| ashu |
Posted
on 07-Nov-02 03:11 AM
Since sajha attracts its fair share of writers, may these descriptions inspire a few to be scriptwriters.
That said, come watch these FREE movies in Kathmandu, late this month.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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Friday, November 29th at 5:00 PM
La Vie Rêvée des Anges, 1998
Dream Life of Angels
Directed by: Eric Zonca,
Scénario: Eric Zonca,
Photography: Agnès Godard,
Producer: Agat films et cie,
Color, Duration: 1h53
Cast: Elodie Bouchez (Isa), Natacha Régnier (Marie), Grégoire Colin (Chriss), Jo Prestia (Frédo), Patrick Mercado (Charly).
Isa is 20 years old, her only piece of luggage is a rucksack and she has an optimistic attitude to the hardships of life. She arrives in Lille where she meets another 20 years old girl called Marie. But the later is an unsociable, hypersensitive and in rebellion against her family.
Isa moves in with Marie. Then, while Isa begins to visit the child in whose flat they live, going to hospital to read to her, Marie slowly falls for a rich youth. When Isa tries to warn Marie, their friendship flounders. How will Marie handle the inevitable?
The film has characters, which are richly developed, believable, showing emotions which are palpable and for whom we can care. What we find out here is that simple is sometimes best. The plot is the life and death of a friendship. The performances by Elodie Bouchez (Isa) and Natacha Regnier (Marie) in the title characters were outstanding and won the Cannes Prize for Female lead. Similarely the film won the 1999 César (French Oscar) for the best film.
La Vie Rêvée des Anges is not a film about class struggle but it is a film where classes exist and where clas conflict has to do with the death of Marie, seduced and betrayed by smooth, cold Papa’s Boy. (…) The film’s title is intriguing. What dream? Who are the angels? A halo of mystery seels to float over the simple story of Marie, Isa, Sabine and the 2 bikers bears, especially since Eric Zonca seems to object to any spiritual interpretation of his film. If L vie Rêvé des Anges is much more than a slice of life (of lives), it’s because it is a cinematic affair. Not bound so much to the scenario (Zonca says he shot may scenes that went o the editing room floor, which seems to indicate the definitive scenario did not appear until after shooting, upon seeing the rushes) but more to Zonca’s tight direction and the interactive work of the 2 actresses and the chief photographer, Agnès Godard.
(Jean-Pierre Jeancolas, Politis, September 17, 1998.)
Saturday, November 30th at 1:00 PM
Vénus Beauté (Institut), 1999
Venus Beauty
Director: Tonie Marshall,
Scenario: Tonie Marshall,
Photography: Gérard de Battiste,
Production: Agat film et cie Color, Duration: 1h45
Cast: Nathalie Baye (Angèle), Bulle Ogier (Nadine), Samuel Le Bihan (Antoine), Jacques Bonnaffe (Jacques), Matilde Seigneir (Samantha), Robert Hossein (the Aviator), Audrey Tautou (Marie)
“Venus Beauty” is a pink shop in a busy part of Paris. Nadine is the boss, Angèle an employee. They receive ladies, listen to them, care for and console them. A few men too. Angèle lives alone and picks up men after work without much conviction until the day she encounters Antoine who says he loves her and strives to prove it to her.
The Beauty institute really exists. It’s a neighborhood place where, under the clock of frivolity, they treat appearances, which in the end encounter the truth. (…) I went into the institute. In each booth you could hear what was said in the others, and what was said I had never heard elsewhere.
I think that in the Shelter of these tiny Booths, there is a proximity, a physical intimacy that makes people, shameless or not, talk about their deepest intimacy. It’s not beauty parlor chat; it’s bits of themselves.
(Tonie Marshall, Film press release)
The controlled universe of the salon offers Angèle a certain tranquility. On the exterior, it’s all helter-skelter. Not knowing where to settle, she flees from one to another, provoking unknown men or aggressing them verbally.
Language is an essential dimension in the film. Cutting and incisive, the dialogs contrast to the pink bonbon aspect of the ensemble and give tone and bite to fragility and melancholy. The Savory retorts tossed off along the way fiercely sprinkle the smooth surface of appearances. (…) Tonie Marshall succeeds in the difficult balance between emotion and bitch humor, with the firmness of a sharp eye, distanced from her subjecy. A true delight.
(Sophie Bonnet, Les Inrockuptibles, February 3rd, 1999)
Saturday, November 30th 3:15 PM
Les Bleu des Villes, 1999
The Blues of City
Director: Stéphane Brizé,
Scenario: Florence Vignon & Stéphane Brizé,
Photography: Jean-Claude Larrieu
Producer: Milena Poylo & Gilles Sacuto, TS Color, Duration: 1h45
Cast: Florence Vignon (Solange), Mathilde Seigner (Mylène),Antoine Chappey (Patrick), Philippe Duquesne (Jean-Paul).
Solange and her husband lead a quiet life in the provinces. Solange’s friend, Mylène, a TV weather forecaster, comes to town to sign copies of her autobiography at a local bookshop and devotes an evening to her friend: dinner and drinks at a club, exchanging confidences.
Once Mylène leaves, Solange realizes she has fulfilled none of her dreams. Instead of being a singer, she is a meter maid. Her stage costume is a uniform; her audience, drivers who insult her. Suddenly her daily life is too dull, her husband too normal, her profession too humiliating. Is it still possible to change her life?
Brizé is extremely tender toward his characters and never treats them with contempt. He gives them enough interior richness to defend themselves. With its bitter and melancholic highlights, the quality of its writing and its attentive photography, Le Bleu des Villes wins our favor, even though it could have been a little tighter. Les (Inrockuptibles, December 1999.)
Saturday, November 30th at 5:15 PM
La Dilettante, 1998
The Dilettante
Director: Pascal Thomas
Scenario: Jacques Lourcelles,
Photography: Christophe Beaucarne
Producer: Ah! Victoria! Films and Euripide Productions, Color, Duration: 1h58
Cast: Catherine Frot (Pierrette Dumortier), Barbara Schulz (Nathalie), Marie-Christine Barrault ( Thérèse Rambert), Sébastien Cotterot (Eric).
Almost penniless, Pierrette has moved into her son’s tiny studio apartment in the suburbs. He is a trainee in a nearby factory and, at first, is more surprised than delighted to see her.
Amid new encounters and activities, Pierrette, an independent woman who above all hates playing the victim and arousing the sympathy of others, tries to maintain or lose her balance with a son and daughter whom she would like to help but they have lost the habit of needing her, and to cope with her sudden passion for a priest very popular with the media and an affair with an antique dealer that will lead to jail. It is a bittersweet tale, meandering and unexpected, told without dogmatism nor preconceived ideas.
Pascal Thomas is a specialist in bittersweet comedy, sentimental chronicles tempered with a touch of seriousness. In La Dilettante, the director of Les Zozos follows Pierrette Dumontier, a well-to-do lady who is suddenly penniless, as she becomes in turn a school monitor, barmaid, antiques cashier and jailbird. The result is a charming. Film, eccentric in the just right way, written and played with great deal of subtlety. Catherine Frot is marvelously mordant in the title role and Odette Laure alone as a falsely senile grandma is well worth the detour Certainly it is one of the most refreshing films. (S.D, Libération, July, 1999.)
Sunday, December 1st at 1:00 PM
Haut les Coeurs, 1999
Chin Up
Director: Solveig Anspach
Scenario: Solveig Anspach & Pierre Erwan Guillaume
Photography: Isabelle Razavet,
Producer: Ex Nihilo Color, Duration: 1h50
Cast: Karin Vlard (Emma) Laurent Luca (Simon), Julien Cottereau (Olivier).
Expecting her first baby, Emma learns she has breast cancer. Her doctor advises an abortion, saying the necessary treatment is incompatible with pregnancy. Her lover, Simon, urges her to see another specialist, Dr. Morin, who says the treatment is possible during her pregnancy. Emma regains confidence. Her body which had betrayed her comes to life again. Now she must fight for 2 lives.
Like the film, its title is as beautiful as it is just; a film for going onward, come what may. A film that makes us assume the heroine’s outlook, meaning to face reality. We could say Haut Les Coeurs is deep, overwhelming and all the rest, which is true, but equally out of place and insufficient and in regard to its content. Yes, it resembles its heroine; it doesn’t lower its eyes but demands a head-on look. (Aden, November, 1999.)
Sunday, December 1st at 3:15 AM
Rien à faire, 1999
Nothing to Do
Director: Marion Vernoux
Scenario: Marion Vernoux & Santiago Arnigorena
Photography: Dominique Colin
Producer: ADR Productions Color, Duration: 1h45
Cast: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi (Marie), Patrick Dell’Isola (Pierre), Sergi Lopez (Luis), Florence Thornassin (Sophie).
A man. A woman. Married... but not together. They are unemployed; he for several weeks, she for 14 months. They become friends, then lovers. It is a friendship that daily, but not intentionally, turns into love. A clandestine, insolent, carefree love, unforeseen during days of unemployment. One day, the man finds work...
Filming ennui without complacency nor compassion, paying attention to each daily detail, microscopically observing the fragility of certain gestures too feverish not to hide a wound, the director paints an honest and moving psychological portrait of our two out-of-work lovers. And gives us a rare, overwhelming film. With her characteristic taste for “daily romance”, Marion Vernoux once again strikes the essential. And moves us deeply with a story as simple as can be. (Thierry Klifa, Studio, December, 1999.)
Sunday, December 1st, at 5:15 PM
Love Me, 2000
Director: Laetitia Masson
Scenario: Laetitia Masson
Photography: Antoine HeberIé
Producer: Alain Sarde, Color, Duration: 1H45
Cast: Sandrine Kiberlain (The Young Girl), Johnny Hallyday (Lennox), Jean Françols Stevenin (Carbonne), Aurore Clément (The Young Girl’s Mother).
The impossible story between a young girl looking for love and a singer who no longer believes in it. She meets him in Memphis and follows him. He flees. She insists. He ends up being deeply moved by her. But... it is also the story of a girl who takes refuge in her dreams to flee reality and her past. Here the story between the young girl and the singer becomes complicated...Where do reality end and the imaginary begin?
Love Me is a voyage, fascinating and overwhelming in the dreams and the unconscious of a young girl looking for love. A voyage to the end of her night. Then, of course, we at times no longer clearly distinguish between dreams and reality, between lies and truth. We don’t clearly know where we are or where we are going. But that is just where the charm, force and audacity of the film lie. In their quest for love, Kiberlain and Hallyday are unforgettable. (Jean-Pierre Lavoignat, Studio, février 2000. La Vie Ręvée des Anges).
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