CETTE MAISON (THIS HOUSE (Canada 2022) ** Directed by Miryam Charles
As the voiceover of the deceased info the audience; “I was born in Stanford, Connect in 1994,I died 2008 in my house cette mason (in French).“You are the source that inspired me, I do not need anyone else.”There are lots of chanting at the film’s start and voiceover that is a little confusing though inputs the film in perspective.
Bridgeport, January 17, 2008. A teenage girl is found hanged in her room. While everything points to suicide, the autopsy report reveals something else. Ten years later, the director and cousin of the teenager examine the past causes and future consequences of this unsolved crime. Like an imagined biography, the film explores the relationship between the security of the living space and the violence that can jeopardize it.
Though the story is simple, the film requires some concentration as one needs to realize who is speaking and which time frame the action is taking place.It is also an extremely slow moving picture with little story so, there is a lot of patience required to sit through this otherwise art piece of filmmaking.
The film will play the TIFF Bell Lightbox with special limited screenings as this is a small film with only a limited audience.
Screening schedule:
· Tuesday, March 14 at 3:30 p.m. | TIFF Bell Lightbox (Cinema 3 - Piers Handling Cinema)
· Wednesday, March 15 at 6:30 p.m. | TIFF Bell Lightbox (Cinema 2) - with the filmmaker in attendance
· Thursday, March 16 at 6:30 p.m. | TIFF Bell Lightbox (Cinema 2)
CETTE MAISON has got a good festival run.THIS HOUSE shone at international festivals in 2022. It had its world premiere at the Berlinale, followed by its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs. Selected in 20 festivals in more than 15 countries, the film was awarded the Silvestre Award for Best Feature Film at IndieLisboa, the Best Narrative Feature Award at the Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival, and the Innovation Award at the Festival du nouveau cinéma. This House continues its national and international film festival tour in 2023.
CALVAIRE (originally tilted THE ORDEAL)(Belgium/Luxembourg/France 2022) **** Directed by Fabrice du Welz
These few weeks sees the opening of a number of horror films, many streaming also on Shudder, the horror streaming service. Among them are the really nasty SPOONFUL OF SUGAR, NOCEBO from the Philippines and Ireland and HUESERA, THE BONE WOMAN from Mexico and the found footage low-budget horror THE OUTWATERS, Joining the ranks of these horror flicks is what might arguable be the best of the lot, a neat little low budget cult film way back from 2004, from then first time feature director Fabrice du Welz who wrote the screenplay with Romain Protat, best known as Gasper Noe’s cinematographer for IRRESISTIBLE, which is currently enjoying a rerun.
The protagonist of the story is a travelling singer called Marc Stevens (Laurent Lucas also seen in various suspense classics like Dominik Moll’s LEMMING) . Marc is a lonely, rather handsome man, first seen using makeup in his dressing room before singing on stage with his costume that includes a cape like a lonely action super-hero.
Nothing much appears to happen at first, but it is these sparseness of events that makes the atmosphere of the film scary, like a nightmare. The protagonist is Marc (Laurent Lucas), a lonely man on the road. There is hardly anyone around him. When his van breaks down, he cannot find the innkeeper, Mr. Bartel (Jackie Berroyer), who at first seems jovial but then transforms into something else. The inn is in a remote place in the country. The man that shows Marc the inn, Boris, has lost his dog Bella. Everyone in the story appears lost and nothing would satisfy them. There is so much space that there is nowhere to run. When the film opens, Marc has just performed in an old aged woman’s home and all the lonely ladies are making sexual advances on Marc who drives away alone in his van, relieved. They all meet by coincidence. When humans live a lonely life, they are unmoderated by a spouse or another human being, and they can turn out pretty weird and exhibit odd behaviour.
Because of the film’s setting in hillbilly country backwoods, the film (which is set in the swampy Hautes Fagnes region of Liège), has a feel and atmosphere of horror classics like John Boorman’s DELIVERANCE, Stephen King’s MISERY or THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE HILL HAVE EYES and even Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. (The dinner ‘chat’ scene between mr. Martel and Marc was actually modelled after tan identical scene between Marion Crane and Alan Bates in the Bates Motel in Hitchcock’s 1960 PSYCHO, according to imdb trivia.
CALVAIRE (which was first released way back in 2004 premiering at Cannes and actually screened at TIFF Midnight Madness) opens in select theatres now re-mastered, beginning February 24th, followed by a release on Digital Platforms on March 3, 2023. A CALVAIRE collector’s edition BluRay is also slated for release from Yellow Veil Pictures. A must-see horror cult classic for horror fans.
On an island in French Polynesia, the Haut-Commissaire, a man, de Roller (Benoit Magimel, who first well-known film was LIFE IS A LONG QUIET River by Etienne Chatiliez, way back when in 1988) with a turbulent naturalness and high diplomacy, lives between the highest echelons of politics and the lowest social stratum of his co-citizens. Conflict as a way of life will lead him to take reckless decisions against his political status, as the film examines. Director Serra introduces him in a ‘questionable’ club where he goes backstage to look at the costumes, and perhaps flirt with the dancers.
About 500 hours of footage were shot during the production, including about 200 hours with dialogue and sound recording. Director Serra explained that since the beginning of his career, he tried to use the advantages of shooting digital and therefore shoots long, improvisational scenes with 3 cameras at once, which results in a lot of footage to work with in post-production. From the dialogue of the characters, particularly noticeable in the one dinner segment in which the topic of nuclear thing is brought up, a certain point can go on and on, with the characters beating around the bush in which nothing concrete is said.
Serra’s film turns out to be a really lengthy 2 hours and 44 minutes, so one has to be prepared to be patient to sit through his film. It is a long process, and whether one will be satisfied to decipher though all the material is entirely up to the nature of the individual.
But the cinematography is stunning, as stunning as the French Polynesian Islands.
PACIFICTION is shot in French mainly, and also in English and Portuguese.
PACIFICTION plays at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
(full review of the film will be posted the weekend)
UN BEAU MATIN (ONE FINE MORNING)(France 2022) ***1/2
Directed by Mia Hansen-Love
Director Mia Hansen-Love (LE PERE DE MES ENFANTS) tackles once again her favourite genre of nuanced romantic relationships, this time between Sandra (Léa Seydoux) and best friend, but a married one, Clément (Melvil Poupaud), before they turn into best friends with benefits. There are of course complications and baggage. Sandra works as a freelance translator, being an attentive single mother to her eight-year-old daughter (Camille Leban Martins), and caring for her father (Pascal Greggory), a retired philosophy professor slowly losing his sight, memory, and independence due to a neurodegenerative disorder. It is her father that brings Sandra to tears so often. Clement, however, is married with a son. Director Hansen-Love is an expert in creating and developing emotional and realistic characters making UN BEAU MATIN immensely watchable and compelling. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022 and opens this week. A solid alternative for a Valentine’s Day Movie - French style. The film won the Europa Cinemas Label (best European film in Directors’ Fortnight) at Cannes 2022
LES FEMMES EN OR (Two Women) (Canada 2025) *** Directed by Chloé Robichaud
Violette and Florence no longer understand what's happening to them. Respectively on maternity leave and off...
