900s. A feisty journalist, Adèle, goes off to Egypt and its pyramids to find a way to cure her comatose sister. It has great characters, exotic locations and cinematography, but it could have been shortened for better effect.

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Movies – Films

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It’s been almost three months since I’ve written about films! I was away in balmy Florida, but have been keeping up with the movies and have stored them in my head and some in my heart. A few I’ve almost forgotten, they were so inconsequential. Now I’m back, with a backlog of reviews. I know some of the films may be gone and others have not yet arrived, but I hope these inevitably brief reviews will get us up-to-date. And there’s always DVD and Amazon.com.    Neptune Ingwersen

Unmissables

An Education ****  Here’s an intelligent, engrossing and brilliantly acted ensemble piece from England. It’s about a bright young girl who gets waylaid on her mission to attend Oxford, by a seductive older man played by a smooth Peter Sarsgaard. By Danish director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners), it’s set in the early 60s and has it all – a whirlwind romance, misguided parenthood, ambition and folly. Sweet Carey Mulligan was nominated for a best actress Oscar, but lost to Sandra Bullock.

The Last Station ****  This beautifully-acted and atmospheric jewel of a film by Michael Hoffman recounts the turbulent love between Leo Tolstoy and his tempestuous wife, as they spar over his literary legacy to the Russian people, in the last months of his life. Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer are wonderful as the fiery couple (both nominated for Academy Awards), as are their cohorts, James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti. An illuminating work, both emotionally and historically. (I would have given this or An Education the best film Oscar).

Green Zone ***1/2  Matt Damon is getting better with each film and his partnership here with director Paul Greengrass, with whom he’s done the Bourne series, doesn’t hurt. With his clear blue eyes and cute pug nose, Damon is the embodiment of the “good” American in Iraq at the beginning of the invasion, when the troops were frantically searching for WMDs. This smart action yarn tells it how it was – the deliberate deceptions, the Iraqi side (brilliantly done), the different layers of command. Brains and brawn together, what more would you want on a movie night?!

Soul Kitchen (vo German) ***1/2  Fatih Akin, the German/Turkish director of Gegen die Wand and Auf der anderen Seite, is a fan of Jim Jarmusch, and it shows in his eccentric, meaningful films full of color and passion. This one, about the troubles of two close-knit brothers and a funky restaurant in Hamburg (where Akin was born), is joyous, energetic and great fun, showing  marginals in a little-known side of Germany.

Les Chats Persans (No one knows about Persian Cats) (vo Farsi)  ***1/2  This is a surprising, multi-awarded (Cannes, Miami, Sao Paulo) Iranian film about one of the thousands of underground rock bands that exist today in Tehran. Since they can’t perform there as freely as they wish, the lead boy and girl of a band are trying to go to England to give a concert. To help them recruit new band members and get the necessary papers, they turn to a riotous wheeler-dealer (Hamed Behdad)who can charm anyone into anything. By the Kurdish/Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi of A Time for Drunken Horses and Turtles Can Fly, this is a breath of fresh air and a true picture of the suppressed vitality that is Iran today – a must-see for a better understanding of a burgeoning, multifaceted, misunderstood country.

The Hurt Locker (Démineurs) ***1/2  Winning the Oscar for best film and best director, this film by Kathryn Bigelow is a tense study of a bomb squad in Iraq, and one of them in particular (Jeremy Renner, Oscar nominee), who is as fearless and cool under fire as a Steve McQueen character. Filmed in almost documentary style, the story does not delve into the politics or ethics of war, but just observes the raw fear and almost drunken high experienced by those who face instant death at any moment. Powerful – but was it the best of the year? And is it universal enough for the honor?

Crazy Heart ***  Here’s a slow, lazy look at an aging country singer who once was somebody and is now playing in sleazy joints and slowly drinking himself to death. It’s all downhill until he’s interviewed by a lovely young thing and they begin to fall in love. Jeff Bridges mightily deserved his Oscar for this role of a lifetime (one of many for him), which completely carries the film. But Maggie Gyllenhaal isn’t far behind, with her tender portrayal of a lover and a mother. And then there’s Colin Farrell in a surprising cameo role. This is one fine coup for first-time writer/director, Scott Cooper.

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Movies – Films

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WHY NOT ?

I Love You Phillip Morris *1/2     Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor play two men who fall in love in prison, when Carrey’s character is incarcerated for all sorts of embezzlements to keep up his high lifestyle. Based on a true story, the film loses us when it can’t decide if it’s a love story, a comic/thriller or an argument for a gay lifestyle. It’s neither fish nor fowl…

A Serious Man *1/2      The Coen brothers have perfected quirky, intelligent comedy with a twist of irreverence and violence in such films as Fargo, The Big Lebowski or O Brother, Where Art Thou? Here they seem to have gone back to the grim days of Barton Fink. This film should actually have been called A Stupid Man. For that is what their hero is, a simpleton who is not only bamboozled by his wife and children, but also by his colleagues, students, his synagogue and its rabbis. This looks like a bitter satire of the Cohn brothers’ own mid-American/Jewish background. It’s certainly frustrating and claustrophobic in its negativity.

AT YOUR OWN RISK

Verso *1/2   (vo French)     Seeing this Swiss film noir will have you believing that Geneva is a den of drug addicts, prostitutes and rampant crime. Dark, harsh and relentless, what is its raison d’être?

Whip It – Bliss *     Cute Drew Barrymore should stick to acting rather than directing. This roller derby flick is not worthy of your time or money.

Did you Hear about the Morgans? -     Hugh Grant announced a while ago that he wanted to give up acting; could be after he saw the end result of this film. It’s painful watching him as a caricature of himself – fawning, too obliging, with a constant frown and shoulders so scrunched, as though he’s trying to disappear into himself. Probably one of the worst films of any year. Make sure you don’t get sucked in by the ads and the fact that he and Sarah Jessica Parker (who has never looked so meager and charmless) make up the silly couple transplanted from Manhattan to Wyoming. It really all boils down to an embarrassing, formulaic script and hopeless direction. Just run the other way.

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Movies – Films

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WORTH YOUR WHILE

Mr. Nobody ***     This poetic, complex film by the Belgian Jaco Van Dormael is about the infinite possibilities of choices and consequences. It’s about a little boy having to decide between his divorcing parents and then having to choose between future partners. It’s about the certainty of love and the illusion of existence, about growing terribly old and about a surrealistic future where everything is planned for you. It is so full of imagination, sadness and humor that you are entranced while watching it, but might not recall its many wonders because of their very multitude… It’s simply a singular, almost hallucinatory experience.

Le Refuge ***  (vo French)     If you know François Ozon’s work, you wait for his next film like you wait for the latest Woody Allen. From his earliest success, Gouttes d’eau sur Pierres Brûlantes with Bernard Giraudeau to Sous le Sable (with Charlotte Rampling) or the joyous and quirky 8 Femmes (with most of France’s grandes dames) or the melancholy 5×2 and the naïve and surrealistic Ricky, they are all unique yet similar in their aesthetic quality, their intelligent scenarios and a certain thread of elegance. This latest does not disappoint. It’s an interlaced story of an addicted couple, an overdose death, a pregnant survivor and the gay brother who comes to stay with her in her idyllic refuge. But it’s also about possibilities that do not seem obvious. Ozon is a great actor’s director, studying their faces with fascination. Be on the lookout for his work.

Gainsbourg (vie Héroique) ***   (vo French)     The French have a knack for successful biopics, like La Môme, the two Chanel films and now this one about France’s bad boy, pre-grunge songwriter and musician, who had women falling all over him despite his less-than-attractive physique. Starting with his childhood, the film follows the precocious Lucien (he later changed his name to Serge) through his confrontation with anti-semeticism under German occupation, his early connection to women and his struggle to remain true to his artistic strain. All along, he is followed by a cartoonish alter-ego, who warns, guides and taunts him throughout his life. Eric Elmosnino is an amazing Gainsbourg look-alike, while Laetitia Casta becomes Brigitte Bardot, one of his many conquests, along with such lovelies as Juliette Gréco and his great love, Jane Birkin. A fascinating window into a controversial, bohemian character.

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky ***  (vo French)     This is the third recent work about the life of Gabrielle Chanel, after a decent telefilm, with Shirley MacLaine as the older Chanel, then Coco avant Chanel by Anne Fontaine with Audrey Tautou and now this one about her little-known relationship with the avant-garde Russian composer. All are well done, showing different facets of her intense, productive life. This one by Jan Kounen, and starring Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen, zeroes in on her time as a successful designer, wealthy enough to be able to invite the proud Stravinsky and his family to stay at her grand home outside Paris when he was struggling to make ends meet in the early 20s among fashionable Russian artists and émigrés such as Diaghilev, Nijinsky and others of the Art Deco era. It’s a peek into a moment of high artistic energy and the meeting (both sensual and creative) of two giants in their respective fields. It shows Chanel as an independent soul and a forerunner of women’s liberation, in her clothing designs as well as her daring choices and lifestyle.

Tales from the Golden Age **1/2     Strange how one can get such warm-hearted humor from repressed societies, but then that must be their release-valve. Here are small vignettes of life in Romania under the dictator Ceaucescu, illustrating the survival tactics of ordinary citizens versus the tragicomic hypocrisy of the regime. Touching, human and intelligent, but it goes on a bit too long.

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Movies – Films

Superb  ****     Very Good  ***      Good **     Mediocre  *     Forget It   -

UNMISSABLES

Up In The Air ****     Suave, gliding through airports as though they were his home with his myriad privileged credit cards, George Clooney’s character flies around the country firing people for firms which don’t want to deal with the mess. He’s great at his job  and loves his unattached lifestyle.  Seamlessly directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking and Juno), this deceptively subtle film is a metaphor for today’s modern, empty world – from a charged beginning to an uncertain end. Clooney is excellent, once again proving he’s not just a gorgeous guy. This is Oscar material all the way…

Brothers ****     Brodre, the gripping 2004 Danish film by Suzanne Bier has been transformed here into an American work and quite fittingly, as it concerns family tensions and the war in Afghanistan. With a strong cast including Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Sam Shepard, directed by the Irish/American Jim Sheridan (of Oscar winners such as My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father), this has proven one fine import. The “good” brother goes off to war, while the bad-boy brother stays home and becomes close to the former’s wife and children. It’s austerely modern; it’s Greek tragedy and also Shakespearean. Won’t tell you more, just go see it. And rent the Danish film too.

A Single Man ***1/2     We’re terribly lucky this season – deluged with one fine film after the other. Here’s another one, amazingly polished by first-time director, Tom Ford, who is the highly successful men’s fashion designer. Being gay and stunning-looking himself, he has made a film about a teacher mourning the loss of his lover, set in the early 60s when homosexuality was still under wraps. The mood and look of the era are impeccably captured and Colin Firth, who has perfected the art of being contained and reserved, has never been so moving. And he’s never been so trim and well attired either, all due to Ford, of course. This is quite an aesthetic work of art by a newcomer to the field. But then the painter Julian Schnabel also traversed careers brilliantly, directing Basquiat, Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Once an artist, always an artist.

Invictus ***1/2     “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul”. This quotation exemplifies the grandeur of Nelson Mandela’s life and his legacy for Africa (and in a smaller sense, the trajectory of director Clint Eastwood’s career). The film dwells mainly on Mandela’s efforts to unite his country behind its rugby team during the World Cup in 1994 and his strength and wisdom in going against the current. Morgan Freeman becomes Mandela and Eastwood does them both honor. From White Hunter, Black Heart and Bird to Bridges of Madison County and Letters from Iwo Jima, and now this tribute, Eastwood keeps proving his mastery of many genres, his understanding of diverse worlds and the control of his audience.

2 Brothers ***1/2  (vo Hebrew and English)  I’ve written this up before, but now it is finally being released in our area after garnering quite a few prizes in various festivals. It’s about two opposing brothers, this time in Israel. One is a peace activist living there and the other is a fanatic Orthodox Jew, who has moved back from New York. Their differences and struggles highlight the grave threat posed by the Orthodox community to peace in that region. Powerful and important, it is directed by Geneva-based Igaal Nidam.

It’s Complicated ***     Ah, to have a bit of fun in this sad and serious world! So here’s a film not to miss. First because it’s a love story about mature adults, second because it’s got such super actors as Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin and third, because a good romantic comedy is a rare thing. But director Nancy Meyers is an expert at the entertaining ones – such as What Women Want and Something’s Gotta’ Give. It’s a delight for the eyes and for many a belly laugh and it all makes giddy sense until the ending, which I personally did not like. But that’s only me – you and others may well think it should end in such a modern, egalitarian way….

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