Tag: french film
You Will be My Son
Saturday, November 10th, 2012 Film Reviews,Blood may be thicker than water but it runs a distant second to fine wines. At least that seems to be the way, vigneron, Paul De Merseul, views the world. Paul, played by veteran actor, Niels Arestrup, is the stern patriarch in Gilles Legrand’s You Will be My Son, a taut, lean story of tensions […]
The Intouchables
Saturday, October 27th, 2012 Film Reviews,Although it should be the most depressing subject in the world there is something strangely inspiring about films that deal with disability. The Miracle Worker (1962) was a smash hit in its day, making Helen Keller into the most famous deaf and blind person in history, although she has since been overtaken by several cricket […]
Holy Motors
Saturday, August 25th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,It has been an excellent year for French cinema, but Holy Motors brings back memories of the brittle, self-consciously ‘poetic’ malaise that has infected so many gallic directors of the past. How alarming for all red-blooded Aussies that Our Kylie should be embedded in this piece of Parisian pastry. Kylie Minogue’s appearance comes at the […]
And If We All Lived Together?
Saturday, July 28th, 2012 Film Reviews,Having watched two films about old age over the past month, I’m beginning to wonder if this is the start of a trend: perhaps a reaction to all those movies about comic book heroes. In these geriatric sagas there are no super powers on display – it’s enough if characters can keep their faculties intact […]
Polisse
Saturday, June 30th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,It’s sheer coincidence that both this week’s films are by female directors with French connections who play a role in their respective features. The difference is that Polisse, by Maïwenn, has all the drama, the humour and the acting that one misses in Where Do We Go Now? While the latter has a story that […]
The Chef
Saturday, June 16th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,With a film about food and cookery, a director can hardly fail. Whatever the deficiences of the script, the acting or camerawork, the subject has such an intrinsic attraction an audience will keep watching just to see the next dish. Daniel Cohen’s The Chef is better than that – a slick French farce as predictable […]
Declaration of War
Saturday, June 2nd, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Declaration of War may be the most peculiar, most polarising film of the year. A controversial choice for the opening night of the 2012 French Film Festival in Sydney, it divided the audience between those who felt touched and moved, and those who saw it as a monumental act of self-indulgence. As a general rule […]
Bel Ami
Saturday, May 26th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,It probably requires a teenage girl to understand the attractions of Robert Pattinson, and here I’m deficient in empathy. Having missed out on all those romantic vampire flicks I must be lacking a crucial point of comparison, for on first impressions this young Adonis’s acting style consists of several variations on the theme of the […]
Delicacy
Saturday, May 5th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,What a brilliant year it has been for French films. After The Artist rightly swept the board at the Academy Awards, the highlights have continued to arrive in unbroken succession. From the 45 features shown at year’s French Film Festival, an unprecedented number have enjoyed local theatrical releases. The list includes Romantics Anonymous, The Well-Digger’s […]
Le Havre
Saturday, April 7th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Some films are too good to be saddled with that paralysing epithet, “heart-warming”. One thinks of smiling, rosey-cheeked children, poor but honest parents, perhaps a loveable old codger, and a dog. Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre has the dog, it has the salt-of-the-earth characters, but it also has a vein of surreal humour that never allows […]