New French Films At Lincoln Center

[Chris Knipp]

The Rendez-Vous reviews now have stills to illustrate them which makes the whole affair more visual.

[oscar jubis]

I found The Valet significantly more contrived and less funny than previous Francis Veber comedies. You seem to agree, somewhat:

"This isn’t as ingenious as The Closet or The Dinner Game (and other earlier Veber comedies) and maybe that’s why we can see the wheels turning so clearly. It’s entertaining but lacks wit. There is a great French tradition here but it lies in shreds and tatters." (Chris Knipp)

[Chris Knipp]

Not "somewhat," totally. Of course the machinery is there for popular entertainment and the film gets some audiences going. But for me among the Rendez-Vous series that this year includes the likes of Flanders, Dans Paris, The Singer, and La Vie en Rose, this came pretty down the list of fifteen you see above.

[oscar jubis]

I'm a bit surprised no one has posted anything about La Vie en Rose since C.K.'s review. I haven't checked national box office numbers, but here in Miami La Vie en Rose is a huge success. I think it will continue to occupy its screens for at least another month.

My mother used to play Edith Piaf records when I was a kid in the 60s and I vaguely remember her telling me about Piaf's "vida tragica". The biopic privileges the legend (perhaps the tabloid-press subject) over the person and I think that's a mistake. Otherwise, La Vie en Rose is a handsomely produced, gripping and emotional story with a ripe, myth-making performance at its center.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks, Oscar, for the revival of interest and I hope some more people do see it and comment here. Again here is the link to my Rendez-Vous review from February, so it's on this page:

http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...6914#post16914

Here's my short review from a "best of" conclusion for the Rendez-Vous:

Oliver Dahan: La Vie en Rose/La Mome (2007)

This biopic about the tragic, tumultuous life of French singer icon Edith Piaf, "the kid sparrow," greeted ceremonially as a "film event" in France as befits an elaboration of the history of a national treasure, is crowned with a spectacular lead performance by Marion Costillard that's at once go-for-broke and precisely accurate down to the fingernails. Whatever you may conclude about this overwhelming, chaotic film--it really -- you're going to grant that Cotillard delivers one of the most remarkable star performances ever in a singer-biopic. "The narrative had to be impressionist, not linear," Dahan has commented. Certainly this isn't studied, analytical filmmaking but, as Dahan's remark suggests, the wildly impressionistic kind. The film shifts back and forth vertiginously between Piaf's last days-- she died at 47 -- and the many highlights and low points of her incredible earlier life. "This is a Kid who will make you blubber," wrote French critic Patrick Fabre after La Mpme's Valentine's Day opening in Paris, "like you've never blubbered at the movies before." And this film too is beautiful and full of fine actors. (US distributor: Picturehouse).