Paris movie report (oct. 2011)

[Chris Knipp]

NANNI MORETTI: HABEMUS PAPAM (2011)


MICHEL PICCOLI IN HABEMUS PAPAM

Lord, I am not worthy

Mike D'Angelo's Cannes AV Club report (as often happens) got it right: Nanni Moretti's new Habemus Papam is "slight but amusing, and often oddly touching." There is charm and something thought-provoking about this film, but those expecting some strong anti-papal satire will be disappointed. The title is what they declare at the Vatican (Latin for "We have a Pope") when a new Supreme Pontiff has been elected by the College of Cardinals. And the slim tale, in full Vatican dress, concerns a new His Holiness (Michel Piccoli) who feels too unworthy and can't go out to the balcony and face the faithful. Moretti himself plays a psychiatrist called in to figure out what's going on, who, when the electee escapes and wanders around Rome, becomes an activities leader for the cardinals focused on a volleyball tournament. As anybody will tell you, not just Mike, it's Piccoli who makes this "oddly touching," and even more. Piccoli is an immense yet modest presence, sad, timid, sweet, and wishing he'd become an actor. About that, he need not worry. Piccoli again proves that he's one of the great ones.

The spectacle of the men in red lined up and voting is impressive indeed, sequestered in a convincing mock-up of the Sistine Chapel at CineCittà, but it's hardly what you'd call exciting. The title means "We Have a Pope," or as D'Angelo more colloquially translates it, "We got us a pope." They don't have one at first. There are a series of votes, with the traditional puffs of black smoke sent up to tell spectators outside they have not succeeded, till finally votes (thought this isn't explained) are switched to a neutral candidate from competing favorites and Cardinal Melville (Piccoli) wins and shyly smiles in acceptance, or just unwillingness to protest. When he refuses to publicly announce his own election, however, the Vatican cannot report it to the press, or anyone. They put a fat Swiss guard in the pope's rooms with instructions to walk back and forth and cast a shadow on the curtains now and then so people think the new pope is there. And that's when shrink Moretti and later Margherita Buy are called in to talk to the reluctant cardinal.

It's true I suppose as D'Angelo says that at first it seems Moretti "will be the Geoffrey Rush to Piccoli’s Colin Firth," but both the charm and the weakness of the film is that nothing is going to happen. When the female shrink comes in (Buy) and the cardinal loosens up a bit and admits he always wanted to be an actor, this is when things begin to click. The film becomes a kind of loosely-slung parable about responsibility and facades and role-playing. There's much ado from Vatincan front men (particularly one energetically played by Jerzy Stuhr), who keep the balls in the air, when really nothing is happening.

In the end Moretti's improvisational screenplay doesn't do what it could either with the drama of the narrative or the implications of the situation. Given the total control in the Vatican, it's implausible that the cardinal could be moved out to see the female shrink (comically cast as Moretti's character's ex-wife), and more implausible still that he could wind up wandering around and enter a theater with a troupe of actors rehearsing Chekhov's The Seagull, which he just happens to know by heart. Perhaps Moretti should have left this kind of thing to Rivette.

The sets and f/x and costumes work well to make the predeedings seem actually to be transpiring at the Vatican. The casting is fine. But you watch this because it's a great role for Piccoli, not for many other reasons. This is just a narrow conceit, floated out and allowed mostly to drift.

Habemus Papam was released in Italy in April, shown at Cannes in May, and subsequently at a number of international festivals. It opened in France September 7 and opens in the UK December 2, 2011. Screened for this review at MK2 Hautefeuille, Paris, on October 18, 2011.

[Chris Knipp]

MAÏWENN IN POLISSE

MAÏWENN: POLISSE (2011)

Child abuse, Paris north

A northern Paris police "child protection" squad is the subject Polisse (a French child’s intuitive spelling of “Police”), a naturalistic, improvisational third film from the actress-director Maïwenn. This Jury Prize winner at Cannes may to some extent -- but not entirely -- make up in its realism and varied content what it lacks in organization. The topics/incidents range broadly, from physical and sexual abuse in families to the plight of homeless African immigrants to a schoolteacher’s pedophilia to a police sting in a mall that leads to a gunshot wound. Certainly some of the material brought up is shocking in nature, and this may explain some of the local interest. But child sexual abuse has been more searchingly and thoroughly dealt with in other films, such as the Canadian The Boys of St. VIncent. The emphasis is not so much on the kids as on the interactions among and psychological impact upon the police staff members, who all too frequently give in to freakouts at home and on the job. This Canal+ production has some of the marks of made-for-TV material, despite its good reception at Cannes and apparently decent box office in French theaters. The film, thought it amply shows its actor/director's ability to draw lively performances from her cast, tries to do too much and thereby lacks depth in exploring any particular characters or incidents. Maïwenn maintains a gritty intensity throughout, but when it was over I felt like someone at a smorgasbord who’d sampled too many mouthfuls of a lot of different spicy dishes.

The cast includes Karin Viard, Joeystarr, Marina Foïs, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Maïwenn, Karole Rocher, Emmanuelle Bercot, Frederic Pierrot, Arnaud Henriet, Naidra Ayadi, Jeremie Elkhaim, Ricardo Scamarcio, Sandrine Kiberlain. Joeystarr, an Afro-look rapper with his own real life history of run-ins with the law, dominates as Fred, a macho unit member whose own relations with his own small daughter seem overly erotic and who is given to violent outbursts against suspected offenders. Maïwenn herself plays the relatively uninteresting role of a photographer newly assigned to do a series on the program who soon becomes romantically involved with Fred. As Matthieu, the interesting but here underused actor Nicolas Duvauchelle plays a member of the squad who becomes overly attracted to his married police partner Chrys (Karole Rocher) and is wounded in the hastily presented mall sting sequence, allowing for a hospital scene.

In all the detail of constant randomly-arranged incidents the director, who co-scripted with cast member Emannuelle Bercot, seems forced to pump up some action to greater extremes to have a few highlights. Reviewing at Cannes, Boyd van Hoeij of Variety felt the film despite its faults “has enough highlights to arrest savvy arthouse patrons worldwide," but I was left disappointed by the lack of depth and focus. Von Hoelj himself notes that the point of view of the child victims is rarely explored here, and most of the action takes place on police department premises. This focus on adults goes against the misleading local publicity for the film, which at least appears to center on the children. The colorful Paris posters and Colonne Morris publicity for Polisse (see above) are almost in their way more exotic and intriguing than the film itself, which wastes a lot of realistic acting on badly organized and in some cases hasty assemblages of scenes.

Maïwenn's full name is Maïwenn Le Besco. She is the sister of Isild Le Besco. At 16 she had a child by Luc Besson.

Polisse opened in Paris October 19, 2011.



PARIS STREET POSTER FOR POLISSE

[Chris Knipp]

JULIE DELPY: LE SKYLAB (2011)

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Eating and talking in Brittany, summer 1979

Along with the shapeless child protection police film Polisse, current Paris cinematic offerings include the previously released Le Skylab, Julie Delpy’s third directorial outing and a nostalgic wallow in French family life in the late Seventies. The action revolves around a big gathering of multiple cousins at an unpretentious summer house in St. Malo, in Brittany, nominally on the eve of the projected 1979 Skylab crash. The local occasion is the birthday of grandma Amandine (Bernadette Lafont). By the convention of a perfunctory framing device all this is the recollection of Amandine’s granddaughter Albertine, who in the present day is played briefly by Karin Viard, and back then as a ten-year-old is played by Lou Alvarez, one of several child actors who add charm to the busy proceedings. Delpy wrote, directed, and stars. Though the tone of the film is uneven, the characters, especially the younger ones, are not uninteresting.

The main action opens with the drive from Paris with Albertine’s leftist, fuzzy-headed dad Jean (Eric Elmosnino) at the wheel, accompanied by his wife and Albertine’s mom Anna (Delpy) and Anna’s mother, Lucienne (Emmanuelle Riva).

Once they arrive, to be greeted by Jean’s five siblings and their families plus an older uncle called Hubert (Albert Delpy), just following who they are all may be a bit difficult. There is no central event. Everybody sits at the traditional big table out on the lawn eating. A big hunk of meat is barbecued. It rains off and on and they all rush indoors, then set up outside again. There is a trip to the beach, and there is a lot of talk and some arguing about politics and other topics. The older ladies reminisce about WWII and Vietnam. Only Albertine worries about whether the Skylab space station’s impending crash will endanger them all: this is really just a dating device.

Hollywood Reporter describes Albertine as " a very Woody Allen type of jeune fille— a death-obsessed, lovelorn, bespectacled bookworm. " While the kids play outdoor games, no handheld devices in sight, adults' action consists largely of conversation, and planting the leftist dad allows for the drama of conflict with more right wing siblings. As Hollywood Reporter notes, the liveliest of these is "volatile ex-soldier Uncle Roger (Denis Ménochet)." But this is where the uneven tone is most felt. The review contines, "While Inglourious Basterds scenestealer Ménochet's bullish intensity initially brings welcome tonal changes in what's otherwise often a warmly fluffy affair, his character's belligerence, tormented anguish and drink-fueled behavior end up coming across like a heavy-handed attempt to amp up elements of third-act drama." There is not the sense that Del[py, who does so well in inventing characters and bringing the summer outing to life with her excellent cast, has the conceptual or technical skill, as yet anyway, to construct a meaningful drama.

This is a nostalgia piece in which Delpy fondly remembers her childhood and has fun, with help from the art department, with the unflattering and now silly-looking styles of the period. The screenplay is intentionally a meandering one, meant to evoke the amiable disorganization of large family gatherings. Everyone seems to be having fun, characters and actors both. However, the almost total lack of urgency about the action will make this a movie that will appeal to some but bore others. The acting is the greatest point of appeal. Valerie Bernneton and Noémie Lvovsky are particularly likable as Jean’s sisters; Leo-Michel Freundlich shows great promise as Albertine’s flirtatious young cousin, and Emmanuelle Rive imbues her small part with great style and flavor.

It seems nice that after directing a somewhat arch English-language film set in France for her debut and then trying a costume piece with limited success, Delpy as decided to work in the milieu she came from with a lot of French actors playing roles putatively related to her own family experience. But whether English-speaking viewers will want to read a lot of subtitles with so little payoff in emotional or physical action seems uncertain. Le Skylab opened in France 5 October 2011; it premiered at the San Sebastian festival in Spain September 19. Screened for this review at UGC Danton, Paris. AlloCiné press rating 3.2 (64%).

[Chris Knipp]

MARGIN CALL and MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE both opened in limited release in the US today. You'll find my review of them both on Filmleaf, the first in this year's New Directors/New Films series, the second in the recent NYFF coverage. Both are recommended.

[Chris Knipp]

BERTRAND BONELLO: L'APOLLONIDE: SOUVENIRS DE LA MAISON CLOSE (2011)



The Belle Époque's languid wild side

Apollonide (in Cannes competition in 201; House of Tolerance its English title), with an interesting cast that includes three other directors, and enriched by deeply colored, painterly images, is set in the perfumed prison of a posh French brothel in 1899, "the dawn of the twentieth century," as a title calls it. The clients are elegant, the premises are spacious, the girls are lovely, but some of the proceedings are ugly, syphilis kills, and rents and taxes are going up: this particular sex worker world is coming to an end. Bonello suffuses his atmospheric film with lush ambivalence, blending attraction and repulsion. The result that emerges is a rather peculiar mix of romantic, decadent, semi-surreal miserabilism. Apart from an outing in the country, all is indoors, dark, and floating in champagne and opium. Bonello creates a very rich mix and his film is a delight to the eyes, but there's more than a little that is creepy here.

Clearly this is a dangerous job. One girl, Madeleine (Alice Barnole) lets a regular client (Laurent Lacotte) tie her up and slashes her mouth, leaving hideous scars that make her look like The Joker. The other girls call her "The Woman Who Laughs," after the Victor Hugo novel The Man Who Laughs. She is kept on, and some clients like being with and talking to her, like one played by director Xavier Beauvois (Of Gods and Men). Though one young newcomer with voluptuous breasts, Pauline (Iliana Zabeth), an educated teenager who announces her arrival with a letter of introduction, somehow escapes, this in general is a gilded prison, a Hotel California. And the girls are indentured: they must pay the former hooker madam Marie-France (the always relaxed, appealing director Noémie Lvovsky) for all their fine clothes, and even the very wealthy regular client of Julie (Jasmine Trinca), director Jacques Nolot (utterly in his element in these louche surroundings) will not help out.

Apart from its beauty, and a cast that includes Hafsia Herzi (whose notable debut was in Aabdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain) , Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel, Alice Barnole, Iliana Zabeth, Noémie Lvovsky, Xavier Beauvois, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing (star of Mia Hansen-Løve's The Father of My Children, Jacques Nolot, and Laurent Lacotte, this is one of the most detailed and specific depictions of a brothel on film. It does not spare us on the negative aspects. Besides the disfigured Madeleine, one woman dies covered with syphilitic lesions; another, clearly a burnout after 12 years in service, takes constant refuge in opium and moves around listlessly like a semi-zombie.

Bonello doesn't have a strong dramatic plot, and the resulting general lack of drive of his atmospheric film, its emphasis on the prostitutes' passivity and frequent downtime, leads inevitably to longeurs. His subject is the brothel itself, seen vaguely from the point of view of its impresario, Marie-France, who moves about brandishing a cigarette holder, pouring champagne into tall glasses, and flashing her languid smile. There is an undercurrent of her attempts to save the house from rising costs that are going to bring it down. Perhaps out of a lurid fascination that the whole film reveals (despite its unsexiness), he lingers much too much on the strangely defaced Madeleine, whose red-scarred grin never seems quite real. There's something queasy, not quite right. This is also an overbearingly sad film, that lacks the balance of any jokey, joyful moments, which one would expect from a dozen mostly young women. Though half the dozen girls gain identities, none is seen in much depth, and it all goes on too long; 20-30 minutes might have been cut. But this is still worth seeing to luxuriate in the beautiful colors, the atmosphere, and the Belle Époque nudes. Admirable cinematography by Josée Deshaies and lavish costume design by Anais Romand; and the women are of course often unclothed. This is a film that stays in the visual memory. Perhaps only that.

Apollonide: Souvenires de la maison close/House of Tolerance debuted at Cannes in May 2011 and opened in Paris September 21, 2011 to favorable though mixed reviews. (AlloCiné press rating 3.6.) A UK release January 27, 2012 is anticipated.

[oscar jubis]

I'm curious about the new Andre Techine film, Impardonnables. Have you seen it? It opened in France about two months ago.

[Chris Knipp]

It is showing in Paris, but not in my area. I'll keep it in mind. No US release?