burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Coming soon: Girls Rock, XXY (I'd forgotten there were multiple showings of this -- Sun. May 25 at 4pm, Wed. May 28 at 4pm, Sat. May 31 at 4pm)

French Cinema
Film
Love Songs [IMDb]
1:45 pm
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Remis Auditorium

Love Songs (Les Chansons d'amour) by Christophe Honoré (France, 2007, 100 min.). Christophe Honoré furthers his case as one of the most exciting filmmakers of our generation with the exuberant and tender Love Songs. A modern-day musical told through unforgettable songs performed entirely by the cast and scored by Alex Beaupain, the film has overjoyed audiences at the Cannes and Toronto Film festivals while earning recognition in its native country with four French Cesar nominations. In the hope of sparking their stalled relationship, Ismael (Louis Garrel of Dans Paris, The Dreamers) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier of Swimming Pool) enter a playful yet emotionally laced threesome with Alice (Clotilde Hesme of Regular Lovers). When tragedy strikes, these young Parisians are forced to deal with the fragility of life and love. For Ismael, this means negotiating through the advances of Julie's sister (Chara Mastroianni of Persepolis). Erwann, a young college student (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet of Strayed), may offer him redemption. In French with English subtitles.

This was disappointing.  I wasn't really sold on the chemistry of any of the pairings, and the plot really wasn't what I had expected it to be.  ( Read more... )

To Paint or Make Love (Peindre ou faire l’amour, France, 2005, 100 min.)

It makes me sad that this is one of the festival films that doesn't have a U.S. distributor, because I would probably actually buy it on DVD.  Having someone rip me the region 2 seems less than fruitful since it looks like it doesn't have an English option -- which of course begs the question of they managed the subtitles at the American festival showings.  [It's showing again at the MFA next Sunday.]

( the full spoiler commentary )

They Came Back (Les Revenants, France, 2004, 102 min.)

The MFA guy who introduced the film said that while obviously the bulk of the festival is aimed at their mainstay audience who want typical French film, i.e. romantic comedy, they like to have some stuff that's different.  To which my reaction was: What festival have you been watching?  Because the two I'd seen so far were dark&depressing, and my impression of the festival catalog as a whole was that v. few of the films showing would be described as "romantic comedies."

Though I know Spanish rather than French, it seemed to me that "Les Revenants" would translate as "The revenants" (plural article, plural noun) rather than (plural pronoun, past tense verb) and indeed, dictionary.com gives it to me as "Ghosts."  The English title seems to me an homage to the zombie genre -- which it obv. was (says she who was surprisingly entertained by Shaun of the Dead but really has no interest in zombie stories) but the French title seems much more accurate to the film itself.

( the full spoiler commentary )

The Last Day (Le Dernier jour, France, 2004, 108 min.)

I was trying to think of what film this one reminded me of and the IMDb page made me realize it: Eighteen.  [Which I still need to post about.  I am obscenely behind, I know.]

On the Red Line home that night, I learned that the director used to be a dancer, which explains why there were so many extended shots of basically the human body in motion.

There was some interesting stuff going on, and I am far from opposed to dark&fucked-up, but the long shots of nothingness were really the dealbreaker for me.

( the full spoiler commentary )