More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
5 December
Jeune et Jolie (2013) was screened at The Little Theatre as part of Bath Film Festival 2013
How many reviews of Jeune et Jolie (2013) am I going to have to read where its uninspired writer references the completely irrelevant Belle de Jour (1967), just because - whatever the fit - it is the only film that, in each case, he or she can think of where a woman works as a prostitute ?
* Tim Robey* in The Telegraph
* Ian Freer in Empire
* James Mottram in Total Film
* Nigel Andrews in The Financial Times
* Andrew Nickolds at TAKE ONE
And so on...
Have they never seen Natalie (2003) or even Sleeping Beauty (2011), which have far more in common for how the topos is treated ? What, in fact, does a married woman with sadomasochistic fantasies have to do with a seventeen-year-old, who has just uncomfortably lost her virginity ?
Sooner that, though, than being smugly dismissive (Mark Kermode in The Observer) or claiming that Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013) is indisputably better (Brian Viner, Mail Online : Viner says that Jeune et Jolie 'is in no way a match for' the other film, but they are very different films, no more capable of being compared than Superman and Bambi just because both (of J&J and Blue) feature sex.
Reviewers tediously also want a motivation for what Isabelle does. As i** carps :
Ozon's motives in making this film are as inscrutable as those of his teenage heroine Isabelle (Marine Vacth) [...] who, for reasons Ozon doesn't even begin to make clear, decided to embark on a part-time career as a teenage prostitute
They see (as the quotation shows) the fact that no motivation is stated is a flaw, which it might be in a world of perfect rationality, but that is not our world. So, Nigel Floyd (for Film4) reports :
“I didn't really try and understand psychologically who [Isabelle] was," Vacth has said. "I wasn't interested in knowing exactly. And anyway I couldn't, because François didn't tell me anything about her psychology.” The second half of this statement is more revealing than the first. Given that their creative collaboration was so one-sided, it's not surprising that the film suffers from an atmosphere of uncontrolled, unrevealing salaciousness.
Has Floyd even seen the film, if he thinks it salacious, one might wonder.
All this business about motivation is ultimately a dead end, a red herring, and would have one interrogate Amour (2012), when Michael Haneke is on record here, and in relation to other films, that it is up to us how we view them, and there is no one way.
What more do we want, and why, than what the films tells us : that Isabelle's friend Claire and she were approached in the street (Claire previously alludes to this encounter in talking to Isabelle), and the man said his number. Do we need spelt out what impulse led Isabelle to follow up a man interested in her ? Obviously, most girls of her age would do nothing with it, but why should she not register the number and act on it ?
In fact, an answer to why she did is utterly boring, when the fact is that she did, and we see her approaching room 6598 where not her first client awaits her, but Georges, with nothing of what preceded. There is something seriously wrong with the idea of cinema-going if that does not suffice, and critics are unhappy not to be told more.
End-notes
* At least Robey goes on to make this (necessary) observation : 'The film makes more sense if you see it as a companion piece to Ozon’s last one, In the House, which had a 16-year-old male schemer insinuating himself into a series of power plays'.
** In the edition on 29 November 2013.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Showing posts with label Buñuel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buñuel. Show all posts
Thursday 5 December 2013
Sunday 1 December 2013
Young and attractive*
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
1 December
This is a review of Jeune et Jolie (2013), as shown at Bath Film Festival 2013 (@BathFilm)
S = script
A = acting
C = cinematography
M = music
P = pacing
F = feel
9 = mid-point of scale (all scored out of 17, 17 x 6 = 102)
After the location of the opening section, François Ozon’s film is set in Paris, but more by implication than by depiction (except for showing a fascinating bridge where it seems to be the fashion to leave a padlock on the side mesh) in a film that haunts interiors. For a film that seems to centre on the sexual act, it is impressively unsexy, unlike its distinctively arousing contemporary from Abdellatif Keciche, Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013), and it really hinges on the seasons, starting with the summer, when Isabelle (Marine Vacth) turns 17.
In her head at least (though this is true of the pupils in both Keciche’s film and – another vehicle for Adèle Exarchopoulos – Pieces of Me (2012)), this is high time to lose one’s virginity, which is shown typical gritting-one’s-teeth style as if it is just something that has to be done**. Impossibly, since her German lover (no virgin) is with her and escorts her home, she looks at where it happened as if outside herself, so we know from this, and her lack of desire to see him, that the act has significance beyond our measure.
Keen though she is not to announce what she has done to her friend Claire, she does capitalize on it, and the attention that men give her. Comparisons have been made with classic Buñuel in Belle de Jour (1967), but Isabelle’s motivations – to the extent that we ever understand them – are nothing to do with sadomasochistic fantasy, nor (as in the rather dire Sleeping Beauty (2011), and despite what Isabelle pretends) with lack of funds as a student. If one is reminded of any recent film parallel, not least by how J&J ends, it is the excellent Natalie (2003), for doing something just because one can…
The film neatly sets up expectations that Isabelle’s brother Victor, who spies on her going topless on the beach and with whom she makes – and breaks – an agreement to tell him all about her lovers’ tryst, is going to remain important : what is, though, important is what her first sexual experience with another meant, for that moment of standing outside herself was almost reminiscent of the coping strategy of Samira as a victim of gang-rape in As if I am not There (2010).
This, I believe, rightly remains unclear. It has some bearing on what Isabelle did, but we are too little privy to her therapy sessions to know whether the psychological truth behind it all becomes clear to her. As a pithy description on IMDb says, this is a film in four seasons and four songs, the first of which we hear when she is reflecting on what happened on the beach. As befits songs (and it remains to be established whose words are set), they can exist outside the realm of the person with whom they are visually associated, just as a singer can tell a tale of jealousy without being a jealous person :
Without a teacher’s voice intervening, what is effective is a moment when different members of the class, Isabelle included, recite parts of a poem by Rimbaud, and then are shown, in their seats, interpreting it. Not only is one reminded of the school setting, and relatively impenetrable protagonist, of the previous film (In the House (2012)), but also of the provisionality of what we see and hear, whether in poetry, or in film.
The taboos that are broken share ground (though not content) with films of Haneke’s such as Benny’s Video (1992), Funny Games (1997) or The White Ribbon (2009), with both writer / directors showing that they have insights into the world of adolescence and the excessive liberties that it can lead to. The alliance between brother and sister to keep secrets, and that uneasy interest in each other’s sexuality, is the germ of what happens, the sort of rebellion that Haneke keeps coming back to.
The seasons denote attempts to come to terms with sex and relationships from the first sexual act to thinking oneself invited to perform lesbian acts, and, in between, a searching for identity, warmth, a place to be oneself that ranges from flirting with one’s stepfather (Frédéric Pierrot***) to trying to love a peer. In all of this, the threatened connection between mother and daughter holds firm, but there is the unsettling feeling that what one did / who one is perceived to be will break through.
Ozon’s film is seamlessly constructed, thoughtful, intense, and the performances that he has from Vacth and from Géraldine Pailhas as her mother Sylvie are highly impressive, with solid support from Pierrot, a little more able sometimes as Patrick, even if his way of expressing himself is pounced on to his ill by Sylvie, to see the wood for the trees. Ultimately, Ozon leaves us to ponder, whether or not as parents, what he has brought to us here.
Though there is also a follow-up piece here
End-notes
* The film gives as its English title Young and Beautiful, but any student of French will tell you that jolie does not mean 'beautiful' (which is belle). One of the posters for the rising star Peppy in The Artist (2011) is Young and Pretty, but Peppy does not suit a leading lady, and would fit the dog better.
** Rather implausibly, given what twentieth-century girls lives are like (plus she is described as a tomboy later on), she bleeds, as if her hymen had been intact.
*** A prolific film actor, best known to me from being a foil to KST in Sarah's Key (2010) - a film unfairly slighted by UK critics - and, in a different capacity, in I've Love You So Long (2008).
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
1 December
This is a review of Jeune et Jolie (2013), as shown at Bath Film Festival 2013 (@BathFilm)
99 = S : 16 / A : 17 / C : 16 / M : 17 / P : 16 / F : 17
A rating and review of Jeune et Jolie (2013)
S = script
A = acting
C = cinematography
M = music
P = pacing
F = feel
9 = mid-point of scale (all scored out of 17, 17 x 6 = 102)
Jeune et Jolie (2013) soon reviewed on the blog - a delight seeing Charlotte Rampling, and strong work from Marine Vacth / Géraldine Pailhas
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 2, 2013
After the location of the opening section, François Ozon’s film is set in Paris, but more by implication than by depiction (except for showing a fascinating bridge where it seems to be the fashion to leave a padlock on the side mesh) in a film that haunts interiors. For a film that seems to centre on the sexual act, it is impressively unsexy, unlike its distinctively arousing contemporary from Abdellatif Keciche, Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013), and it really hinges on the seasons, starting with the summer, when Isabelle (Marine Vacth) turns 17.
In her head at least (though this is true of the pupils in both Keciche’s film and – another vehicle for Adèle Exarchopoulos – Pieces of Me (2012)), this is high time to lose one’s virginity, which is shown typical gritting-one’s-teeth style as if it is just something that has to be done**. Impossibly, since her German lover (no virgin) is with her and escorts her home, she looks at where it happened as if outside herself, so we know from this, and her lack of desire to see him, that the act has significance beyond our measure.
Keen though she is not to announce what she has done to her friend Claire, she does capitalize on it, and the attention that men give her. Comparisons have been made with classic Buñuel in Belle de Jour (1967), but Isabelle’s motivations – to the extent that we ever understand them – are nothing to do with sadomasochistic fantasy, nor (as in the rather dire Sleeping Beauty (2011), and despite what Isabelle pretends) with lack of funds as a student. If one is reminded of any recent film parallel, not least by how J&J ends, it is the excellent Natalie (2003), for doing something just because one can…
The film neatly sets up expectations that Isabelle’s brother Victor, who spies on her going topless on the beach and with whom she makes – and breaks – an agreement to tell him all about her lovers’ tryst, is going to remain important : what is, though, important is what her first sexual experience with another meant, for that moment of standing outside herself was almost reminiscent of the coping strategy of Samira as a victim of gang-rape in As if I am not There (2010).
This, I believe, rightly remains unclear. It has some bearing on what Isabelle did, but we are too little privy to her therapy sessions to know whether the psychological truth behind it all becomes clear to her. As a pithy description on IMDb says, this is a film in four seasons and four songs, the first of which we hear when she is reflecting on what happened on the beach. As befits songs (and it remains to be established whose words are set), they can exist outside the realm of the person with whom they are visually associated, just as a singer can tell a tale of jealousy without being a jealous person :
Without a teacher’s voice intervening, what is effective is a moment when different members of the class, Isabelle included, recite parts of a poem by Rimbaud, and then are shown, in their seats, interpreting it. Not only is one reminded of the school setting, and relatively impenetrable protagonist, of the previous film (In the House (2012)), but also of the provisionality of what we see and hear, whether in poetry, or in film.
The taboos that are broken share ground (though not content) with films of Haneke’s such as Benny’s Video (1992), Funny Games (1997) or The White Ribbon (2009), with both writer / directors showing that they have insights into the world of adolescence and the excessive liberties that it can lead to. The alliance between brother and sister to keep secrets, and that uneasy interest in each other’s sexuality, is the germ of what happens, the sort of rebellion that Haneke keeps coming back to.
The seasons denote attempts to come to terms with sex and relationships from the first sexual act to thinking oneself invited to perform lesbian acts, and, in between, a searching for identity, warmth, a place to be oneself that ranges from flirting with one’s stepfather (Frédéric Pierrot***) to trying to love a peer. In all of this, the threatened connection between mother and daughter holds firm, but there is the unsettling feeling that what one did / who one is perceived to be will break through.
Ozon’s film is seamlessly constructed, thoughtful, intense, and the performances that he has from Vacth and from Géraldine Pailhas as her mother Sylvie are highly impressive, with solid support from Pierrot, a little more able sometimes as Patrick, even if his way of expressing himself is pounced on to his ill by Sylvie, to see the wood for the trees. Ultimately, Ozon leaves us to ponder, whether or not as parents, what he has brought to us here.
Though there is also a follow-up piece here
End-notes
* The film gives as its English title Young and Beautiful, but any student of French will tell you that jolie does not mean 'beautiful' (which is belle). One of the posters for the rising star Peppy in The Artist (2011) is Young and Pretty, but Peppy does not suit a leading lady, and would fit the dog better.
** Rather implausibly, given what twentieth-century girls lives are like (plus she is described as a tomboy later on), she bleeds, as if her hymen had been intact.
*** A prolific film actor, best known to me from being a foil to KST in Sarah's Key (2010) - a film unfairly slighted by UK critics - and, in a different capacity, in I've Love You So Long (2008).
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Thursday 29 November 2012
Short films at Festival Central (3) - Scrubber (2012)
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
29 November
* Contains spoilers *
Director : Romola Garria (although IMDb rightly credits her as Romola Garai)
Scrubber (2012) is, as the title is (and as A Gun for George (2011) is), an ambiguous piece of narration. In its literal sense, we see Jenny (Amanda Hale) scrubbing at the floor at one point; at another, when she is saying to a neighbour with whom she is leaving her daughter (Honor Kneafsey), she glosses over what she does by saying that she did work, and citing the house.
In what is the most lengthy of the shorts, though only a few minutes longer than George, there is playfulness shown between mother and daughter, for example with the shampoo beard, and, when we think that Jenny is alone, she has her next to her. Nonetheless, she is in the way, and Jenny leaves her with a relative stranger, rather than change her plans.
Particularly with the scrubbing, but also with reactions to situations where there is messiness, there are hints at a psychological dimension to Jenny’s actions. Yet, for all that she courts sexual encounter, we do not feel part of her motivations in the way that we are with Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967), and we are quite precisely kept on the outside, although we might hypothesize that Jenny hates herself for indulging what she craves.
Whether we think that such is a cinematic portrayal of such a disorder, not bearing a proper connection with the experience of those who have one, must depend on our knowledge and understanding: it is nevertheless one that would bear being seen again.
Back to the Joy of Six menu from here
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
29 November
* Contains spoilers *
Director : Romola Garria (although IMDb rightly credits her as Romola Garai)
Scrubber (2012) is, as the title is (and as A Gun for George (2011) is), an ambiguous piece of narration. In its literal sense, we see Jenny (Amanda Hale) scrubbing at the floor at one point; at another, when she is saying to a neighbour with whom she is leaving her daughter (Honor Kneafsey), she glosses over what she does by saying that she did work, and citing the house.
In what is the most lengthy of the shorts, though only a few minutes longer than George, there is playfulness shown between mother and daughter, for example with the shampoo beard, and, when we think that Jenny is alone, she has her next to her. Nonetheless, she is in the way, and Jenny leaves her with a relative stranger, rather than change her plans.
Particularly with the scrubbing, but also with reactions to situations where there is messiness, there are hints at a psychological dimension to Jenny’s actions. Yet, for all that she courts sexual encounter, we do not feel part of her motivations in the way that we are with Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967), and we are quite precisely kept on the outside, although we might hypothesize that Jenny hates herself for indulging what she craves.
Whether we think that such is a cinematic portrayal of such a disorder, not bearing a proper connection with the experience of those who have one, must depend on our knowledge and understanding: it is nevertheless one that would bear being seen again.
Back to the Joy of Six menu from here
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
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