The ICA's #CatalanAvantGarde season : A brief interview with Sílvia Munt

This is a short interview with Sílvia Munt, director of El Cafè de la Marina (2014)

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
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This is a brief, recollected* interview, from #CatalanAvantGarde at the ICA (@ICALondon), with Sílvia Munt, director of El Cafè de la Marina (2014), which had a screening on Tuesday 28 April 2015 at 8.50 p.m.

30 April

@ICALondon presents tonight Silvia Munt and her film "Elcafede la Marina" #CatalanAvantGarde
— Artttnow(@Artttnow) April 28, 2015

A very useful event, arranged for the audience, allowed one to ask director Sílvia Munt some questions before the screening (two young Catalan-speakers, one already familiar, kindly agreed to help with translating) : useful, since the exigencies of The Agent’s travel turned out to make lingering long in the Q&A itself inconvenient. So, over some Cava, one was able to establish that, as well as having a warm and welcoming presence and a willingness to engage with enquiry, Munt has directed herself in three of her eight feature films to date (though this one, as became clear (please see below), had been conceived for television).

In this case, though, Sílvia had just directed – as well, that is, as having scripted the film (with Mercè Sàrrias). However, when suggested, she did agree that she is not with Woody Allen in how he is reported to direct himself, by being reportedly keen to quit at the end of the day to catch The World Series. Rather, she can fifteen takes to get what she wants from her own performance, and, when she writes, it takes her three months to develop a script. [Damn ! Could have asked her whether she also uses Allen’s method, when writing, of bashing it out on an old Olympia typewriter... (And, in like analogue vein, substituting text by stapling slips of paper in place over the old material.)]

That said, regarding how scripts develop during shooting, Munt said that hers remain malleable (because actors may find that the words do not sound right when they speak them), and then, as it were [not her words], she ‘reframes the utterances’. She went on to say that this approach fits the nature of her work, as dramatic comedy (rather than, say, permitting the cast to improvise replacement material) : therefore, she does re-writes, because any other approach would not (for her) be congruent with her material. [Another point of comparison (not made) with Allen, who tells us that, if his actors re-formulate his text on set, he can even go with that, seemingly irrespective of genre.]


As became apparent during the conversation, as it specifically turned to El Cafè de la Marina (2014), Munt has adapted what is regarded as a classic of Catalan literature : a stage-play of this name, in verse form (with lines of ten syllables), by Josep María Sagarra. Just from what she was saying, concerning difficulties of location-scouting an unspoilt shore, the film about to be watched** had to be a period piece. [As it is not a period film, though set on that coast, one had to refrain (as this was meant to be active listening [link to Wikipedia®]) from reflecting aloud on Menú degustació (Tasting Menu) (2013), from Camera Catalonia***.]

As Munt spoke, the likelihood arose (as mentioned to her, and realised in the seeing) that there would nigh inevitably be connections with the themes of actor / director Daniel Auteuil’s Marseilles-set trilogy in the making**** (but of which she said that she did not know). (The original films, apparently much loved, were derived from two stage-plays by Marcel Pagnol and then directly from his film-script, which he directed to conclude it, and later turned into a play : the first play had been directed as Marius (1931) by Alexander Korda, and then Fanny (1932) by Marc Allégret.)

As for El Cafè de la Marina itself on film, a confused account (on IMDb and elsewhere) suggests, with little detail, that one was made in 1933 (or was it in 1941 ?) : if so, contemporary with Pagnol on film. At the time of viewing Munt’s version, that had not been known, or that it had been conceived as a t.v. movie. However, when Munt was asked in the Q&A (before The Agent had to rush off) about the effect of using light indoors in the café, it appeared that there had been some issues in converting it to a DCP, and that the look that we had seen might have been different from what had been intended…


A little more (by way of a quick review) to come...


End-notes

* I.e. not digitally recorded, but relying on neuronal techniques of capture...

** ‘From cold’, that is to say with no prior knowledge - on the basis that A film should speak for itself.

*** The six-film Catalan strand at Cambridge Film Festival in 2014 – the third year of films at #CamFF from Catalunya, curated by Ramon Lamarca (who hosted this evening’s Q&A).

**** So far, we have had Marius (2013) and Fanny (2013) (at Cambridge Film Festival 2013 (#CamFF / @camfilmfest)), but César now seems ‘put back’ from having been, previously, noted as in pre-production on IMDb (@IMDb) :

And one is still waiting for the trilogy to conclude, with César, and an excuse to watch the first two films again... !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 29, 2015

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

It's a matter of conscience

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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9 December (completed 13 December)

* Full of spoilers - only read if you know the film *

Marius (2013) is a superbly compiled piece of cinema, and, from a second viewing, well worthy (with Fanny (2013)) to be in the top five of selections from Cambridge Film Festival 2013 (@camfilmfest).

The first thing that we see from Marius' point of view is out to sea from the harbour bar, which he helps - when he does not just disappear* - his father César run. Then, when we see him, he looks as though he is in prison (which, metaphorically, he is), because the window is barred. He tries to make Fanny believe, when she appears, that he was looking at her, and there the dichotomy is stated in one.

In his beautiful score, Alexandre Desplat has a muted trumpet theme, which is full of longing, and could be longing for a woman or - as it turns out to be - for the sea. A little later, he has a second main theme that is full of piping, and which comes into its own at the end.

Marius likes to believe that he has rationalized his feelings, telling both César and Fanny that he 'cannot marry', and representing to the former (who believes that it is on account of a mistress) that she - really, the sea - might kill herself, if he ended it. As in so many places in this film, the scene gains its strength, because of dramatic irony, in that we know what is really on Marius' mind. How Marius behaves towards Panisse, when Fanny and he are trying to have a quiet drink in the corner of the bar, shows that he has not rationalized things - even though, at the dance at Cascade, Fanny had tried to tell Marius that she is thinking of accepting Panisse's proposal.


When Fanny takes Marius' advice literally, he tries to back out of it, and then ends up revealing to her the draw of the sea, which - if a rap at the door had had a different message - could have taken him away at a moment's notice. In telling her what he had learnt from the crew of the vessel that came from The Leeward Islands, we hear (in Desplat's music that there is) real poetry, intoxication, love... However, Fanny - characterizing it later as an irrational fascination for the land of the green monkeys - must have misconceived, by believing that his love for her would be stronger and overcome.

Having, feeling as he did, hitherto behaved properly towards Fanny, he allows himself to kiss her and presumably also to believe that he can overcome his inclinations, although he had been on the verge of joining a crew, if he had been needed, that very night.

Weeks later, thinking that he has been deceiving his father (whereas César has told his card-laying friends that he knows his ploy of climbing back inside and locking his door from the inside), he slips out to meet Fanny, and, when she overhears her relationship described as 'a matter of conscience' to the captain who wants Marius to serve, she takes the chance to assure the captain that he will go, because she knows that Marius does not love her, and she cannot bear to hear that he will cry himself to sleep, if he does not go (she believes what is said, for the simple reason that the captain must have known others who had been drawn to the sea, but did not go, and has no expectation that she will persuade Marius to go, as she claims).

When Fanny realizes, from what she has heard Marius say, that he is not in love with her, she has as much reason to want him to go to sea (so that she can 'cover her shame' and marry Panisse), but she probably cannot contrive that her mother Honorine (played impassionedly by Marie-Anne Chazel) gets a lift back from her sister's with M. Amourdedieu** so that the lovers are discovered, and Honorine puts pressure on César, who puts it on Marius.

All of these factors come into play when Fanny urges Marius to go to sea : as she is saying that she will look to his matter of conscience, he will not be forced into marriage, if he goes, and he does want to go. She also wants him to go, because she is ashamed of being deceived by him until she hears him speak to the captain. Here, the actual piping, which had been in Desplat's score, evokes the latter by association, with all its resonance. So Fanny covers for him, occupying César, whilst the ship gets ready for sea, and sails.

Panisse, who could have had a message from Marius for his father, instead just has incoherence after Marius has clumsily knocked some crates over, but still goes to try to alert his former schoolmate César to what is happening at the dock - only he is too busy with Fanny's deception, intended to let Marius go. Whatever Pagnol's screen adaptation of his own stage trilogy might have been, it is scarcely possible to conceive Auteuil's version being any less crisp, with scene seamlessly following scene in just 93 minutes.


End-notes

* He tries to leave Fanny in charge when he runs off for a meeting with the captain at the brothel, and she, presumably not knowing why he has gone there (when she follows), ends up crying on her bed.

** Pagnol keeps the names of his trio of linked characters simple (and also that of Panisse), whereas César's circle of friends have some outlandish ones, such as Escartefigue and Frisepoulet (unless that is Auteuil's deviltry !).


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

A matter of Marseille

This is a Festival review of Marius (2013) and Fanny (2013)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

26 September

This is a Festival review of Marius (2013) and Fanny (2013)

Daniel Auteuil has a reason or two to love Pagnol – he was in films such as Manon des Sources from the mid-1980s, but he is also from that area, Provence.

The trilogy that he is making, of which Marius and Fanny screened last weekend and César is still in production, are less bucolic, being set in Marseilles (or, as in French, Marseille, without the ‘s’), and with a veritable maritime feel, almost a whiff (with Fanny’s seafood) of the ocean, which makes for a real freshness to both location and characters.

The story in these first two parts contrasts the fun-loving liberation of the jazz and cinema age with the Roman Catholic attitude to sex (and children as the evidence) before marriage, the desire for a partner and for children with a pull to explore the world. In all of this, Auteuil’s direction is deft, composing shots and a treatment of Pagnol’s writing that always draws the viewer in, and with a careful use of music.

Previously, he worked with Jean-Pierre Darroussin in Conversations with my Gardener (2007), and the other actor is here as a man, Panisse, who acts to save a situation when César (Auteuil) has insulted him by misinterpreting his motives, despite years of friendship going back to schooldays, and initially and violently seeks to oppose what is for the best. The quartet of major players is completed by Raphaël Personnaz and Victoire Bélézy as the other two title characters, and all are so strong, working with the grist of Pagnol’s original, that the result would be thoroughly engaging were they not supported by the likes of Marie-Anne Chazel, and by the old port and the ocean that it gives onto.

César, though, is not a violent man, though he does tend to tease people beyond their limits, and, after a grumpy start, he comes alive on screen when he shows Marius how to make an aperitif with four different ‘one-thirds’ in the same glass. When Marius disappears, as he all too frequently does, and abandons the business, his father just frets over him, addressing the absent Marius rhetorically as ‘mon petit’.

The first film, Marius, teeters around what he wants, and ends with a decision, whereas Fanny (and its title character) has to address what remains – at heart, both are driven by Marius not wanting what he has, and wanting what he cannot have, the latter in such a way that he becomes totally hateful, and is transformed. In all of this, César and Panisse show what grace and love they have, even for Marius and where his desires lead him.

All in all, a fine cast working in a lovely free manner together to create this drama, which so far has run to some 210 minutes, and whose conclusion is likely to be a tour de force.


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