The Well Digger's Daughter ***

Daniel Auteuil, of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources fame, makes his directorial debut in the rather gentle, rather old-fashioned, but really rather sweet The Well-Digger’s Daughter. Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (who you may recognise despite the lack of mermaid tail from Pirates of the Caribbean 4, but don’t hold that against her) is the daughter in question, Patricia, a beautiful 18 year old who was brought up in Paris and has a repressed yearning for the finer things in life. Her father (Auteuil) thinks that he will be able to keep his beloved daughter close if she marries his good-hearted workmate and friend Felipe. She however only has eyes for the rich general store owner’s son Jacques, who is in the Air Force. Faced with the choice between a middle-aged well digger and a dashing pilot with a motorbike it‘s hardly a tough decision.

Alas we are in pre-war France, and after Patricia succumbs to Jacques’ charms he is immediately sent to the front line. Jacques unknowingly leaves Patricia pregnant; her father is appalled that she has lost her honour, Jacques’ parents are appalled that he would get involved with a girl from a poor family, and some mild parent vs. child, honour vs. love drama ensues.

Its mild drama is reminiscent of Downton Abbey and Sunday tea-times, where there’s never really any risk of danger. Its nostalgic charms therefore won’t appeal to everyone. If the idea of a boy falling in love with a girl as he carries her over a river because there is no bridge and she can’t manage to untie her shoelaces just makes you want to throw the couple, or yourself, in a river, then perhaps avoid this one.

If however you’re not averse to a bit of sentimentality then there are some fine sun-drenched performances to enjoy here. Don’t be so grumpy - sugar‘s good for you every once in a while.

Original review here

Melancholia ***

With Melancholia as a title, and Lars Von Trier as a director, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to be a light-hearted romp of a film. It’s an examination of depression and anxiety; it questions the existence of God, and whether there is any good in the world. And it also happens to be a disaster movie in which a massive planet called Melancholia is on its way to destroy the Earth. It is a relief that Bruce Willis isn’t in it really, otherwise would anyone even be able to tell the difference between this and Armageddon? 

The film is split into two parts, one for Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and the other for Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). In part one, Justine sabotages her own wedding reception at the beautiful home of Claire and her husband (an excellent, and rather different from Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland) in a self-destructive spiral into depression. The feeling of foreboding as the family bickers and we watch everything gradually unravel is superbly managed. In the second part, we see the sisters’ reactions to the looming disaster, as the planet Melancholia comes ever closer. Justine, whose own melancholia has already overcome her, accepts her fate calmly. Claire is terrified.

The strange thing was that I felt the tension of impending doom much more strongly in the ruined wedding day part than in the destruction of the earth part. By the end I just wanted the planet to hurry up and send everyone on their miserable way. The performances were all remarkable, but the difficulty with watching a film populated by emotionally detached people is that I became emotionally detached myself.

Artistically it is a beautiful film. The slow motion opening sequence is stunning, as Justine and Claire feature in a set of images illustrating their melancholia to come – Claire tries to walk but sinks into the ground; Justine floats down a river in her wedding dress; the planet Melancholia slowly travels towards Earth, all to Wagnerian accompaniment. These scenes were moving. However, two and a bit hours later I, like Justine, was looking forward to the release of eternal blackness. Though in my case it was the credits, rather than death, that I was yearning for.


Original review here

Beautiful Lies (De vrais mensonges ) ***

If you’re looking for a bit of mindless escape for a couple of hours, you can do much worse than Beautiful Lies. You can probably do quite a lot better too, but in terms of undemanding, frothy rom-coms, this one doesn’t fare too badly.

Audrey Tautou plays Emilie, a salon owner, who receives an anonymous love letter. In order to cheer up her mother, who is still struggling to get over the breakdown of her marriage a couple of years ago, Emilie secretly forwards the letter on to her. The audience know, but Emilie does not, that the letter is from Jean, the salon handyman. Wacky circumstances result in Emilie eventually paying Jean to take out the mother, and love triangle ‘hilarity’ ensues.

Regarding said love triangle hilarity, I did have some issues with a mother and daughter being romantically involved with the same man, and at times the light hearted tone sat strangely with the manipulative actions of Emilie, but maybe this is just my uptight Englishness ruining the French fun.

There are plenty of laughs to be had, despite the reservations, and Audrey Tautou manages to bring charm to a pretty unsympathetic character. Saying that, I could probably watch her watch paint dry and find her delightful.

Go expecting Amelie and you will be sorely disappointed. This doesn’t have a fraction of the warmth and heart of that film. But if you seek amusing, beautiful-looking distraction, and perhaps inspiration for a holiday on the Cote d'Azur, then this will do the job. Don’t expect to remember it ten minutes after the end of the credits though.


Original review here

My Afternoons with Margueritte ***

My Afternoons with Margueritte is not exactly a film full of high-octane thrills and spills.  But you can probably tell that from the poster: Gerard Depardieu and an old lady sit on a bench, feeding the pigeons.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that the poster is a plot spoiler - sitting on a bench feeding the pigeons probably takes up a good half of the film.  

Depardieu plays Germain, a lovable loser.  He lives in a trailer in his mother’s garden.  He has friends in the village, but they all laugh at him and think he is stupid.  Then he meets Margueritte, an intelligent, highly literate woman in her 90s, and she reads to him, and thus unlocks the door to knowledge, and enlightenment, and self-respect, and respect from others, and all those other clichés that we get from this ‘gosh, isn’t reading good?’ kind of film.

But, despite it winning no prizes for originality, My Afternoons with Margueritte is actually very sweet and touching.  The relationships between Germain and the women in his life - his scary mother who has never shown him any love, his ridiculously pretty, young, vivacious girlfriend (sorry to be shallow but, really?  French women don’t like dungarees, do they?), and of course Margueritte - are all very sensitively and movingly conveyed.  

This is very much Sunday afternoon cinema.  Themes of ageing, of mother/son relationships, of different kinds of love, are covered at a very gentle pace, but it never fails to be charming.  Oh, apart from at the very end where an awful saccharine poem is read over the end credits.  I would advise you to leave before that bit, as the sugar content may send you over the edge.  You’ll get horribly hyperactive on the way home.

[Original review here]

Gainsbourg ***

Biopics are a tricky genre. The challenge is to engage someone who knows all the facts already, and someone else who knows none. I fell into the latter category. The only things I knew about Serge Gainsbourg before the start of the film were that he was French, and he wrote the song that was used in the beer advert with the sexy ladybirds. 

Now I know a bit more, though the actual biographical details are quite confusing. Wives and lovers come and go without much explanation. And I have no idea how many children he had. Though maybe he didn’t either. 

This is more than a run of the mill ‘The Life and Times of Serge Gainsbourg’ movie however. It is based on the graphic novel by Joann Sfar, who also directs the film. We meet Serge as a young boy in Nazi-occupied Paris, when he still went by the name of Lucien Ginsburg. He makes up stories for his sisters, and from these stories springs the most surreal, and probably most enjoyable, part of the film. He invents a character, a kind of nightmarish man-sized puppet alter-ego that follows him round into adulthood, whispering to him his insecurities and ambitions. 

This surreal element disappears about half an hour from the end of the film, and with it went my interest. Maybe a huge fan of Serge Gainsbourg would have enjoyed seeing him record a reggae version La Marseillaise, but for me it really added nothing to the complex and interesting character that had been presented for the first three quarters of the film. 

So, basically, I think for a Serge Gainsbourg fan it would be great: a biopic with lots of songs, plus quirky, innovative elements. And lots of beautiful women. No ladybirds though.