Film Review: Le Sens de la Fete (C'est La Vie)

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Thursday, 29 March 2018 13:15

Written by Gilbert Seah

C’EST LA VIE (LE SENS DE LA FETE) (France 2017) ***

Directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano 

Directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano can best be remembered for their bubbly comedy LES UNTOUCHABLES, which ended up one of the mot successful of French comedies. 

The target this time is an extravagant wedding at a chateau where all the servers have (and forced to wear) valet costumes including white wigs.  The story is told from the point of view of the the wedding caterer manager, Max (Jean Pierre Bacri) a battle-weary veteran of the wedding-planning racket.  He is clearly a working class Frenchman who works in an upper-class environment.  This is evident in the film’s opening sequence where he is clearly perturbed at a couple cutting corners to save cost for their wedding in downtown Paris.  He freaks out at them before the film settles on his current gig.

Max has been running his catering company for 30 years, and beginning to grow tired. While planning a large wedding for clients Pierre and Helena, a series of mishaps upends a very tight schedule, and every instant of happiness and emotion could veer into disaster and chaos. From the preparations to daybreak, the audience gets a behind-the-scenes look at a wedding party through the eyes of the people working the event.

Max initially arrives to find everything in disarray.  He is short of staff and his employees are fighting.  This gig turns out to be a hell of a fête, involving stuffy period costumes for the caterers, a vain, hyper-sensitive singer who thinks he's a Gallic James Brown (Gilles Lellouche), and the morose, micromanaging groom, Pierre (Benjamin Lavernhe) determined to make Max's night as miserable as possible.  The script includes an assortment of working class workers totally out of place in a wedding of higher society.

When it rains, it pours, as James (aka DJ Fab) utters at one point in the film.  The electricity goes out, the guests get food poisoning and the groom appears with a list of personal demands, least of which is his very, very long prepared speech.  “Sober, chic and elegant is how I want my music,” says the groom to the loud and crass James.

Actor Bacri (THE TASTE OF OTHERS), according to the press notes, helped the directors in the script, having experience in that field.

Besides wedding ceremony problems, personal problems arise.  Max’s personal life  comes into chaos as Joisette (Canadian director Xavier Dolan regular Suzanne Clément), seems to have written him off, coolly going about her professional duties while openly flirting with a much younger server.  The bride recognizes a waiter as a past fling.  The wedding photographer’s son and father relationship is put to the test.  This is an ensemble work, which works as there are lots of humour with a touch of social comment.

For LE SENS DE LA FETE, the comedic set-ups are funny enough, most of them working and keeping the audience happy with laugh-out loud humour.  This is French comedy as the French can do best.  And it is a matter of time Hollywood will attempt a disastrous remake.

C’EST LA VIE! which was selected at the Closing Night Gala for the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival was named in ten categories, including Best Film, at the 43rd César Ceremony, the French’s equivalent to the Oscars.  This is my second viewing of the comedy and the laughs still bring tears to my eyes.  Very funny and very entertaining.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Kzarm0hRM

TIFF Cinematheque Presents - Sidney Lumet

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Friday, 09 March 2018 05:16

Written by Gilbert Seah

TIFF Cinematheque Presents - Filmmaker in 5: Sidney Lumet

In the first of the series Filmmaker in 5, the late director Sidney Lumet is selected with 5 of his notable films to be screened from March 10-16th.

The films are:

12 ANGRY MEN

PRINCE OF THE CITY

SERPICO

DOG DAY AFTERNOON

NETWORK

Though Lumet has never won an Oscar for any singular film, he did receive a Life Achievement Oscar.  Yes, he has made over 50 or so movies including MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS recently screened by TIFF Cinematheque.  He is well-known to be able to elicit the best performances from his actors.  His last film BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman was a minor classic. 

Thee are many fond traits that can be observed from his films.  For one, he is a kind director who examines the sufferings of the common individual.  His films are thus,often angry films such as NETWORK where people scream outside their windows: “I am as mad as hell, and I am not going to take this anymore!” or SERPICO where the angry cop, mad at the corruption of the NYC Police Department takes it out on his girlfriend.  His girlfriend is given a 3-minute rant as Beatrice Straight did in NETWORK winning her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.  Lumet’s films often contains very angry individuals or as many as 12 as in 12 ANGRY MEN.  Lumet was kind enough to offer a sensitive look at the gay man, in one of the earliest films to deal with homosexuality with sensitivity and positivity.

A more complete series would perhaps be something TIFF Cinematheque should look at.  I have not seen Lumet’s controversial EQUUS (the play about a young man blinding horses) or BYE BYE BRAVERMAN.

Below are capsule reviewed my favourite 3 of the 5 films to be screened.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON (USA 1975) ****
Directed by Sidney Lumet

My personal favourite Lumet film that was banned in movie anal-retentive Singapore where I was living at when DOGDAY AFTERNOON was released.  It was banned of the reason the bank was robbed in the film - the money used to pay for a sex change operation for one of the homosexual robbers (Al Pacino).   The entire film is the robbery and attempted getaway.  As expected Lumet’s film is a compulsive watch from start to finish not only from the excitement of the robbery but equally from the drama of the robbers and the hostages.  The entire enterprise is treated by Lumet as a circus with spectators cheering the robbers (the other played by John Cazale) on.  The cops are clearly the and guys who cannot be trusted.  The audience is also on the robbers side.  Pacino and Cazale deliver outstanding performances with Lumet accomplishing a rare achievement of a lengthy credible sag baed on jet a magazine article of the robbery.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF1rtd8_pxA

NETWORK (USA 1976) ****
Directed by Sidney Lumet

Lumet’s most outrageous film (understandably being based on a Paddy Chayefsky script), a farce on the dealings on a TV network that came away with 4 Academy Awards including three for acting.  Beatrice Straight won the Best Supporting Actress for what was a 3-minute performance.  “I am as mad as hell, and I am not going take this anymore!”  This is the magic line that also won Chayefsky the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.  This script contains many monologues she he actors get to dream and strut their stuff.  Peter Finch (who won the Oscar posthumously for Best Actor) plays a news anchor that sends his news show ratings soaring sky high after he threatens to blow his brains up on live television.  The madness escalates in all ways leading to a crazed climax.  The film’s last line which summarizes the entire film: This is the story of Howard Beals, the man who was killed on live television because he had poor ratings.  The film did not get as high praise as expected likely because it was all too crazy, but its is undoubtedly extremely entertaining and totally amusing.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cSGvqQHpjs

SERPICO (USA 1973) ****

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Written by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler, adapting Peter Maas's biography of NYPD officer Frank Serpico, who went undercover to expose corruption in the police force, SERPICO is a film about another very angry man by Lumet.  Serpcio (a brilliant performance by Al Pacino) is so mad because almost everyone in the NYPD is on the take and there is no one he can turn to.   After witnessing cops commit violence, take payoffs, and other forms of police corruption, Serpico decides to expose what he has seen, but is harassed and threatened by his peers.  His struggle leads to infighting within the police force, problems in his personal relationships, and his life being threatened. Finally, after being shot in the face during a drug bust on February 3, 1971, he testifies before the Knapp Commission, a government inquiry into NYPD police corruption.   Lumet’s film traces all the events with conviction and gusto, even inciting the audience’s anger at the corruption going on.

Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtTRYns

Film Review: Madame

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Friday, 23 March 2018 01:17

Written by Gilbert Seah

MADAME (France 2017) **1/2
Directed by Amanda Sthers

A film shot in English with a Paris setting boasting acting international talents like Toni Collette and Harvey Keitel featuring a comic performance by Pedro Almodovar regular Rossy de Palma (WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN) shows much promise in the beginning as writer/director Amanda Sthers prepares the setting of her black comedy/bedroom farce.

The film begins when a scenic backdrop of Paris where a seasoned married couple, Anne (Collette) and Bob Fredericks (Keitel) ride their bikes while bickering constantly.   They are adding a little spice (likely more pepper than salt) to a waning marriage.   Anne and Bob, a wealthy and well-connected American couple, move into a manor house in romantic Paris.  While preparing a particularly luxurious dinner for sophisticated international friends, the hostess discovers there are thirteen guests, owing to the sudden unexpected appearance of her step-son.    Shades of Bunuel’s DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOUSIE.  Panic-stricken, Anne insists her loyal maid Maria (De Palma) disguise herself as a mysterious Spanish noble woman to even out the numbers.  But a little too much wine, and some playful chat, lead Maria to accidentally endear herself to a dandy British art broker (David Morgan). Their budding romance will have Anne chasing her maid around Paris and finally plotting to destroy this most unexpected and joyous love affair.

The film bursts into life whenever Rossy de Palma is in the spotlight.  Reason too, is that Sthers knows her potential and taps it appropriately.  The result is the film’s funniest part is the dinner scene when she, the maid, pretending to be Spanish royalty tells two off-coloured jokes about the 3 different phases of the female and male.  Nervous yet confident, De Palma, the best thing in this comedy portrays a maid on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  Kietel and Collette appear less interesting, again due to their underwritten roles.

MADAME lives up to its French title.  The wardrobe, production sets (the interiors of the mansion) and the exterior shots are all beautiful to look at.  The film, however, is shot largely in English, with the characters only occasionally breaking out into French and Spanish,

The film has many stories on display.  The foremost is the Madame chasing the maid trying to break up an affair, another her relationship with her husband and yet another the relationship the couple has with their stiff-upped lipped novelist son, Steven (Tom Hughes).  The problem with so many stories is that the film gets distracting and the audience never knows what the main issue is at hand or what the goal of the plot is.  One benefit however, is that there are more humorous set-ups to mine.

Sthers keeps her film light, avoiding more critical issues like the conflict between the upper and lower class.  It is clear Anne cannot achieve the romance Maria gets within a second, but the film has her try to destroy rather than analyze it.  As expected, MADAME ends up more a crowd pleaser than a more ambitious satire of manners.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9DIBaYBh_g

Film Review: Hannah

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Category: Cinéma - Movies

Published: Thursday, 08 March 2018 23:06

Written by Gilbert Seah

HANNAH (Italy/France/Belgium 2017) ***

Directed  by Andrea Pallaoro

Charlotte Rampling plays HANNAH.  HANNAH is a Charlotte Rampling vehicle.  If you do not like her, this is a film definitely to avoid.  Rampling is in every scene of the film and she is heavily relied on to make this movie.  In her hey day, Rampling was one of the highest paid European stars.  She was young and beautiful and starred in sexy films like films like THE NIGHT PORTER, and blockbusters like ORCA THE KILLER WHALE.  She finally won an Academy Award nomination for 45 YEARS a few years back after playing sexually frustrated character roles as in UNDER THE SAND and SWIMMING POOL. 

When the film opens, HANNAH is accompanying her husband (Andre Wilms) to what appease to be a prison.  Her husband is to be imprisoned for reasons unexplained and Hannah has to deal with it.   The film is an intimate portrait of a woman drifting between reality and denial when she is left alone to grapple with the consequences of her husband's imprisonment.  Besides the fact, other thins are not going all for Hannah.  Her dog is not eating, her son does not want to see her any more and prevents her from seeing her grandson, for again reasons unexplained.  The only solace is her emlyerm which she works for as a cleaning lady.  She appears to be kind, giving Hannah her old clothes that she no longer can wear that are still attractive.  Hannah must cope.  Hannah breaks down and cries in the bathroom on day.  This is pretty much the film.  Not much story, not much plot, not much explained n terms of reasons things occur to Hannah.  To director Pallaoro, those explanations are unimportant even though one might argue that they are to make the story more believable and to have the audience therefor care for for Hannah.

Director Pallaoro shows that Hannah is not the only person in the world having difficulties.  On Hannah is riding the metro one day, she witnesses a young black lady in the same train screaming at an unseen passenger how she has had it and cannot take it anymore.  She bangs the train doors and finally exits the trains while Hannah is clearly disturbed by the incident.

A film that runs on similar lines as Hannah and one that demands comparison is Chantal Akerman’s JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLS which detailed its heroine Jeanne Dielman leading a hums drum life that eventually leads to her suicide in the film’s shock ending.  Akerman’s film was 3 hours long, repeatedly showing Dielman performing identical household chores.  While this sounds boring, it is not, especially when the film ending with a shocking suicide.  Pallaoro’s film, however does not work as well.  Akrman understands her character whereas Pallaoro does not seem to know what to do with HANNAH.  Despite Rampling’s riveting performance, though fans of hers have seen her in roles like this, HANNAH is a hard watch and will be a definite bore to many.  HANNAH is a depressing film involving a character that can never seem to redeem herself as everything else around her is going wrong.  Do we need to watch a film like this?

The film is shot in French.  Rampling is English educated in France.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq6mB1Syt-I