Tuesday, 29 August 2017

Souvenir (2016) ['Memory'] itself remembers - far better than The Artist (2011) - a bygone style and feel of film (stalled / unfinished review)

This is an appreciation of Souvenir (2016), as seen at Saffron Screen

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2017 (19 to 26 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


28 August



This is a (stalled / unfinished) appreciation of Souvenir (2016), as seen at Saffron Screen on Monday 28 August at 8.00 p.m.

Of course, the release-date of a film – in this case, 2016 – is just as much a different matter from when, in the UK (say), it has distribution and one gets to see it as from when Isabelle Huppert would have signed up to the film, the dates of the shoot [IMDb (@IMDb) does not give any, but such as The Hollywood Reporter might], and the period of editing and other post-production work before one gets anywhere near ‘a theatrical release'.

All that aside, though, Huppert shows – in this film and in Elle (2016), released in the same year – such a different side to her acting that the contrast is palpable and endearing : the humour, the awkwardness, the pulls of desire are assuredly there in Elle, but the overall affect of Paul Verhoeven’s film is quite another, on account alone of Michèle’s (Huppert's) parents and her feelings towards them both !


Nonetheless, Elle - and Huppert's effective performances in Michael Haneke's films, from The Piano Teacher (2001) and Time of the Wolf (Le temps du loup) (2013) to Amour* (2012) - was a good enough reason to want to watch Souvenir...

[...]





[Something would have appeared here...]


Film-references :

* Bright Days Ahead (Les beaux jours) (2013)

* Edward Scissorhands (1990) - fable / Thurber

* Indecent Proposal (1993)

* Magic in the Moonlight (2014)

* Romantics Anonymous (Les émotifs anonymes) (2010)

* The Artist (2011)








End-notes :

* Somewhat coolly playing Eva, the daughter of Emmanuelle Riva (Anne) and Jean-Louis Trintignant (Georges).




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

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