REVIEWS Romeos REVIEWED BYDAN FAINARU


Sabine Bernardi’s debut drama, Romeos takes a stark look at the situation of transsexuals in Ger- many. She has made documentaries on the subject before, and here refuses to go into the reasons which determine people to change their sex, pre- ferring to observe society’s attitude towards them. Her plot involves a boy in the making, a lesbian


and a stud who goes for whatever is available, and follows them through their meanderings on the streets of Cologne, treating them all in the best soap-opera fashion. It is just the treatment which might well draw curious young audiences intrigued by the subject and help generate a minor domestic cult hit. In the film’s opening shot, there is Lukas


(Okon), a boy in a girl’s body, announcing he is taking testosterone shots to speed up the hormone replacement therapy which will finally rid him of his breasts and uterus and turn him into a real man. Sent to Cologne for his community service, he is assigned to a hostel, but to his immense despair, is put, because of his identity papers, with the girls instead of the boys. Finding old school friend Ine (Fries) in the next


room is no real consolation since his one dream in life is to be recognised as a male. But Ine’s pres- ence softens the blow, particularly when she man- ages to persuade Lukas to party along with all the rest of the young men and women at the town’s hot spots.


E-Love REVIEWEDBY JONATHAN ROMNEY


The traumas of internet dating, Paris-style, are sketched in an over-familiar but sometimes brac- ingly crisp fashion in E-Love, a brittle female- angled third feature from Anne Villaceque. Veering awkwardly between light midlife-crisis comedy and darker psychological drama, the film finds its unity in a confident and sometimes bold performance by Anne Consigny, whose profile (Wild Grass, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Not


PANORAMA


Ger. 2011. 94mins Director/screenplay Sabine Bernardi International sales Media Luna, www.medialuna- entertainment.de Production companies Boogiefilm Produktion Producers Janna Velber, Kristina Löbbert Screenplay Sabine Bernardi Cinematography Moritz Schultheiss Editor Renata Salazar- Ivancan Music Roland Appel Main cast Rick Okon, Maximilian Befort, Liv Lisa Fries, Felix Brocke


There he meets, and is entranced by, Fabio


(Befort), a macho type with a perfect body and an attitude to match, who is equally fond of men and women and never minds showing it in public. Two boys and a girl would suggest a romantic triangle, but not in this case, since Ine is not interested in men and Lukas is mostly interested in himself and being accepted for himself. Bernardi’s script is far too thin and inconsistent,


Here To Be Loved) goes from strength to strength. Wry social insights and strong appeal to mature


female Francophile audiences should make for respectable sales though, at times, a slightly too mainstream tenor may deter more art-skewed fes- tivals. Heroine and narrator Paule (Consigny) is a 49-year-old philosophy teacher who has the per- fect life — or thinks she does until husband Alex (Chappey) announces he needs his own space. Before long, Paule spots him in the company of


a much younger girlfriend. Eventually, Paule — emerging from a long-term depression of sorts — starts investigating online dating sites and finds herself spending time with a succession of unsuit-


running around in circles through similar proce- dures and ending on an inconclusive note. The problem is, of course, that short of complete iden- tification with the protagonists, there is nothing onto which the viewer can really latch… just a bunch of vacuous characters rushing to have fun in the best way they can and with whatever help they can get from drinks, drugs and above all sex.


FORUM


Fr. 2010. 97mins Director Anne Villaceque Production company Agat Films & Cie International sales Europe Images International, www.europeimages.com Screenplay Anne Villaceque, Sophie Fillieres, based on the novel by Dominique Baqué Producer Nicolas Blanc Cinematography Pierre Milon Editor Nelly Quettier Production designer Alain Lagarde, Pascale Consigny Main cast Anne Consigny, Antoine Chappey, Carlo Brandt, Carole Franck, Maher Kamoun, Serge Renko, Alain Libolt


able men, of whom the nadir is perhaps a narcis- sistic smoothie psychiatrist (Serge Renko, giving a memorably cringe-inducing performance). After a welcome tumble with an African lover,


Paule finds a new burst of life as a born-again sex- pot, but things go wrong when attentive North African lover Mounir (Kamoun) suddenly shows his nasty side — a clumsily-handled scene which many viewers will find uncomfortable, if not bor- derline racist. A better bet seems to be smouldering, intelli-


gent older man ‘Opale’ (Brandt), but despite a steamy date at a partner-swapping nightclub, he may not be The One either. Finally, Villaceque and co-writer Sophie Fil-


lieres (a director in her own right) offer Paule an upbeat, open ending with a potentially life-chang- ing visit to a Francois Truffaut film — with a Truf- faut-style closing freeze frame into the bargain. Taking a commercial detour after her last film,


the darker-toned and artier Riviera, Villaceque has made an intelligent and often classy film, but overall a rather too familiar one, the filmic equivalent of an upmarket magazine article on ‘How We Love Today’. What makes E-Love really watchable, how- ever, is Consigny’s charismatic and hugely likeable performance which mixes neurosis, wit, vulnerabil- ity and sometimes a strong eroticism, in several nude scenes which score a strong, feminist-inflected blow for the sexual power of the mature woman. The male support cast are persuasively on the


ball as a selection of crisply sketched social types — including Eric Rohmer veteran Alain Libolt and the grizzled, basso-voiced Carlo Brandt, who is shaping up to be French art cinema’s favourite grey-haired matinee idol.


n 20 Screen International in Berlin February 14, 2011


BREAKINGNEWS For the latest film business news see ScreenDaily.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52