Un beau soleil intérieur (Let the Sunshine in) (2017)

Director: Claire Denis
Writers: Claire Denis, Christine Agnot
DOP: Agnès Godard
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois, Philippe Katerine
Language: French

Isabelle, a Parisian artist, divorced mother, is looking for love, true love at last.

It is the least Claire Denis film that I have watched of hers. She has never worked with Juliette Binoche before and you get the feeling that she is having fun with what you can call Binoche kind of films with this. It is an adaptation of Roland Barthes' 1977 text 'A lover's discourse: Fragments'. The takes are super long and camera dances between characters who are conversing, especially in that first one at the bar. Isabelle is middle aged and quite desperate to find the true love after divorcing the father of her daughter. She also come off as quite naive. Gerard Depardieu makes a cameo at the end as a heartbroken psychic who Isabelle consults instead of a therapist. It is probably Claire Denis making a point that there is no point at all.

It is a pretty good watch without being all that great. Claire Denis' next release is an English language science fiction film set in space. Can't wait!

Rating: 3.5/5

Elle (2016)

Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writers: David Birke, Philippe Djian
DOP: Stéphane Fontaine
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Laffite, Anne Consigny
Language: French

A successful businesswoman gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man who had raped her.

I had recently seen Huppert in 'Things to Come' and her initial matter-of-fact reaction to the rape, which is the first scene of the film, is quite similar to how she is in Mia-Hansen Løve's film. Even though I'm familiar with Paul Verhoeven's works like 'Basic Instinct' and 'Turkish Delight', I was watching it more as a normal revenge drama. It didn't turn out to be that way and is more close to 'Piano Teacher' than '22FK'. In contrast to Piano Teacher, Isabelle Huppert's character is much more empowered in this and she had described it as a post-feminist film. I can see where she is coming from.

There are many characters in it and all of them have significant storylines in relation to the main character. We learn that the businesswoman had a very dark past and she had built her career getting over that. Even though we root for her, she is not in anyway likeable as she is quite petty and cruel to almost everyone. It is as if the rape have her even more license to be her true self.

Verhoeven pursues a Catholic church angle to one of the subplots as well, which I don't think is in the Philippe Djian's novel from which it is adapted. Verhoeven was planning to set the film in USA due to which he had hired David Birke, an American screenwriter. But they could not get it made there due to obvious reasons and decided to make it in French, his first one in this language. Huppert was the obvious choice as she had been pursuing this role even before Verhoeven got attached to it. I can't imagine any other actor playing this role and film would be very inferior without her presence. It is provocative, unpredictable and a tremendous watch, but not for everyone obviously.

Rating: 4.5/5

L'Avenir (Things to Come) (2016)

Director: Mia Hansen-Love
Writer: Mia Hansen-Love
DOP: Denis Lenoir
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Andre Marcon, Roman Kolinka
Language: French

A philosophy teacher (Isabelle Huppert) soldiers through the death of her mother, getting fired from her job, and dealing with a husband who is cheating on her.

Most of the film industries of the World can be defined by the iconic actors that they produce and French film industry must be the only one where these iconic positions are held by the female gender. Am talking about the duo of Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert. Some might point out Vincent Cassel but his popularity is to do more with his work in Hollywood films rather than the French ones even though he has been in many good ones in his his native language as well. I can't really choose between the two but  I have seen Binoche appearing in films directed by different directors while most of the Huppert films that I have seen have been directed by Michael Haneke who is probably the greatest director that is currently going.

Mia Hansen-Love's breakout film, Eden, was an excellent one that was based mostly of her brother's career as a DJ. 'Things to Come' is also another solid outing. While the synopsis suggests that it is probably going to be a sob story, it is anything but. Huppert takes the various setbacks in her life in her stride and is constantly moving forward. With her mother's death, her divorce and her teenage kids moving out of the house, she finds herself alone all of a sudden even though it affords her a great deal of freedom. She is also taken aback by the way her favorite student sees her as not much different from the bourgeoisie that he despises. Like most French films, nothing much happens in terms of plot development but is a tremendous watch. Like the lead character in it, the camera is always on the move and is not bogged down by the events.  One would think that with her being a Philosophy teacher, there would be a great deal of Philosophy being talked about. Director does not take it as a license for it being a Philosophy talk like how Richard Linklater's 'Before Trilogy' was (Am a great fan of those as well). Things to Come is a great watch with a great central performance from Huppert in a role that is not very intense like 'Piano Teacher' was.

Rating: 4/5 

Dheepan (2015)

Director: Jacques Audiard
Writers: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré
DOP: Eponine Momenceau
Cast: Antonythasan Jesuthasan, Kalieswari Srinivasan, Claudine Vinasithamby
Languages: Tamil, French

Dheepan is a Srilankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker of flats outside Paris. Dheepan is not his real name and he had fled Srilanka with a lady and a girl posing as the deceased Dheepan family so that they could use their passports.

Film doesn't delve deep into the nuances of LTTE conflict in Srilanka as it anyway assumes the French audience doesn't know much about it and needn't be given too much details. The atrocities committed by the Government forces during the last days of the conflict did make Worldwide headlines. All these kinds of ethnic conflicts do have a universal language. The film did come out a time when the refugee crisis in Europe was making headlines and it earned Audiard a Palme d'Or at Cannes.

The apartment projects that Dheepan is working in is a Banlieue like setup and largely occupied by other non-first generation migrants. It is also beset with first-world problems like drug related gang wars. Same time Dheepan is also dealing with the fake family that he now has and his fake wife is reluctant to invest much into it. It is an engrossing watch from the get go and is difficult to describe the tone of the film. It basically is about how Dheepan and his 'family' integrates into the French society even though at its margins. People might find problems with how it ended as some have interpreted it as Audiard juxtaposing civil war in Srilanka with the gang wars in Europe. I saw it more as him showing the latter very much as a first world problem rather than equating both of their scales.

PS: It was indeed very strange to see a Tamil language film set in France.

Rating: 4/5

Beau Travail (1999)

Director: Claire Denis
Writer:    Claire Denis
Cinematographer: Agnes Godard
Cast: Denis Lavant, Michael Subor
Language: French

The film focuses on an ex-foreign legion (Denis Lavant) officer as he recalls his once glorious life, leading troops in Africa.

You can't do much wrong if you start your film with a club scene set to 'Kiss Kiss' song from Tarkan. The film has a meditative quality to it as we are shown various routines that the legion goes through in their non-combat days. First half of the film will work very well as an advertisement for recruitment. The character played by Denis Lavant is like the second in command with a father fixation for his own reporting officer. It could be sexual as well but it is not explicitly mentioned. In the beginning of the film, he mentions that 'Freedom begins with remorse'. The remorse that he is noting here is concerning his actions when he had a young man whom he thought of as a competition for him in terms of his superior officer's attention/affection.

It is an adaptation of Herman Melville's 1888 novella Billy Budd. It also reminded me of William Friedkin's 'Cruising' which also had a very confused protagonist. It is a great watch and has got a super great soundtrack. Claire Denis is a very interesting director and the films that I've watched of her's has a unique quality to them while each of them being very different in terms of settings.

Rating: 4.5/5

Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats) (2010)

Director: Xavier Dolan
Writer:    Xavier Dolan
Cast:       Xavier Dolan, Monia Chokri, Niels Schneider
Language: French (Quebec)

The story of three close friends who are involved in a love triangle. That would seem like a very cliched story-line and going by the poster you can surmise that it involves two men and a lady. But the difference is that the object of desire is not the woman in it. The lady and one of the guys, who is gay, have a long term friendship. The middle guy in the poster is a new friend of theirs and both of them have a crush on him and they know that. They are not sure of his sexuality and so the film proceeds from there. 

That is a synopsis that would make you wonder why it took this long for someone to come up with such a story-line. Film is laugh out loud funny throughout. Dolan chose to make it in a cringe-comedy fashion as the camera just lingers on the faces of its two main protagonists as they get confused and humiliated over the course of the film. Film begins in documentary style with several people talking about their relationships and break-ups. It also comes up at several different points later in the film and Dolan uses it to pad up the film and also as an exposition tool. He makes it a point to have someone explain Kinsey's concept that sexuality can be classed into seven types starting from strictly hetero-sexual and ending with strictly homo-sexual. Going by recent scientific studies it seems that only few can be considered to be in the extreme ends of this spectrum. The interview like segments in the film had several funny ones in it. It serves as useful editing cuts and to signify passage of time as well in the main story but I thought it was kind of lazy film-making and was not really necessary in the film. 

The other two films (Mommy, Tom at the Farm) I have seen of Dolan's have been on the intense side and so the out and out comedy style of this film surprised me a bit, but in a pleasant manner. I had actually put off seeing it thinking that I would need to get in the right kind of mood to watch it. Great soundtrack is a given in his films and this one is not different. The recurring song in it is Dalida's Italian 'Bang Bang' song, YouTube video linked above, whose English version is familiar to me from Tarantino's 'Kill Bill'. Dolan was just 20 years old when he made this film and it got premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. Come to think of it, Bertolucci's 'Dreamers' is somewhat similar in terms of its three characters but that one had a looking from outside quality to it as the film was told from the perspective of the new one in the group of three and it was the siblings that stayed mysterious. And while watching Heartbeats, I thought the main two protagonists were siblings till around the middle of the film at which point it was made explicit that they were just friends. Anyway, it is a great watch and certainly much better than Dreamers. 

Rating: 4.5/5

La collectionneuse (The Collector) (1967)

Director: Eric Rohmer
Writers:  Patrick Bauchau, Haydee Politoff, Daniel Pommereulle, Eric Rohmer
Cast:       Patrick Bauchau, Haydee Politoff, Daniel Pommereulle
Language: French

A womanizing art dealer and his painter friend find the serenity of their Riviera vacation disturbed by a third guest, a vivacious bohemian woman known for her long list of male conquests. They first resist her, calling out on her mentality which they describe as that of a 'Collector', but then can't resist and its not clear who is really in control of this game of 'collecting' relationships.

As you can see from the writing credits, the main three actors in it have been credited for the dialogue and this was a film done by Eric Rohmer while he was waiting for the availability of Jean-Louis Trintignant for 'My Night at Maud's'. Film is considered to be part of Eric Rohmer's series of 'Six Moral Tales' and is the fourth one in it (third, going by release dates). Like all Rohmer films, it is just everyday activities of classy Europeans elevated into art without too much drama associated with it. It will not be up everyone's alley but I do enjoy them immensely as one time watches. 

Eric Rohmer is someone who doesn't get mentioned enough when people talk about the greatest directors of all time and is sort of a hidden gem despite numerous awards that he got in European film festivals. His style has not influenced many as well but I did stumble on to him when some article cited his influence on Richard Linklater's 'Before Midnight'. But I think the comparison only holds in terms of location aspects and filming style but not necessarily in terms of content and scripting. I won't recommend this film as a gateway one to visit Rohmer's filmography and you will be better off if you start with more famous films of his.

PS: Rohmer is more of an influence on Noah Baumbach rather than Linklater. 

Rating: 3.5/5

                                                                               

Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm) (2013)

Director: Xavier Dolan
Writers:  Xavier Dolan, Michel Marc Bouchard
Cast:       Xavier Dolan, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Lisa Roy, Evelyne Brochu
Language: French

A young man (Xavier Dolan) travels to an isolated farm for his lover's funeral where he's quickly drawn into a twisted, sexually charged game by his lover's aggressive farmer brother (Pierre-Yves Cardinal). He learns that his lover's homosexuality is not known to the mother and the brother forces him to behave like a normal friend of her son in front of her. He also learns that the brother had also invented a girl-friend for his brother to please his mother and he is trying his level best to keep the facade going. As we progress in the film, we are not sure who is really the aggressor in this equation and more and more things are revealed about the household and the pariah status it enjoys within the community.

The film is adapted from a play by Michel Marc Bouchard, who also helped in writing the screenplay, and this is a sort of departure for Xavier Dolan who had made films out of his own original output up till this one. It is a film that you can get easily disappointed with if you try to pin it down to a particular genre. I had read some review headline which described it as a horror flick and the director also do some bits in it to class it as such. But I found it to be more of a mystery film with a heavy dose of black humor to it. I enjoyed it thoroughly and you will also do the same as long as you don't insist on it adhering to some genre conventions. It doesn't try to overly explain itself and you are free to interpret it any which way you want. The brother character turns out to be really endearing from my POV and his life must have been a really difficult one with his aggressive nature being a bi-product of his own ambiguous sexuality. 

Prior to this, I had only seen 'Mommy' from Dolan's filmography. It id difficult to believe that he is just 26 years old now. It seems some of the mixed reactions that his films get from critics is to do with them being conscious about his age. 'Tom At The Farm' was screened in the main competition section at the Venice Film Festival where it won the 'FIPRESCI' prize (Enterprising film-making). It is in French, like 'Mommy', as it is set in French speaking Quebec region of Canada. Dolan had cited Haneke's 'Funny Games' and 'Piano Teacher' as his favorites and you can see shades of those films in this one. I guess the best way to describe the film would be to something like that as well.

Rating: 5/5