REVIEWS ❘ FILMS
OFFICE BOX
The top 10 hit fi lms in France
1 Buzz l’éclair Angus MacLane
2 Jurassic World: Le Monde d’après Colin Trevorrow
3 Top Gun: Maverick Joseph Kosinski
4 Elvis Baz Luhrmann
5 Black Phone Scott Derrickson
6 Incroyable mais vrai
Quentin Dupieux CINÉ HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
PETER VON KANT Director: François Ozon Starring: Denis Ménochet, Isabelle Adjani, Hannah Schygulla
Twenty-two years ago, François Ozon adapted Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Water Drops on Burning Rocks, a move which ignited his career as one of France’s most interesting directors.
Now he has borrowed from the master of New German Cinema once more, this time with a gender-switch version of Fassbinder’s all-female movie The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972). In Ozon’s version, Peter Von Kant (Denis Ménochet) is a successful, famous director, who lives with his assistant Karl (Stefan Crepon), whom he likes to mistreat and humiliate. Through his muse, the great actress Sidonie (Isabelle Adjani), he meets and falls in love with Amir (Khalil Gharbia), a handsome young man of modest means. He offers to share his apartment and help Amir break into the world of cinema, an offer which Amir accepts. But several months later, as soon as Amir becomes a star, he breaks up with Peter, leaving him alone to face his demons.
LA GLOIRE DE MON PERE
Director: Yves Robert Starring: Philippe Caubère, Nathalie Roussel
Set in the years leading up to the First World War, this 1990 movie, based on the 1957 autobiographical novel by Marcel Pagnol, follows young Marcel and his teacher father, Joseph, and dressmaker mother Augustine. The family spend the summer in rural Provence with Marcel’s maternal aunt,
Rose, and her pious husband, Jules. Jules and Joseph come to blows over topics such as religion and hunting while young Marcel makes a new friend in Lili and together they embark on a summer of adventures. Beautifully directed with fantastic performances, it’s a sumptuous ode to childhood innocence, Provence and the years before the Great War. Watch now at
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100 ❘ FRANCE TODAY Aug/Sep 2022
Less glowering and relentlessly claustrophobic than the original (Ozon says: “Fassbinder is not a kind fi lmmaker, his fi lms are not friendly”), this predominantly male reboot fi nds more shades of comedy, almost, occasionally, to the point of farce. Ozon says: “Fassbinder is a fi lmmaker whose work, thought and vision of the world have always haunted me. As for his incredible creative energy, it fascinates me and he remains an example to follow in my way of working.” On the decision to move the action from the fashion world to the world of cinema, Ozon explains: “I basically wanted to fi lm a version in which I myself can identify more directly. Hence the choice to forget the world of fashion for the world of cinema and to bring back to the male gender the three main characters, especially since I had the intuition that this text was actually a self-portrait, centred on one of Fassbinder’s passionate love stories.” The movie marks the 50th anniversary of Fassbinder’s original, and pleasingly, Hanna Schygulla makes a return appearance.
GAGARINE
Directors: Fanny Liatard & Jérémy Trouilh Starring: Alseni Bathily, Lyna Khoudri
Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh wrote and directed this blend of gritty realism and magical fantasy set in la Cité Gagarine housing project on the outskirts of Paris. When it was built in the 1960s, it represented the hopes of a brighter future: 60 years later, and by now home to dozens of immigrant
families, it has been earmarked for demolition. Teenager Youri (gifted newcomer Alseni Bathily) has lived his whole life in the tight-knit community and when plans to demolish his home are leaked, he joins the resistance, embarking on a mission to save Gagarine. A beguiling tribute to the power of community and the indefatigability of youth, Gagarine was shot on the cusp of the actual demolition of Cité Gagarine in collaboration with its residents.
7 El buen patrón Fernando León de Aranoa
8 L’Homme parfait Xavier Durringer
9 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Sam Raimi
10 Champagne! Nicolas Vanier
DVD & Blu-ray
1 Le Peuple Loup Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart
2 Illusions Perdues Xavier Giannoli
3 Dune Denis Villeneuve
CLASSIC FILM
LA NUIT AMÉRICAINE
Better known by its English title, Day for Night is
director François Truffaut’s comedic 1973 take on
the world of filmmaking. Pitched somewhere between Fellini’s 8½ and Singin’ in the Rain, Truffaut himself stars as
the beleaguered director filming Meet Pamela, a
clichéd melodrama, with Jean-Pierre Léaud (of 400 Coups fame) as the
unreliable male lead and Jacqueline Bisset the
female star on the edge.
An amusing homage to the craft of cinema, it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
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