Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2022

[Chris Knipp]

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2022

FESTIVAL COVERAGE THREAD

Mar. 3-13, 2022

Full Schedule on FLS Web Page


VINCENT LINDON, JULIETTE BIINICHE UB FIRE/AVEC AMOUR ET ACHARNEMENT (CLAIRE DENIS)

Here is a selection of this year's French series at Lincoln Center that I may be reviewing for Filmleaf

Lost Illusions / Illusions perdues
Xavier Giannoli, 2021, France, 149m
French with English subtitles
With this sweeping, sumptuous adaptation of one of Honoré de Balzac’s greatest novels, Xavier Giannoli crafts a surprisingly contemporary tale of corruption amidst an early form of “fake news.”


Paris, 13th District / Les Olympiades, Paris 13e
Jacques Audiard, 2021, 105m
French, Mandarin, and English with English subtitles
Webcams, casual sex, and the mores of modern love are all explored in this unsparing but nonjudgmental portrait of young Parisians in and out of love and lust from Palme d’Or–winner Jacques Audiard.


Between Two Worlds / Le Quai de Ouistreham
Emmanuel Carrère, 2021, France, 106m
French with English subtitles
When famed journalist Marianne Winckler (Juliette Binoche) goes undercover to investigate the exploitation of cleaning people in the north of France, she must grapple with the effects of her deception on the fellow workers she has come to befriend.


Fire / Avec amour et acharnement
Claire Denis, 2021, France, 116m
French with English subtitles
OPENING NIGHT FILM
An ex-lover’s reemergence in the lives of Sara (Juliette Binoche) and her husband Jean (Vincent Lindon) propels this finely wrought and melancholic drama, in which director Claire Denis’s characteristic knack for capturing the intimate sensuality of everyday life is on full display.


Rise / En corps
Cédric Klapisch, 2022, France/Belgium, 117m
French and English with English subtitles
Reeling in the wake of devastating physical and emotional injuries, ballerina Elise (Marion Barbeau) slowly rebuilds her life while redirecting her efforts to contemporary dance in this latest crowd-pleaser from Cédric Klapisch.


Anaïs in Love / Les Amours d'Anaïs
Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet, 2021, France, 98m
English and French with English subtitles
Thirtysomething Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier) is in a manic search for stability when she embarks on a breathless love triangle with a middle-aged publisher and his partner, a formidable literary force in her own right, in Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s effervescent feature debut.


Magnetic Beats / Les Magnétiques
Vincent Maël Cardona, 2021, France/Germany, 98m
English, German, and French with English subtitles
Two teen brothers co-operating a post-punk pirate radio station in early-1980s Brittany fall in love with the same older woman in Vincent Maël Cardona’s feature-film debut, which reconstructs an intense moment of social and cultural change with heady immediacy.


Hold Me Tight / Serre moi fort
Mathieu Amalric, 2021, France, 97m
French and German with English subtitles
Mathieu Amalric’s most ambitious directorial effort to date is a virtuosic, daringly fluid portrait of one woman’s fractured psyche, featuring a riveting performance from Vicky Krieps as a wife and mother on the run from her family for mysterious reasons.


Deception / Tromperie
Arnaud Desplechin, 2021, France, 105m
French with English subtitles
Love, Israel, regret, and mortality are all in the heady conversational mix in the newest drama from Arnaud Desplechin—a faithful adaptation of Philip Roth’s classic novel, whose fusion of rigorous intellectual discourse and explosive emotionality is a perfect fit for the master filmmaker.