More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
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)
Showing posts with label Fanny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fanny. Show all posts
Friday, 13 December 2013
Thursday, 7 November 2013
Found in her memories
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
7 November
90 = S : 14 / A : 16 / C : 12 / M : 17 / P : 16 / F : 15
S = script
A = acting
C = cinematography
M = music
P = pacing
F = feel
9 = mid-point of scale (all scores out of 17 / 17 x 6 = 102)
Those who read my blog with any regularity - poor fools ! - may have found that I am 'not good around' Judi Dench, though I did enjoy (even if I should not have done) Billy Connolly and her in Mrs Brown (1997), and, for this reason, will not have discovered much reviewed that features her : something to do with not being able to forgive her spending her effort on series after series (nine, was it ?) of As Time Goes By...
In Philomena, where she is the title-character, all my doubts were overcome - just the close-ups alone, where one could feel the yearning in her eyes, and believe that she was transfixed by the images that were her past, were worth the whole film. (I must last have seen her in Skyfall (2012), as M, but there she has a different vulnerability to her, feeling under personal threat, and then facing a murderous Javier Bardem - at those moments when Philomena was vulnerable, for she could also be very resourceful and admirable in holding her position, she did not seem nearly so frail, but very touching.)
As with another film out now, Gloria (2013), the clue is in the title, i.e. that we are going to witness a portrait of that person, but this person (although she, too, has hurts and griefs) is very different from Gloria. Martin Sixsmith, played by Steve Coogan (who produced the film, and co-wrote it with Jeff Pope), thinks that Philomena is credulous (and says so to his editor), but, when he more or less tells her so (in what sort of desire to keep her sweet, one does not know), she very quickly tells him that God would think him a feckin' eejit. (No, it did not smack of Father Ted, but seemed a very genuine response to Martin's thoughtless atheistic baiting.)
When I consider that Coogan wrote this part for Dench, I am humbled. At The Lincoln Monument, after he has moved her around like a piece of meat to try to get a good pose, there is a very telling pair of lines :
Martin : I'm only going to tell the truth
Philomena : That's what I'm worried about
The lines encapsulate a polarity at the heart of the film. Philomena is a real person about whom Martin Sixsmith, the former BBC journalist and then adviser to the last government, wrote a book in 2009, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. The real Philomena (of whom a photo is shown in a closing montage) was presumably similarly torn about looking for the son whom she was forced to allow to be adopted, and the personal cost of her privacy in doing so.
Whatever the offscreen Sixsmith may be like (and Coogan does not use his ability for mimicry here), he must have allowed Coogan to portray as Martin a journalist who, when declining breakfast and asking for privacy in a supposedly polite way, has an abrasiveness to him that causes Philomena to rebuke him for rudeness. (His quick retreat into saying that he needs 'quiet time' felt like a sulk, the complementary side to beginning to correct her when she alludes to him 'going to Oxbridge' (because it is a contraction, not a place), and thereby ignoring the context in which said it, and what she was actually saying to him.)
What worries me a little about the film, from where I could judge the laughter to be coming from in Screen 2 (and of what quality), is that it veers close to the racist notion of being Irish equating with backwardness. Not specifically when an irritated Martin sums Philomena up as someone who has soaked up Reader's Digest and The Daily Mail (and one other publication), because he is not a million miles from being thoroughly conceited anyway (which, in characterizing a Sixsmith persona, Coogan must have enjoyed).
However, there are occasions when the timing of the editing does tend to make Philomena sound like a simpleton, for example when she does not get Martin's allusion to The Wizard of Oz, just after they have first met, and when she quotes the word 'titanium' in a single-word description of her new hip : it floats, as if she is foolishly saying things that she does not understand (whereas her job for thirty years suggests otherwise). Then, at the trademark salad-bar, it is clear that Martin does not know this sort of place to eat, and we are again left with space that makes it sound awkward that she is calling the croutons that she is adding to her salad 'bits of toast' (though croutons are really scarcely more than bits of toast).
As the film progressed, my perception is that a fair number in the audience were, in laughing, not being sympathetic - almost the old distinction of 'at' rather than 'with', although they might have been laughing, rather than bearing with Philomena. Perhaps they missed that Martin was not meant to be right in thinking her to soak up words and phrases to use without understanding, but that he - not unusually in the trajectory of such a film - was, as a graduate from Oxford, meant to learn things from her.
In the first scene at an airport (actually, identifiable as Stansted, from where they would not have been able to take that flight), Martin does not disguise that he has heard the plot of a cheap paperback on sufferance, quipping unkindly that he almost felt as though he had read it. When they are next at an airport, Martin has no answers for why they should not be, and we are left to congratulate ourselves when we hear Philomena articulate the reasons not to catch the flight that we thought of shortly before.
Fine as a plot device to make us think better of Philomena, and to watch Martin just go along with it when he had had no idea what to do, but there are perhaps too many other cases when we begin to wonder how sharp he really is, if he takes the step of going somewhere without having thought through what to do when he gets there. That is where the film seems weak, since we insufficiently have portrayed a Martin who is depressed, for whom some of what happens might no longer be grist to his mill.
This is also not a buddy film, but more of a Rain Man (1988) sort of film, in that Cruise's (Charlie's) position changes in relation to Hoffman's (Raymond's), and Martin ends up respecting Philomena, and making a gesture that shows respect for her views. The closing, rising shot is beautifully executed, and seems in no way forced in bringing an air of grandeur to the scene.
Alexandre Desplat's suitably unobtrusive score has achieved the same aim throughout, of being there, but not being so obvious that one feels it out of place (and, in this, he did as he did with Marius (2013) and Fanny (2013)). The device of using footage, so that Philomena almost seems to be prescient in seeing what happens to her son, is an effective one, and roots Philomena in the memories of what she had.
If we excuse the black-and-whiteness of the depiction of the nuns (though, for all that I know, Sixmsith's book may record Sister Hildegard's views as shown), the cast as a whole is strong, but especial mention must go to Sophie Kennedy Clark for bringing a vitality to Philomena as a younger woman, and for showing us the origin of the hurt, the moment of separation, that inhabits the reflective older Philomena's gaze.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
7 November
90 = S : 14 / A : 16 / C : 12 / M : 17 / P : 16 / F : 15
A rating and review of Philomena (2013)
S = script
A = acting
C = cinematography
M = music
P = pacing
F = feel
9 = mid-point of scale (all scores out of 17 / 17 x 6 = 102)
Those who read my blog with any regularity - poor fools ! - may have found that I am 'not good around' Judi Dench, though I did enjoy (even if I should not have done) Billy Connolly and her in Mrs Brown (1997), and, for this reason, will not have discovered much reviewed that features her : something to do with not being able to forgive her spending her effort on series after series (nine, was it ?) of As Time Goes By...
In Philomena, where she is the title-character, all my doubts were overcome - just the close-ups alone, where one could feel the yearning in her eyes, and believe that she was transfixed by the images that were her past, were worth the whole film. (I must last have seen her in Skyfall (2012), as M, but there she has a different vulnerability to her, feeling under personal threat, and then facing a murderous Javier Bardem - at those moments when Philomena was vulnerable, for she could also be very resourceful and admirable in holding her position, she did not seem nearly so frail, but very touching.)
As with another film out now, Gloria (2013), the clue is in the title, i.e. that we are going to witness a portrait of that person, but this person (although she, too, has hurts and griefs) is very different from Gloria. Martin Sixsmith, played by Steve Coogan (who produced the film, and co-wrote it with Jeff Pope), thinks that Philomena is credulous (and says so to his editor), but, when he more or less tells her so (in what sort of desire to keep her sweet, one does not know), she very quickly tells him that God would think him a feckin' eejit. (No, it did not smack of Father Ted, but seemed a very genuine response to Martin's thoughtless atheistic baiting.)
When I consider that Coogan wrote this part for Dench, I am humbled. At The Lincoln Monument, after he has moved her around like a piece of meat to try to get a good pose, there is a very telling pair of lines :
Martin : I'm only going to tell the truth
Philomena : That's what I'm worried about
The lines encapsulate a polarity at the heart of the film. Philomena is a real person about whom Martin Sixsmith, the former BBC journalist and then adviser to the last government, wrote a book in 2009, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. The real Philomena (of whom a photo is shown in a closing montage) was presumably similarly torn about looking for the son whom she was forced to allow to be adopted, and the personal cost of her privacy in doing so.
Whatever the offscreen Sixsmith may be like (and Coogan does not use his ability for mimicry here), he must have allowed Coogan to portray as Martin a journalist who, when declining breakfast and asking for privacy in a supposedly polite way, has an abrasiveness to him that causes Philomena to rebuke him for rudeness. (His quick retreat into saying that he needs 'quiet time' felt like a sulk, the complementary side to beginning to correct her when she alludes to him 'going to Oxbridge' (because it is a contraction, not a place), and thereby ignoring the context in which said it, and what she was actually saying to him.)
What worries me a little about the film, from where I could judge the laughter to be coming from in Screen 2 (and of what quality), is that it veers close to the racist notion of being Irish equating with backwardness. Not specifically when an irritated Martin sums Philomena up as someone who has soaked up Reader's Digest and The Daily Mail (and one other publication), because he is not a million miles from being thoroughly conceited anyway (which, in characterizing a Sixsmith persona, Coogan must have enjoyed).
However, there are occasions when the timing of the editing does tend to make Philomena sound like a simpleton, for example when she does not get Martin's allusion to The Wizard of Oz, just after they have first met, and when she quotes the word 'titanium' in a single-word description of her new hip : it floats, as if she is foolishly saying things that she does not understand (whereas her job for thirty years suggests otherwise). Then, at the trademark salad-bar, it is clear that Martin does not know this sort of place to eat, and we are again left with space that makes it sound awkward that she is calling the croutons that she is adding to her salad 'bits of toast' (though croutons are really scarcely more than bits of toast).
As the film progressed, my perception is that a fair number in the audience were, in laughing, not being sympathetic - almost the old distinction of 'at' rather than 'with', although they might have been laughing, rather than bearing with Philomena. Perhaps they missed that Martin was not meant to be right in thinking her to soak up words and phrases to use without understanding, but that he - not unusually in the trajectory of such a film - was, as a graduate from Oxford, meant to learn things from her.
In the first scene at an airport (actually, identifiable as Stansted, from where they would not have been able to take that flight), Martin does not disguise that he has heard the plot of a cheap paperback on sufferance, quipping unkindly that he almost felt as though he had read it. When they are next at an airport, Martin has no answers for why they should not be, and we are left to congratulate ourselves when we hear Philomena articulate the reasons not to catch the flight that we thought of shortly before.
Fine as a plot device to make us think better of Philomena, and to watch Martin just go along with it when he had had no idea what to do, but there are perhaps too many other cases when we begin to wonder how sharp he really is, if he takes the step of going somewhere without having thought through what to do when he gets there. That is where the film seems weak, since we insufficiently have portrayed a Martin who is depressed, for whom some of what happens might no longer be grist to his mill.
This is also not a buddy film, but more of a Rain Man (1988) sort of film, in that Cruise's (Charlie's) position changes in relation to Hoffman's (Raymond's), and Martin ends up respecting Philomena, and making a gesture that shows respect for her views. The closing, rising shot is beautifully executed, and seems in no way forced in bringing an air of grandeur to the scene.
Alexandre Desplat's suitably unobtrusive score has achieved the same aim throughout, of being there, but not being so obvious that one feels it out of place (and, in this, he did as he did with Marius (2013) and Fanny (2013)). The device of using footage, so that Philomena almost seems to be prescient in seeing what happens to her son, is an effective one, and roots Philomena in the memories of what she had.
If we excuse the black-and-whiteness of the depiction of the nuns (though, for all that I know, Sixmsith's book may record Sister Hildegard's views as shown), the cast as a whole is strong, but especial mention must go to Sophie Kennedy Clark for bringing a vitality to Philomena as a younger woman, and for showing us the origin of the hurt, the moment of separation, that inhabits the reflective older Philomena's gaze.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
What did you do during the Festival, Father... ?
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
1 October (updated 16 October)
Thursday 19 September
5.00 (1) My Beautiful Country (2012) (Eastern view) (A mini-review)
7.25 (2) Hawking (2013) (A mini-review)
10.15 (3) Blue Jasmine (2013) (A mini-review)
(NB This one is not quite a review, and contains spoilers)
Friday 20 September
6.30 (4) The Taste of Money (2012) (Top 5 Features)
9.00 (5) Unmade in China (2012) (Review by Rory Greener (plus Agent's comments), or there is the review-cum-interview (with director Gil Kofman) by Rosy Hunt, Editor-in-Chief of TAKE ONE)
11.00 (6) Exposed : Beyond Burlesque (2013) (33 1/3)
Saturday 21 September
3.30 (7) Google and The World Brain (2013)
5.30 (8) Pieces of Me (2012)
8.00 (9) The Redemption of the Fish (2013) (Catalan) (Top 5 Features)
Sunday 22 September
2.00 (10) Marius (2013)
(11) Shown with Fanny (2013) (Top 5 Features)
6.00 (12) Blackbird (2013)
(Reviewed with Only the Young (2012))
8.30 (13) Only the Young (2012) (Young Americans)
(Reviewed with Blackbird (2013))
Monday 23 September
12.45 (14) The Taste of Money (2012) (Top 5 Features)
3.45 (15) Prince Avalanche (2013) (Young Americans)
6.15 (16) Dust on our Hearts (2012) (German)
8.30 (17) Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure : John Otway the Movie (2013) (33 1/3)
(Reviewed with Sing me the Songs that Say I Love You (2012) (33 1/3))
Tuesday 24 September
4.00 (17.5)Estonian short films (Eastern view)
5.30 (18.5) Just Before Losing Everything (2013)
6.30 (19.5) Sing me the Songs that Say I Love You (2012) (33 1/3)
(Reviewed with Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure : John Otway the Movie (2013)
(33 1/3))
9.00 (20)Deadlock (1970)
Wednesday 25 September
11.30 (21) Upstream Color (2013) (Young Americans) (Top 5 Features)
3.45 (21.5)Absolute Beginners (1986)
6.00 (22.5) White Star (1981 - 1983) (Roland Klick)
9.00 (23.5) Thomas Dolby : The Invisible Lighthouse (2013) (33 1/3)
Thursday 26 September
2.00 (24.5) German short films (German)
4.00 (25.5) Eyes on the Sky (2008) (Catalan) (Top 5 Features)
8.30 (26.5) Paul Bowles : The Cage Door is Always Open (2012)
Friday 27 September
12.00 (27.5) Sieniawka (2013) (Eastern view)
3.45 (28)Black Africa, White Marble (2011) (Too concentrated on the next film to watch more than 30 mins, but what was seen was very good : this won the audience award for documentaries)
6.45 (29) The Man whose Mind Exploded (2012) (Review by Hannah Clarkson, TAKE ONE*)
8.45 (29.5)My Sweet Pepper Land (2013)
11.00 (30.5) Tridentfest (2013) (Review by Mark Liversidge, TAKE ONE, plus Agent's comments, and the following Tweet)
Saturday 28 September
1.15 (31.5) Surprise Film 1 : Sunshine on Leith (2013)
4.00 (32.5) Cold (2013)
6.30 (33.5) Nosferatu (1922) (with Neil Brand)
9.00 (34.5) The Forest (2012) (Catalan)
Sunday 29 September
10.45 (35.5) The Redemption of the Fish (2013) (Catalan) (Top 5 Features)
6.15 (36.5) The Orchard (2013)
9.00 (37)Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968) + Towers Open Fire (1963) + The Cut-Ups (1967)
End-notes
* There is nothing to add to Hannah's review, except that my interview with director Toby Amies will appear soon for TAKE ONE, and, for those who missed this single screening, there is a clip from The Man Whose Mind Exploded on the page for Hannah's review.
NB All links to reviews are now active, and titles with struck-through text were not watched in full (also indicated by adding a nominal 0.5 to the tally)...
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 October (updated 16 October)
Thursday 19 September
5.00 (1) My Beautiful Country (2012) (Eastern view) (A mini-review)
7.25 (2) Hawking (2013) (A mini-review)
10.15 (3) Blue Jasmine (2013) (A mini-review)
(NB This one is not quite a review, and contains spoilers)
Friday 20 September
6.30 (4) The Taste of Money (2012) (Top 5 Features)
9.00 (5) Unmade in China (2012) (Review by Rory Greener (plus Agent's comments), or there is the review-cum-interview (with director Gil Kofman) by Rosy Hunt, Editor-in-Chief of TAKE ONE)
11.00 (6) Exposed : Beyond Burlesque (2013) (33 1/3)
Saturday 21 September
3.30 (7) Google and The World Brain (2013)
5.30 (8) Pieces of Me (2012)
8.00 (9) The Redemption of the Fish (2013) (Catalan) (Top 5 Features)
Sunday 22 September
2.00 (10) Marius (2013)
(11) Shown with Fanny (2013) (Top 5 Features)
6.00 (12) Blackbird (2013)
(Reviewed with Only the Young (2012))
8.30 (13) Only the Young (2012) (Young Americans)
(Reviewed with Blackbird (2013))
Monday 23 September
12.45 (14) The Taste of Money (2012) (Top 5 Features)
3.45 (15) Prince Avalanche (2013) (Young Americans)
6.15 (16) Dust on our Hearts (2012) (German)
8.30 (17) Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure : John Otway the Movie (2013) (33 1/3)
(Reviewed with Sing me the Songs that Say I Love You (2012) (33 1/3))
Tuesday 24 September
4.00 (17.5)
5.30 (18.5) Just Before Losing Everything (2013)
6.30 (19.5) Sing me the Songs that Say I Love You (2012) (33 1/3)
(Reviewed with Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure : John Otway the Movie (2013)
(33 1/3))
9.00 (20)
Wednesday 25 September
11.30 (21) Upstream Color (2013) (Young Americans) (Top 5 Features)
3.45 (21.5)
6.00 (22.5) White Star (1981 - 1983) (Roland Klick)
9.00 (23.5) Thomas Dolby : The Invisible Lighthouse (2013) (33 1/3)
Thursday 26 September
2.00 (24.5) German short films (German)
4.00 (25.5) Eyes on the Sky (2008) (Catalan) (Top 5 Features)
8.30 (26.5) Paul Bowles : The Cage Door is Always Open (2012)
Friday 27 September
12.00 (27.5) Sieniawka (2013) (Eastern view)
3.45 (28)
6.45 (29) The Man whose Mind Exploded (2012) (Review by Hannah Clarkson, TAKE ONE*)
8.45 (29.5)
11.00 (30.5) Tridentfest (2013) (Review by Mark Liversidge, TAKE ONE, plus Agent's comments, and the following Tweet)
Lovely review, by Ben Graham, of Toby Amies' film about Drako Zarrhazar, The Man Whose Mind Exploded (2013) : http://t.co/2iJ0YslIoc
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 5, 2013
Saturday 28 September
1.15 (31.5) Surprise Film 1 : Sunshine on Leith (2013)
4.00 (32.5) Cold (2013)
6.30 (33.5) Nosferatu (1922) (with Neil Brand)
9.00 (34.5) The Forest (2012) (Catalan)
Sunday 29 September
10.45 (35.5) The Redemption of the Fish (2013) (Catalan) (Top 5 Features)
6.15 (36.5) The Orchard (2013)
9.00 (37)
End-notes
* There is nothing to add to Hannah's review, except that my interview with director Toby Amies will appear soon for TAKE ONE, and, for those who missed this single screening, there is a clip from The Man Whose Mind Exploded on the page for Hannah's review.
NB All links to reviews are now active, and titles with struck-through text were not watched in full (also indicated by adding a nominal 0.5 to the tally)...
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
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)
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