Category: French film

The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)

There are two big sequences in Rules of the Game. There’s the hunting sequence, which concentrates on the rabbits and pheasants before–and as–they are killed for sport. The animals are hunted without motive or enjoyment. Until a line in the third act connects events, the hunt is mostly just a way to inform Nora Gregor of husband Marcel Dalio’s infidelity. The second sequence has Gaston Modot, as Dalio’s gamekeeper, hunting Julien Carette through Gregor and Dalio’s party.

Why is Modot hunting Carette? Well, Carette’s after Modot’s wife, of course. Gregor and Dalio’s own infidelities and extramarital romances also come to a head during the party, but with far less violence. And Modot is the only one who gets much attention from the society party guests (as he’s shooting up a country estate).

Director Renoir and co-writer Carl Koch offer these events without judgment, without encouraging judgment. They present these moral dalliances of society folk and their domestics as inexplicable, but entirely predictable. Renoir isn’t willing to condemn anyone–not Modot, who’s a bully to his wife (Paulette Dubost), nor Mila Parély (as Dalio’s mistress). It just wouldn’t be any fun if the viewer cared enough about the characters to dislike them.

The film amuses and mortifies, usually at the same time. The opening titles carry the subtitle “a dramatic fantasy,” which is about as serious as Renoir takes it. It can’t be funny if it’s serious. It’s not a cop out on Renoir’s part–the film has limited potential as a melodrama anyway–but it also doesn’t completely connect. By going for the absurd humor in every situation (until the end, anyway), Renoir keeps everything at a distance.

Lots of great performances, including Renoir himself in the film’s most likable part. Carette is likable too, but annoying. As an actor, Renoir is never annoying. Dubost is great. Dalio is great. Toutain is pretty good. Gregory is a little too tragic (she’s playing for the melodrama while everyone else is playing for the absurdism). Parély is good too, even if she eventually just gets to show off her ability to do hysterics.

Technically, the film’s marvelous. Renoir and his four cinematographers showcase the exteriors of the country estate, maintaining its place in nature while completely otherworldly as its populated by these absurd, tragically awful people. And Marthe Huguet and Marguerite Renoir’s editing is phenomenal.

It’s brilliantly made, brilliantly constructed, but never human. Its caricatures run–gloriously–wild.

3.5/4★★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Jean Renoir; written by Carl Koch and Renoir; directors of photography, Jean-Paul Alphen, Jean Bachelet, Jacques Lemare and Alain Renoir; edited by Marthe Huguet and Marguerite Renoir; music by Joseph Kosma; production designers, Max Douy and Eugène Louriè; released by Distribution Parisienne de Films.

Starring Nora Gregor (Christine de la Cheyniest), Paulette Dubost (Lisette), Marcel Dalio (Marquis Robert de la Cheyniest), Roland Toutain (André Jurieux), Jean Renoir (Octave), Mila Parély (Geneviève de Marras), Julien Carette (Marceau) and Gaston Modot (Schumacher).


france on film blogathon

THIS POST IS PART OF THE FRANCE ON FILM BLOGATHON HOSTED BY SUMMER OF SERENDIPITOUS ANACHRONISMS .

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Weekend (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)

The best part of Weekend is Jean-Pierre Léaud singing his dialogue while in a phone booth. He then gets into a fight with leads Jean Yanne and Mireille Darc as they try to get a ride from him. Weekend is about the unreality of bourgeois life when it gets into the wild–in this case, the French countryside, which is inhabited by communal cannibals and people out of novels. Yanne and Darc, an unhappily married couple plotting each other’s murder after they kill Darc’s father for his money, are in a film, not a novel.

They soon learn the difference.

Director Godard goes for various shocks–whether through violent misogyny, quiet misogyny, violent animal cruelty, sight gags involving car accidents–and none of them ever really come across. He puts the viewer on guard immediately; when he does surprise, it’s usually because a scene is so well executed.

Maybe the best sequence in the film is when Yanne and Darc are stuck in a traffic jam on a tranquil French country road. It goes from pastoral to horrific, the constant blaring of car horns reminding the viewer not to get comfortable.

And when Yanne and Darc are on the road, Weekend might never connect (it doesn’t try), but at least it moves well. The performances are good, Godard’s almost all long shot composition is good (lovely photography from Raoul Coutard). It also isn’t forced. At least, not compared to the third act.

That third act is excruciatingly boring stuff.

1/4★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard; director of photography, Raoul Coutard; edited by Agnès Guillemot; music by Antoine Duhamel; released by Athos Films.

Starring Mireille Darc (Corinne), Jean Yanne (Roland), Paul Gégauff (Pianist), Jean-Pierre Léaud (Saint-Just), Blandine Jeanson (Emily Bronte), Yves Afonso (Tom Thumb) and Juliet Berto (The Radical).

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Forza Bastia (2002, Jacques Tati and Sophie Tatischeff)

Forza Bastia chronicles a day in Bastia (France). A Corsican island. It’s an important day because it’s April 26, 1978, when Bastia (the soccer team) played PSV Eindhoven. Bastia was an obscure team and the first leg (I had to learn soccer terms) was a tie at zero.

Jacques Tati shot Bastia at the time, but never finished editing it. His daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, came in and fixed it. The result is a very uneven, very long (twenty-seven minutes) collection of footage. If Tatischeff did carry through with Tati’s intent, then he intended Bastia to be boring and not insightful.

It’s about a big deal football match. Of course people are going to be acting weird. Nowhere in any of the footage does Tati (or does Tatischeff) find any moments of real human observation. It’s all obvious, even the quirky stuff.

Forza Bastia should’ve been shorter, would’ve been better.

House Specialty (1978, Sophie Tatischeff)

House Specialty chronicles the last few minutes of a day at a pastry shop in a small French town. The short’s credits are incomplete, but it appears the lead–the clerk–is played by Dominique Lavanant. She’s an attractive young woman surrounded either by old men or almost old men. The difference is the almost old men talk about working and the old men just play games at the shop. The similarity is all the men scarf down the tartlets.

Director Tatischeff is very straightforward with her direction, letting the conversations mesh together in the confined space. Characters come and go–with the only female customers being disgusted at the tarlets, which sell out immediately after coming out of the oven.

As the film winds down and Lavanant and her employer send the men home, Tatischeff reveals the further importance of the pastry shop in the town.

It’s sublime stuff.

3/3Highly Recommended

CREDITS

Written and directed by Sophie Tatischeff; director of photography, Pierre Dupouey; edited by Joëlle Hache; production designer, Denis-Martin Sisteron.

Starring Dominique Lavanant (the clerk), Dédé (a customer) and Gilberte Géniat (the boss).

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Evening Classes (1967, Nicolas Ribowski)

Evening Classes is a bit of a surprise; without Jacques Tati’s involvement, the short would almost work more as an examination of his films. With his involvement, Classes certainly has some outstanding moments, but director Ribowski and Tati (who also wrote the short) don’t really have a point.

The film opens with Tati as M. Hulot seemingly bumbling into a classroom, but no–he’s actually the instructor and a good one. He’s teaching an improv or mime class, except in the context of Tati’s films, it’s more like a look inside his process on those other films.

Without a familiarity with Tati’s work (Classes, shot on the same sets as Playtime, ends with a big reference to that film), the short goes on a little too long. Tati’s examples of smoking, tennis and fishing are all phenomenal. The horseback riding and postal worker stuff? Too much.

It’s successful, if problematic.

Diary of a Country Priest (1951, Robert Bresson)

Diary of a Country Priest is a somewhat trying experience, as so much of the viewer’s experience watching the film requires him or her to empathize with the titular protagonist, something that character is apparently incapable of doing.

Much in the film is made of the protagonist’s inexperience–something Claude Laydu plays perfectly–and director Bresson does little to suggest otherwise to the viewer. Most of Laydu’s scenes are on his own, writing his account of his day in his diary. It quickly becomes clear Laydu might not be the most reliable narrator of his experiences, which just forces the viewer to have to do more work.

Bresson leaves the viewer to ask all of the questions Laydu does not. Conversations matter more in where they go and what isn’t said than what Laydu discusses with people. Though not many people. Country Priest is a small film, set in a small church in a small parish with a small cast. If it weren’t for Laydu getting involved with the concerns of the local noble, there wouldn’t be enough story for a film.

That tight focus keeps the film distant. Bresson never visibly manipulates the story, just the lens through which the viewer experiences it. Only on a handful of occasions does it ever get truly annoying (like when teenager Nicole Ladmiral confides in Laydu and Bresson defers revealing that confidence).

The third act manages to be sensational and anticlimactic. Bresson, Laydu and photographer Léonce-Henri Burel pull it off though.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Robert Bresson; screenplay by Bresson, based on the novel by Georges Bernanos; director of photography, Léonce-Henri Burel; edited by Paulette Robert; music by Jean-Jacques Grünenwald; released by L’Alliance Générale de Distribution Cinématographique.

Starring Claude Laydu (Priest of Ambricourt), Jean Riveyre (Count), Adrien Borel (Priest of Torcy), Rachel Bérendt (Countess), Nicole Maurey (Miss Louise), Nicole Ladmiral (Chantal), Martine Lemaire (Séraphita Dumontel) and Antoine Balpêtré (Dr. Delbende).

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  • OTHER FRENCH FILMS

    • Keep Your Left Up (1936, René Clément)

    Keep Your Left Up is a genial little short set in a small French country town. The arrival of the postman sets off the short, which eventually has local do-nothing Jacques Tati in the ring against boxer Louis Robur.

    The charm comes mostly from the setting, Clément’s excellent composition and Jean Yatove’s oddly mismatched score. Left doesn’t have any ambient sound when the music plays; just Yatove’s music and the occasional line of dialogue or sound effect gives the short a detached quality. But detached in a charming way (it’s hard to fault anything technical with the film–Clément’s composition would make up for anything).

    Tati’s appealing as the lead, but he doesn’t have much to do. He handles the physical comedy fine, though a lot of it seems to be through the editing.

    Only real problem? The continuity gaffes. They’re distracting. Otherwise, Left amuses all the way through.

    Fun Sunday! (1935, Jacques Berr)

    It takes Fun Sunday! almost the entire short film to find its footing. The problem is director Berr; he has no comic timing. Sunday cuts a couple corners as far as budget–the sound cuts in and out, going over to music and not the background noise–but it’s rather ambitious stuff. Except for Berr. He doesn’t have any ambition.

    Writers and stars Jacques Tati and Rhum, however, have lots of ambition. They do an alternative on the classic comic duo–instead of playing off each other, they play off the environment. Rhum has more to do, just because he has the magic tricks (which Berr really can’t shoot).

    Just when Sunday seems to be winding down, Tati and Rhum get in one good gag after another and bring it to a great finish. Even with Berr screwing the beautifully lighted shots (Fun Sunday!’s uncredited cinematographer does some excellent work).

    Brute Wanted (1934, Charles Barrois)

    Quite a bit of Brute Wanted is rather funny. The whole idea is funny–dimwitted, failing actor (Jacques Tati) goes for an audition and it turns out he’s agreeing to wrestle a musclebound Russian grotesque. Tati’s got a nagging wife (Hélène Pépée) who also manages him.

    A lot of the short is spent on the fight promoters. Tati and co-writer Alfred Sauvy exercise brevity with their exposition when it comes to Pépée and Tati’s situation so the fight promotion scenes just go too long. And so does the wrestling match, with Tati hilariously trying to avoid his opponent.

    Barrois’s direction is never on par with the script’s humor, but it’s usually adequate. In the wrestling match, not so much. Barrois loses track of Tati, who’s holding Brute together, and spends it on his scheming friend, played by Rhum.

    These problems are tolerable. But the final joke? Cruel and unfunny.

    Three Colors: Blue (1993, Krzysztof Kieslowski)

    From the first few minutes of Blue, the entire thing seems conventional. Not exactly predictable, though it’s often somewhat predictable, but definitely conventional. And when it veers away from being conventional, it soon returns to it. Director Kieslowski figures out punctuation marks to draw the viewer’s attention to lead Juliette Binoche’s conflict and reuses them over and over again.

    So maybe Blue is predictable. I guess conventional just sounded like less of a pejorative way of saying it.

    Because Kieslowski isn’t trying for conventional. A good portion of the film is really just Binoche suffering after the death of her husband and child and rejecting her need to grieve. She’s forcing herself to persevere and Binoche does a wonderful job showing the conflict. There’s a lot of symbolism for those conflicts too, but Kieslowski offsets them with some fantastic scenes. Binoche’s relationship with her neighbor, sex worker Charlotte Véry, is peculiar and seems like it might lead somewhere interesting.

    That lack of interesting destinations is Blue’s biggest problem at the end. Kieslowski wraps everything up rather neatly–shockingly neatly–by the last shot. Even though Binoche’s character tries hard not to lead a generative life anymore, she does. Only Kieslowski doesn’t want to deal with any of those threads for the conclusion.

    Blue could have run thirty minutes with the story Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz go with. Of course, the story of Binoche’s listless wandering could have taken three hours.

    Beautiful photography from Slawomir Idziak. Great acting.

    Just… eh.

    2/4★★

    CREDITS

    Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski; written by Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Agnieszka Holland, Edward Zebrowski and Slawomir Idziak; director of photography, Slawomir Idziak; edited by Jacques Witta; music by Zbigniew Preisner; production designer, Claude Lenoir; produced by Marin Karmitz; released by MK2 Diffusion.

    Starring Juliette Binoche (Julie Vignon – de Courcy), Benoît Régent (Olivier), Florence Pernel (Sandrine), Charlotte Véry (Lucille), Hélène Vincent (La journaliste), Philippe Volter (L’agent immobilier), Claude Duneton (Le médecin) and Emmanuelle Riva (La mère).

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