This weekend marks the beginning of the 15th anniversary edition of Cinemania, the Montreal film festival dedicated to showing French films, all with English subtitles. Over the past decade and a half, Cinemania has been a unique player in the festival circuit, focusing largely on the films of the diverse French film industry and giving them a home at this event. For many of the films, they will not receive regular North American theatrical distribution or even make it to DVD on this side of the ocean, making their appearances at the festival that much more unique. We will be at the festival over the next ten days, taking in as much as we can and letting you know what’s worth tracking down and what you shouldn’t feel bad about missing.
It should also be noted, that all the films are being presented in 35mm which we want to take a moment to applaud. At the Festival Du Nouveau Cinema last month, a good handful of the films we saw were “digital projections” on systems that clearly needed an upgrade. We’re not going to get into the “film versus digital” debate, but subpar digital projections does both the filmmaker and audience a disservice, and we’re glad that Cinemania have made how the films are presented, a top priority.
“Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” – The other film about Coco Chanel has one of the best opening sequences we’ve seen all year. It’s 1913, and patrons of a Paris ballet are about to be treated to the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s (Mads Mikkelsen) “The Rites Of Spring.” Director Jan Kounen, instead of cutting directly to the historic catcalls and near riots that greeted Stravinsky’s work, makes the smart choice of allowing the full piece, with the original choreography play out, allowing viewers to really experience how shocking this event was. It marked the beginning of a downward spiral for the famous composer, but the rising Coco was in the audience, and little did they know their lives would intersect again. Seven years later, the madly successful Coco (Anna Mouglalis) decides to put up the down-and-out composer and his family in her country villa, presumably so he can have a quiet place to work, but of course she has other intentions. Kounen’s intelligent handling of the opening sets a tone for the rest of the film. The material could so easily be played for high melodrama in lesser hands, but Kounen’s film, buoyed by solid lead performances, is sumptuous, yet subtle, passionate and measured. Kounen navigates the mad affair between Chanel and Stravinsky, and it’s consequences, with a deft hand. His finest touch is in the unfolding the complexity of these characters, celebrating their artistic brilliance, while not being afraid to show the selfishness and callousness that also drives their romance. Even a subplot, about the creation of the famous “Chanel No. 5”, is managed wonderfully into the rest of the film and by the time the film graciously comes to a close, though their relationship has fizzled, Kounen still finds a way to express the resonating heartbeats that lasted for the rest of their lives. “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” is wonderful portrait of two artists who found inspiration in the forbidden. [A-]
“Welcome” – The latest from director Philippe Loiret is a bracing drama that takes a humanist look at the refugee crisis in northern France. Bilal (Firat Ayverdil) has spent three months on foot, crossing Europe, hoping to reach his girlfriend who is already in England. His only barrier is the imposing English Channel and his options are few. He can pay 500 Euros and have a human smuggler attempt to get him into the UK, or he can swim, but both choices are fraught with potentially fatal consequences. After the former option fails, Bilal works his way into a public swimming pool and begins to take lessons from Simon (Vincent London in a wonderfully nuanced performance), a former swim pro. As their lessons continue, Simon slowly becomes pulled into Bilal’s life, and upon learning the extent of his young friend’s plight, puts his career and life on the line to help him. Loiret’s film avoids any grandstanding, but makes a determined point about the treatment of refugees and in the process becomes a rewarding, moving look at an endlessly complex issue. [B+]
“Please Please Me!” – This breezy comedy, written, directed and starring French comedic actor Emmanuel Mouret, is set in motion by a plot point that plays like a Bizarro World version of “Breaking The Waves.” The sexually frustrated Jean-Jacques (Mouret) is encouraged by his cock-blocking girlfriend Ariane (Frederique Bel) to sleep with another woman to satisfy his needs, and in turn she believes it will make them a more progressive couple. Jean-Jacques reluctantly agrees and calls up Elisabeth (Judith Godreche), a woman he flirted with in a bar who happened to show an interest in him as well. It turns out that she’s the French Prime Minister’s daughter, and when he shows up to meet her, he finds himself thrust into an upper crust party where he fits in like a square peg in a round hole. The entire second act of the film is a riff on Peter Sellers’ “The Party,” where the everyman Jean-Jacques gets into a series of increasingly ridiculous mishaps, while the maid Aneth (played by the heart-stoppingly beautiful Deborah Francois) continually bails him out. This is the most enjoyable part of the film as Mouret has an incredible Buster Keaton-esque face, remarkable physicality and sets up some delightful physical and visual gags that would’ve made Jacques Tati proud. However, once Jean-Jacques leaves the party, we’re dragged back into the dull story about his relationship with Ariane. “Please Please Me!” never builds to the hilarious boiling point of films by the aforementioned masters, but it’s a solid effort that’s a little more admirable because they don’t make them like this very often anymore. [C+]
“La Tres Tres Grand Enterprise” – When a big agricultural company settles with the inhabitants of a village for polluting their air and water, shutting down their businesses and economy, four residents decide that the settlement money isn’t enough and decide to infiltrate the head offices to dig up more dirt, and in turn get some more money. Billed as an “Ocean’s Four” styled caper, director Pierre Jolivet’s film is strangely inert, laboriously taking us through each step of the group’s plan to get a job at the company, find out where the sensitive info is and….well, you get the picture. While Steven Soderbergh’s films did have some elaborate set-ups, it never felt like you were actually on the job, doing the grunt work the way Jolivet’s film does. And when Jolivet isn’t struggling to breathe some life into the shenanigans these four get themselves into, he unwisely detours jarringly into some fairly dramatic backstories involving drug addict lovers and divorces. “Le Tres Tres Grand Enterprise,” never quite manages to be the flashy, David-and-Goliath story it wants to be, but instead plays out like a watered down version of “Mark Whitacre meets Danny Ocean.” [C-]
