REVIEWS
CRITICS’ WEEK In A Rush Reviewed by Jonathan Romney
If ever a film didn’t live up to its title, it’s In A Rush (Au Galop), a family drama as stylishly laidback as its director and male lead, Louis-Do de Lencque- saing. The actor-turned-auteur made a consid- erable splash as the suicidal producer in Mia Hansen-Love’s Father Of My Children, and his debut feature is rather in the mould of that film — an elegantly executed drama with distinctive, sometimes eccentric dashes of characterisation. But de Lencquesaing’s offering, despite its strong cast and unflappable confidence, never quite
Room 237 Reviewed by Mark Adams
Room 237 details a series of fascinating — border- ing on obsessive — delves into the hidden mean- ings to be found in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 cult film, The Shining. A must for film fans and festival programmers, it may leave those with only a pass- ing interest in cinema deconstruction plain baffled, but director Rodney Ascher smartly keeps the film tightly structured (though vaguely repetitive at times) as it veers between amusing and bizarre. The film, which screened at Sundance and
shows in Directors’ Fortnight here, brims with extracts from The Shining — presumably used under ‘fair use’ criteria rather than Warner Bros’ giving the film its blessing — as well as a plethora of other films. With the sub-heading of ‘Being an inquiry into
The Shining in 9 parts’, Room 237 allows a series of narrators to expound on their analysis and conclu- sions based on multiple examinations of Kubrick’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel. They are never less than intriguing and well thought-out though, while challenged to rethink their initial views on the film, the casual viewer may be hard pressed to take some of the conclusions completely on board. The ‘inquiries’ range from an argument that the
display of Calumet baking powder tins in a few scenes and the point that the Timberline Lodge was built on Native American burial ground com-
n 28 Screen International at Cannes May 20, 2012
distinguishes itself from the run of the thoughtful, literary type of bourgeois drama that is an enduring staple of the Gallic screen. The path has been well trod of late by the likes of Christophe Honoré, Arnaud Desplechin and Olivier Assayas (whose Summer Hours this perhaps most closely resembles, with its theme of letting go of the past). Audiences and distributors already committed to this vein of French drama will probably remain faithful; others will shrug it off as more of the same, however classy. The story is intermittently narrated in voice-over
by novelist Paul (de Lencquesaing), who appears to be writing, possibly for his next book, about his encounter with Ada (Cervi); the story is ostensibly about Ada, but Paul increasingly becomes its focus, which perhaps says something about the some- what narcissistic bent of de Lencquesaing’s ven-
DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT
US. 2012. 102mins Director Rodney Ascher Production company Highland Park Classics International sales The Film Sales Company,
www.filmsalescorp.com Producer Tim Kirk Executive producers P David Ebersole, Todd Hughes Associate producer Andrew Herwitz Music Jonathan Snipes, William Hutson, The Caretaker Main cast Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Juli Kearns, John Fell Ryan, Jay Weidner
bine to point to the film being about the genocide of Native Americans, through to an analysis of the architectural layout of the hotel and a debate about the ‘impossible’ window in the office of the hotel’s manager, played by Barry Nelson. There is much debate about how Kubrick in fact
filmed the artificially staged Apollo moon landings (using 2001: A Space Odyssey as a trial run for front- projection techniques) and then used subliminal messages in The Shining to apologise for his actions. Also discussed is how possible continuity
errors in the film may well be further subliminal messages relating to Kubrick’s deeper-rooted feel- ings about the film, and film-making in general. Of course, it is easy to dismiss much of the argu-
ments as simple obsessiveness by people who have been spending too much time with their DVD play- ers, but there is no denying how intriguing some of the arguments are, especially when taken along- side Kubrick’s own legendary obsessiveness and love of research and detail. A delightfully odd film, but also an enjoyable one for film fans.
Fr. 2012. 93mins Director/screenplay Louis-Do de Lencquesaing Production companies Everybody on Deck, Hérodiade International sales Pyramide International, lgarzon@pyramidefilms. com Producers Gaelle Bayssiere, Didier Creste, Georges Fernandez Cinematography Jean-René Duveau Editor Marion Monnier Production designer Antoine Platteau Music Emmanuel Deruty Main cast Marthe Keller, Valentina Cervi, Alice de Lencquesaing, Bernard Verley, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Xavier Beauvois
ture. Ada’s settled life, we hear at the start — she has a partner and a young daughter — is about to be disturbed by her meeting with Paul, himself divorced and living with teenage daughter Camille (Alice de Lencquesaing). When Paul walks into her life — Ada works for his publisher — she is imme- diately intrigued by his rumpled suavity, and the two soon start an affair. Meanwhile, Paul and restaurateur brother Fran-
cois (Beauvois) have to deal with their loftily capri- cious mother Mina (Keller), following the death of their father (a briefly glimpsed Verley). And Camille, more or less the sanest in the family, has her own romantic traumas with her footballer boyfriend. If the film seems oddly familiar, it is partly
because the director and his real-life daughter Alice have already memorably portrayed a version of their own relationship in Hansen-Love’s film. In fact, Alice’s performance is the freshest element of In A Rush, her pert wit and alertness bringing a tart spon- taneity to proceedings. Also winning is veteran Kel- ler, drolly imposing as the patrician Mina, especially once the character begins to unravel with dignity. The film’s most significant flaw, however, is that
de Lencquesaing comes across as overly impressed with his own presence. While his brooding, often wry charisma appears to stem from his real per- sonality, rather than being an actorly construct, he makes Paul too seductive to allay accusations of vanity — especially given the ease and thorough- ness with which Ada falls for him. Elegantly, if modestly crafted, and shot with an
eye for crisp atmospherics by Jean-René Duveau, this is a consummately crafted package — but in tone, often a rather complacent one. While you could only dislike it deeply if you had an animus against haut bourgeois dramas per se, In A Rush comes a tad too close to lifestyle cinema for comfort.
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