Revue De Presse
Service de Presse
Revue de presse Les productions et coproductions françaises présentées à la 36 ème édition du Festival International du Film de Toronto. (Cette liste n’est pas exhaustive)
L’Appollonide (House of Tolerance) – Bertrand Bonello
“House of Tolerance ” – The Grid TO – September 1 st , 2011
Dir. Bertrand Bonello. Starring Noemie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi. 125 min. Visions. Sept 13, 2 p.m., AGO; Sept 17, 6:45 p.m., AMC 3. BY: Adam Nayman GRID RATING: 8/10
An impressively woozy evocation of a 19th Parisian brothel, and one of the most beautifully photographed features in recent memory. Bertrand Bonello’s film is luxurious and, yes, at times leering as the camera roves through the titular “house of tolerance” and its many perennially occupied boudoirs. But this is not a dirty young man’s film; rather, this very talented French director and his brilliant cinematographer Josee Deshales quietly normalize the supple, superb and distaff cast’s constant nudity about five minutes in. From there, the film examines this group’s interpersonal dynamics while also burrowing into the Belle Epoque period with a combination of documentary authenticity and wild poetic fancy.
« 61 TIFF films reviewed » - Toronto Star – September 6, 2011
Wondering what to see at this month’s Toronto International Film Festival ? Here is a selection of capsule reviews by Star movie critics and entertainment writers. Titles of recommended movies are preceded by a . Find screening times and other festival information at tiff.net/thefestival.
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L’Apollonide (House of Tolerance): In the room the whores come and go, talking of johns they know (sorry, J. Alfred Prufrock!). Set in a Parisian brothel at the dawn of the 20th century, it’s the story of a facially disfigured prostitute (Alice Barnole) with more than the usual reasons to hate men. She has plenty of like minded company. There’s some powerful sexual imagery, which we’ve come to expect from French director Bertrand Bonello, and the production design impeccably evokes both the era and the world’s oldest profession. But the overall effect is soporific, like staring at a series of paintings. P.H.
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“House of Tolerance” – Now Magazine – September 10, 2011
France 125 minutes Directed by Bertrand Bonello Program: Visions Starring Noémie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi NOW Review Bonnello's languid backstage pass into a high class Parisian brothel at the turn of the 20th century does for la belle époque what Woody Allen did for Paris in the 1920s in Midnight In Paris. It feels authentic, like a painting come to life. And despite casual nudity that's as omnipresent as the young women's lack of freedom, it's no erotic picnic. What we glimpse is the last vestige of a social grand salon, where artists, writers, politicians and men of power and wealth immerse themselves in an alternate world of manufactured pleasure. Uncanny in its unblinking vision, the dreamlike and sumptuous result rises above cliché. (Paul Ennis)
Elles – Malgoska Szumowska
“Our critics' picks: 10 films at TIFF you should see” – The Globe and Mail – September 7, 2011
LIAM LACEY’S PICKS
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Elles
Prostitution, the world’s oldest profession and one of its most popular dramatic subjects, is at the centre of this film by Polish director Malgoska Szumowska. Juliette Binoche is a Paris journalist writing for France’s Elle magazine whose investigation into student prostitutes upsets her own core values. TIFF directors Piers Handling and Cameron Bailey tipped this film as among their favourites at this year’s festival. When we get a Polish director working in French with Binoche, well, you can’t help think of Krzysztof Kieslowski.
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How Juliette Binoche faked her orgasm” – MacLean’s – September 14, 2011 by Brian D. Johnson
Juliette Binoche as a journalist interviewing a young prostitute in 'Elles'
There has been a full frontal assault of sex and nudity onscreen at this year’s TIFF. It ranges from Last Tango in Toronto scenarios in Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz to Michael Fassbender flashing some serious endowment in Shame . The festival is also thick with prostitutes. (I’m referring to the movies, not the parties—but who knows?) Fassbender’s character in Shame is hooked on hookers. In Fernando Mereilles ‘ 360 , Jude Law is a travelling businessman who risks his marriage to Rachel Weisz by arranging a call girl. The House of Tolerance luxuriates in a fin-de-siècle Parisian brothel. And Whores’ Glory goes behind the scenes of the global sex trade.
But the most astonishing portrayal of sex and prostitution is to be found in a superb French movie called Elles , directed by Polish filmmaker Malgoska Szumowska. Juliette Binoche stars as a Paris journalist researching a magazine piece about student prostitutes. As two of her subjects talk about their tricks—shown in graphic interludes—her maternal concern for the young women gives way to a disturbing envy. Based on a documentary, Elles doesn’t glamorize prostitution, but it ditches the usual clichés to portray a generation of empowered, self employed hookers who claim to enjoy their work. They cast their tricks, choosing men they find at least minimally attractive. Their problems are with their social invisibility and hiding their profession from their family.
By a fluke, I watched Elles at its TIFF premiere seated directly behind the star and her director. In my long years as a film critic, this has never happened before, and it was downright weird, seeing every nervous twitch and laugh from these two women in the foreground of their film. Like a scene from an Atom Egoyan movie. It was especially strange during Juliette Binoche’s masturbation scene: watching her watching herself struggle to attain orgasm. The following day, in a rooftop lounge of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, I interviewed Binoche, and our conversation inevitably turned to that scene. (She was the one to bring it up.)
“I felt a little uncomfortable last night,” she admitted, laughing. “It is acting, of course.” For inspiration, she said her director provided her with some 60 online videos of women masturbating. Not porn actresses, but civilians. “What’s striking is that they almost look like babies sometimes, and other times it’s like giving birth, or death. Some are faking it, and some are in the moment and not faking anything.”
For her own prolonged scene, Binoche assured me that her orgasm was simulated. “I’m an artist,” she said. “I just used my skills and body to recreate something. It’s like a Goya painting. Or sculpting.” It helped to include the crew in the process, she added. “I remember laughing because Malgoska would really get into it. She was as frightened as I was.” Actors, she added “have to have the courage to show intimacy. That’s what we do. In crying there’s a lot of intimacy.”
The first time Binoche saw the film, she thought her pale complexion was simply not credible for a woman reaching orgasm. So at her urging, the filmmaker had her face digitally reddened in post production. When Binoche saw herself in the completed film at the TIFF premiere, she was satisfied.
« Elles » - Now Magazine – September 8, 2011
France/Poland/Germany 96 minutes Directed by Malgoska Szumowska Program: Special Presentations Starring Juliette Binoche, Joanna Kulig NOW Rating: NNNN NOW Review This story of Anne (Binoche), a journalist writing an article about two young prostitutes, could easily have pursued the tired tropes all sex workers are messed up, housewives are really just middle class whores but avoids them. Alicja (Kulig) and Charlotte (Anäis Demoutier) are fresh faced college girls unable to resist the easy cash that comes with sex work. As they describe their experience with clients, Anne starts developing her own set of fantasies. This is Binoche's movie. She does wonders without dialogue showing distress, fear, pleasure in a performance that is entirely without vanity. But credit director and co writer Szumowska for giving the film nuance. Rather than depict marital fireworks, she lets Anne's alienated son suggest that the marriage has problems. She also doesn't make prostitution look simple and gives us a final scene to die for. (Susan G. Cole )
Poulet aux prunes (Chickens with Plums) – Marjane Satrapi et Vincent Paronnaud
“Partners, in time ” – National Post – September 15, 2011
Mark Medley, National Post
While visiting an uncle in Germany, many years ago, Marjane Satrapi came across a photo album filled with pictures of relatives back in Iran. One photograph, in particular, held her attention: that of her mother's uncle, Nasser Ali Khan, whom she was told was "a great musician [who] died out of sadness."
"[There] was something so elegant, so romantic, so desperate in his eyes," Satrapi says of her great uncle, who died in 1958. Years later, she resurrected him in the graphic novel Chicken with Plums, "a story about love and about death," which was published in 2006. The film adaptation, which Satrapi co directed, screens at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.
Sitting down for an interview at the TIFF Bell Lightbox's sixth floor patio, it's as if Satrapi has emerged from a black and white panel from her critically acclaimed graphic memoir, Persepolis black shoes, grey leggings, white skirt, grey sweater over a white collared shirt, black sunglasses and tousled black hair flecked with grey. She is joined at the table by codirector Vincent Paronnaud, who wears dark jeans, a Tshirt and sunglasses. (Paronnaud does not speak English, so I introduce myself and make small talk in rusty French; I'm proficient enough that he answers all my questions in French, though I will not even attempt to translate his responses.)
Chicken with Plums is more like a fairy tale than Satrapi's previous books: 2003's Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and the 2004 sequel Persepolis: The Story of a Return dealt with her childhood and adolescence in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution and subsequent life in Europe. (Persepolis was originally published in France in four volumes, from 2000 until 2003.) It tells the story of Nasser Ali, a famous musician who decides to die after his wife destroys his prized violin. He retreats to his bedroom, where, over the course of a week, he waits for the angel of death to come for his soul. Nasser is a polarizing character; he disdains his wife and barely acknowledges his children, but, as Satrapi says, "you don't like him at all, and then you get moved by him." He is also an extremely narcissistic man; to him, a life without art is a life not worth living.
"Everyone is narcissistic in one way or another," Satrapi says. "I think artists are more narcissistic than other people, because you have this will to be loved, and to be seen, and to be read, and to be watched, and all of that. You never make the work only for yourself."
I mention that many writers and musicians claim they create only for themselves.
"That is bulls t nobody makes work for himself," she says. "This myth about 'I write for myself' Franz Kafka, just before dying, he looked at the husband of his sister [actually, his literary executor Max Brod] and said, 'Go and take this manuscript that I have put in my desk and destroy it!' If you really want to destroy a manuscript, you just go and put it in the fire. ... In reality what he was saying is, 'Please publish it!' "
Chicken with Plums marks the second time Satrapi and Paronnaud have collaborated on a film; in 2007, they adapted Persepolis, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature film. Whereas the film version of Persepolis animated Satrapi's distinctive black and white drawings, Chicken with Plums is live action, with Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) in the role of Nasser. Still, the movie is one of the most visually inventive things I've seen at this year's festival, with sequences ranging from animation to parodies of American sitcoms. "We have not [gone] to film school," Satrapi says, "so we don't know what should be done and what should not be done. So we're like freestyle. Freestyle jazz. We just do whatever we want."
The pair work well together because their work has nothing in common. "That's why we are complimentary. Because if both of us did exactly the same thing, then it wouldn't be of any interest to work together."
The partnership got off to a rocky start, though. They met when Satrapi, a fan of Paronnaud's drawings, invited him to share her Paris studio. "He thought I was completely out of my mind," she says (Paronnaud confirms this.) After he finally moved in, she thought the quiet and moody Paronnaud was "un connard" a jerk. For a year, the only words they exchanged were hello and goodbye.
One morning, Satrapi was enjoying a coffee by herself when Paronnaud showed up. "I said to myself, 'Jesus, now I have to have a coffee with this guy.' And then we started talking about geopolitics. And then we became friends."
? Chicken with Plums screens Sept. 16 at 6 p.m., TIFF Lightbox 1. [email protected]
Crazy Horse – Frederick Wiseman
“A Master Class from Frederick Wiseman” – Torontoist – September 15, 2011
By Corbin Smith
This past weekend, legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman lectured at Innes Town Hall, discussing his extraordinary documentary film career. The master class, which came with a price tag of $60 to non DOC (Documentary Organization of Canada) members and $25 for students, was largely attended by other filmmakers and documentarians eager to get a rare look into the process of a true documentary master, and arguably the non fiction chronicler of post war American experience.
Wiseman led a group play by play semiotic analysis of the first 15 minutes of Welfare (1975) to illustrate his frame of mind and considerations when constructing a film. The audience deconstructed each sequence of the scene until they figured out why he’d used a specific sound or moment at that particular point in the clip. It was an exercise, in Wiseman’s words, “to illustrate the kind of thinking that I think I have to go through.”
This was an intriguing exercise mainly because Wiseman forgoes inserting artificial narrative devices like voiceovers or captions and only uses candid footage. Wiseman’s style has its roots in the so called “direct cinema” of mid century Canadian documentarians like Gilles Groulx and Michel Brault. (Though Wiseman, for what it’s worth, has always bucked these associations, believing his films to have dramatic and emotional arcs that are deeper than the result of just hanging around with a camera running.) In the case of Welfare , he edited together just shy of three hours of footage from the more than 90 hours he had captured. Wiseman’s films never directly reveal what he is thinking or saying. Meaning is always inferred. By breaking down his work moment by moment, the participants were able to get a sense of the intense consideration Wiseman puts into editing together his sequences.
When going through this exercise, it often took a few guesses from the audience to determine precisely why Wiseman had chosen specific moments and what he was trying to say through showing them. An audience member suggested that because Wiseman doesn’t tell the audience what he is trying to say, his audience is going to frequently misconstrue the meaning. Wiseman suggested that he didn’t really care if people didn’t think the same thing about his films as he does—so long as they think. Wiseman detests didacticism and feels that an audience will learn much more if they figure out something for themselves, versus being told what to think. After almost 50 years of filmmaking and producing more than 40 films, Wiseman absolutely knows what works for him. He isn’t about to do something he doesn’t like, simply for the reason that he doesn’t like it.
For the young hopeful documentarians in attendance, most of Wiseman’s advice and personal stories must have demystified the process of becoming a filmmaker. Wiseman knew he liked documentary, but it isn’t as if he made one film and then all of a sudden was a star. (Far from it: his first major film, Titicut Follies , was banned for several years for reasons we’d need a whole separate story to explain.) For the first five years of Wiseman’s documentary film career he worked two jobs while editing film at night and on weekends. It wasn’t and isn’t glamourous or particularly lucrative, but he deeply loves learning about the world though making documentary films and suggests that, at 81 years old, he is far from any kind of retirement. Indeed, many are calling Crazy Horse (which screens at TIFF 2011) his best effort in years .
Photos by Corbin Smith .
Pina – Wim Wenders
« Pina » - The Grid TO – September 1st, 2011 Dir. Wim Wenders. 103 min. Masters. Sept. 8, 6:30 p.m., Lightbox 1; Sept. 18, noon, Lightbox 1. BY: Jason Anderson GRID RATING: 7/10
Wim Wenders was about to start making a documentary about Pina Bausch when the German choreographer died unexpectedly in early 2009. So, instead, he and Bausch’s longtime collaborators joined together to make this tribute, which presents excerpts of her most iconic works in digital 3 D. While the extra dimension can make Bausch’s most visceral choreography even more gripping, her work is often poorly served by the movie’s overaggressive editing and hyperactive camerawork. As magnificent as the dances themselves can be, it’s hard not to feel that Bausch and her work would’ve been better served by a more straightforward presentation.
« Un court de l'ONF avec le Pina de Wenders » - La Presse – Sept 6, 2011
La Presse André Duchesne
Un nouveau court métrage du cinéaste canadien Philippe Baylaucq, intitulé Ora , sera présenté en salle à compter du 16 décembre, en ouverture au long métrage Pina de Wim Wenders, a appris La Presse .
L’annonce en sera faite demain par l’Office national du film (ONF) qui en signe la production.
Utilisant pour la première fois un procédé appelé «thermographie 3D», ce nouveau film de M. Baylaucq nous met en présence de six danseurs aux corps incandescents. Ils partent à la découverte d’un monde, laissant sur leur passage les marques de leur propre chaleur. «Ora propose une expérience sensorielle inédite, entrainant le spectateur au cœur de l’espace mouvant dans lequel évoluent les danseurs», ajoute l’ONF.
À noter que le tout a été filmé sans éclairage, ni naturel, ni artificiel. «Pour voir la chaleur interne du corps humain transformée en lumière, nous avons utilisé des technologies thermographiques infrarouges exceptionnellement sensibles, dit Nadine Viau, relationniste de presse de l’ONF. Strictement réservées aux applications militaires, médicales et scientifiques, les caméras infrarouges haute définition auront servi, pour la toute première fois, au tournage d’un film sans précédent. Les danseurs étaient sans lumière et sans musique.»
Le film sera présenté dans quelques jours dans la section Short Cuts Canada du Festival de Toronto (TIFF). Pour Baylaucq, il s’agit aussi d’un retour à une fructueuse collaboration avec le chorégraphe José Navas, quinze ans après la sortie du film Lodela .
Quant au long métrage Pina de Wim Wenders, il a été, rappelons le, présenté en février dernier à la 61e édition de la Berlinale. Ce long métrage en 3D est consacré à la danseuse et chorégraphe Pina Bausch. Cette dernière tient le rôle principal dans le film.
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius
“The Artist » - The Grid TO – September 1st, 2011
Dir. Michel Hazanavicius. Starring Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo. 100 min. Special Presentations. Sept. 9, 6 p.m., Elgin; Sept. 10, 10 a.m., Lightbox 2. BY: Adam Nayman GRID RATING: 6/10
The Artist means to be a sweetly nostalgic parable of Hollywood’s transition into the sound era. The theme is overdone: a 30 minute short could have said the same stuff and the pastiche style would not have worn out its welcome. However, the casting is great. As the dapper matinee idol who gets clammy at the prospect of delivering dialogue, Jean Dujardin is suavely hilarious, and Bérénice Bejo is equally vivid as an ascendant starlet. The MVP, though, may be Uggie, a Jack Russell terrier who gets his own heroic Rin Tin Tin set piece: one of the dozens of vintage cinematic references crammed into Michel Hazanavicius’ meticulously crafted black and white frames.
« 61 TIFF films reviewed » - Toronto Star – September 6, 2011
Wondering what to see at this month’s Toronto International Film Festival ? Here is a selection of capsule reviews by Star movie critics and entertainment writers. Titles of recommended movies are preceded by a . Find screening times and other festival information at tiff.net/thefestival.
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The Artist : A monochrome silent film in 2011? It’s a gimmick, maybe, but so very smart and entertaining you can’t fault it. Michel Hazanavicius’s comic melodrama is set in the Hollywood of the late 1920s and early 1930s, when silent film is being replaced by “the Talkies.” Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Béjo play actors on either side of the tech divide: he’s a silent star in the Douglas Fairbanks mould; she’s a fast rising beauty who’s built to be both seen and heard. The film’s an exceedingly ambitious and retro project, lensed in the square screen mode of 1930s cinema. The production design is immaculate, from the flapper dresses and vintage autos down to Béjo’s painted on beauty spot. The wordless conceit doesn’t overwhelm emotion; Ludovic Bource’s brilliant score pays subtle tribute to films of all eras. TIFF goers will be talking about this one. P.H.
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“From A to Z » - National Post – September 3, 2011
Barry Hertz, Vanessa Farquharson,, Chris Knight and Melissa Leong and Mark Medley, National Post
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THE ARTIST
Rating: 4
France, directed by Michel Hazanavicius There's nothing like persistent silence to make one appreciate the beauty of sound even, in this case, if it's just the plonk of an empty glass as it's placed back on a table. But there's also something stirring in watching a film where gesture is everything, patience is crucial and the score is front and centre. Hazanavicius offers what might just be the cleverest film at TIFF, one that tells a compelling story of romance and loss while simultaneously commenting on the history of the medium itself. Also, prepare for a climax that involves the most ingenious and heartwrenching use of a single word intertitle. V.F.
In Seven Words or Less In this age, silence is golden.
Screenings Sept. 9, 6 p.m., Elgin; Sept. 10, 10 a.m., Lightbox 2.
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“From France with love: 5 Cannes films that are coming to TIFF 2011” – The Globe and Mail – August 18, 2011
Liam Lacey
Note to readers: These mini-reviews were based on early Cannes screenings, so there is no star rating available.
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THE ARTIST
Shot in black and white and mostly silent, The Artist is a delightful homage to the old fashioned thrill of the movies when the screen was still silver. Mixing French stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Béjo with an American cast (John Goodman, James Cromwell and Penelope Ann Miller), this Hollywood silent era fantasy follows the fall of a suave and dashing movie star named George Valentin (Dujardin), adored by women and accompanied everywhere by his clever Jack Russell terrier. But George can't adjust to the talkies and becomes a has been until he's helped out by the ingénue, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Béjo), who has replaced him as Hollywood's favourite star. Director Michel Hazanavicius, a devotee of early cinema (and creator of a couple of James Bond spoofs) lets the form dictate the content of his story, mixing melodrama and love story with comic asides, reminiscent of Chaplin. “What’s hot at TIFF” – Maclean’s – September 7, 2011
By Brian D. Johnson on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 11:25pm
Here are mini reviews of 21 films I like so far at TIFF. (Some I love.) Ten were screened in Cannes. The others I saw more recently, in advance media previews. As the festival unfolds, more favorites will be added, and the list will appear as a fixture of our dedicated TIFF page. Click on each title to read the TIFF program note and screening times:
The Artist
Finally a French movie that needs no subtitles. This silent black and white rom com was the biggest crowd pleaser in Cannes. Set in Hollywood, it’s tale of star crossed stars: a Valentino like silent film idol sees his career sink with the advent of talkies, while an extra flirts her way into his heart, and to stardom. A wonder dog steals the show. It’s a movie you can imagine Woody Allen wishing he had made.
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Les neiges du Kilimanjaro (The snows of Kilimanjaro) – Robert Guédiguian
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” – The Grid TO – September 1 st , 2011
Dir. Robert Guédiguian. Starring Ariane Ascaride, Jean Pierre Darroussin. 90 min. Masters. Sept. 14, 8 p.m., Lightbox 3; Sept. 17, 6 p.m., Lightbox 4. BY: Martin Morrow GRID RATING: 6/10
Despite its title, French director Robert Guédiguian’s latest isn’t another film of Hemingway’s story but a contemporary meditation on goodness. A working class Marseille couple, laid off welder Michel (Jean Pierre Darroussin) and his caregiver wife Marie Claire (Ariane Ascaride), are victims of a brutal home invasion that ends up bringing out the best in them. Guédigian’s view of humanity here is as sentimental as that of Romantic writer Victor Hugo, whose poem How Good Are the Poor inspired the film. But his even handed approach to all his characters is admirable and the cast, including long time Guédigian collaborators Darroussin and Ascaride, is superb.
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” – Exclaim – September 9, 2011
Directed by Robert Guédiguian
By Bjorn Olson We all hope it never happens to us, but having to deal with an act of violence upon your home is never predictable and always traumatic. The Snows of Kilimanjaro , the latest offering from French art house standby Robert Guédiguian ( The Army of Crime ), is about when bad things happen to good people. Specifically a pair of couples and long time friends, Michel and Marie Claire (Jean Pierre Darroussin and Ariane Ascaride) and Raoul and Denise (Gérard Meylan and Marilyne Canto), whose evening bridge game is interrupted by home invasion and robbery. The timing is awful, as the recently retired Michel has stashed away a pile of cash presented to him by his former co workers for an African safari ― easy come, easy go. Through happenstance, Michel is able to track down his assailant, a former co worker named Christophe (Gregoire Leprince Ringuet), and sets about righting wrongs, which lands Christophe in jail. Of course, this isn't a simple case of black and white, right and wrong, good and bad. Michel didn't simply retire; he was the shop steward at the shipping company he worked for and essentially threw himself on his sword by volunteering to be laid off, while Christophe isn't simply a petty thug, but a desperate man in need of money to support his two pre adolescent brothers. After sending Christopher to jail, both Michel and Marie Claire begin to infiltrate his life, becoming de facto guardians to his younger brothers. The jaded will chide The Snows of Kilimanjaro for being a film about assuaging white liberal guilt, a fair accusation, to be sure (this is the anti Funny Games ), but it's also a pretty narrow minded way of viewing this film, and life in general. The Snows of Kilimanjaro is about dealing with pain, trauma and, ultimately, forgiveness. It is a film that sees the good in everyone and succeeds as a heart warming crowd pleaser without being needlessly manipulative. That said, this is also a movie set in a sort of fantasy world in which forgiveness is easy to come by and it's difficult not to begrudge the way it ends as a simple concession to its aforementioned white liberal target audience, despite the charity it engenders along the way with its realistically human and genuinely affecting scenario. In the end it feels like a big warm hug, but maybe one that lasts a bit too long. (Mongrel Media)
« 61 TIFF films reviewed » - Toronto Star – September 6, 2011
Wondering what to see at this month’s Toronto International Film Festival ? Here is a selection of capsule reviews by Star movie critics and entertainment writers. Titles of recommended movies are preceded by a . Find screening times and other festival information at tiff.net/thefestival.
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Snows of Kilimanjaro: This Cannes crowd pleaser, about Marseille shipyard workers trying to find their feet in the aftermath of layoffs, offers several pleasing twists and some probing moral questions to ponder. Focusing on a newly downsized union rep and his devoted wife (a luminous and fiery Ariane Ascaride) who endure a home invasion robbery, nothing is what it seems in this tale. Director Robert Guédiguian captivates. L.B.
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Americano – Mathieu Demy
« 72 TIFF films reviewed » - Toronto Star – September 12, 2011
Wondering what to see at this month’s Toronto International Film Festival ? Here is a selection of capsule reviews by Star movie critics and entertainment writers. Titles of recommended movies are preceded by a . Find screening times and other festival information at tiff.net/thefestival.
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Americano: First time director Mathieu Demy plays a man trying to find some peaceful reconciliation with the memory of his recently deceased mother. He returns to Los Angeles and is troubled by evidence of her profound affection for a Mexican woman named Lola. His quest to plumb the nature of the relationship takes him to Tijuana, where he tracks down the woman — a stripper/prostitute (Salma Hayek) in a seedy bar — who is alternatively provocative and cruel, like memory itself. Demy traces the strings of the lead character's altered memories in pursuit of a happy resolution. Greg Quill
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“Mathieu Demy: New Wave progeny takes his first step” – Toronto Star – September 13, 2011
Sep 13, 2011
Mathieu Demy, the son of legendary French New Wave directors Agnès Varda and the late Jacques Demy, said in an interview this week that cinema was probably his destiny, although he resisted making films for as long as he could.
With several short films to his credit, Demy, 38, is best known in his native France as an actor. Last year he set out to make his first full length feature, the semi autobiographical Americano , starring Salma Hayek, and this week he had his festival cherry popped when the film was screened at TIFF.
Q: Is TIFF a big event for you?
A: Very big. Not just because it is such an important festival, but because this is the first time my film, my first film, has been screened for a public audience, not just for friends and cast. I am very nervous, of course . . . and excited.
Q: How much of Americano is autobiographical?
A: It’s a mixture of real elements and fiction. All the elements of my character’s memory are pieces of actual Documenteur . When Agnès shot that film in 1981, we were living in Los Angeles, and those pieces of film, those memories, are very close to the life we were living. The rest is fiction, although the story is about how my character makes peace with the memory of his mother, and that’s quite real, too, because I lost my father . . . and that’s part of what I wanted to address. A lot of first films tend to have autobiographical elements.
Q: There are several children and relatives of famous movie people in this picture, and a couple of vintage European stars — Geraldine Chaplin, Chiara Mastroianni, Carlos Bardem, Jean Pierre Mocky, André Wilms. Are they extended family friends, or did you have a purpose in casting them? A: I wrote these parts with these actors in mind, because they are great actors and because I thought the subject would ring bells in their own lives, about family and loss and memory. The only actor I didn’t know before we started was Geraldine Chaplin.
Q: How much of the movie was actually shot in Tijuana?
A: Just the externals. The Americano bar was a set we constructed in Paris. Contrary to the chaos in the film, shooting in Tijuana was very cool, very relaxed . . . It’s an inspiring city.
Q: The part Salma Hayek plays, the Mexican stripper/prostitute Lola, is not wholly real . . . She’s alternatively hot and cold, cruel and compassionate, and we’re meant to wonder whether she’s a figment of your character’s imagination. How did you come up with her?
A: She exists on more than one level. She’s inspired by the character Anouk Aimée played in my father’s first film, Lola , in 1961, and the subject matter — the search for something the male character lost in his youth — is a deliberate reference to my father’s work, and to my relationship with him. It’s also my way of saying cinema has changed. Whatever references become apparent in the film are intentional.
Q: Getting Salma Hayek on board was something of a coup. She knows your mother, and served with her on a Cannes Film Festival jury, but you were an unknown quantity. Did you write the part with her in mind?
A: Absolutely. I wasn’t sure if it would happen, but when I gave her the script she liked it. It took a lot of courage for her to take part in a French film by a first time director, playing a very complex character whose first scene is a striptease in a seedy Tijuana bar, shot in one take . . . and to make it even harder for her, she had twisted her ankle, stretched some ligaments, and was in quite a lot of pain. Hats off to her. She was very gracious.
Un heureux événement (A Happy event ) – Rémi Bezançon
“A Happy Event: A sweet but pointless look at marriage and kids” – The Globe and Mail – September 9, 2011-09-09
kate taylor
Directed by Rémi Bezançon (France)
A grad student in philosophy and a video store clerk fall madly in love, decide to make a baby and rapidly find themselves overwhelmed. Sleepless nights, dirty diapers, designer strollers, breast pumps, interfering grandmothers, no sex and many tears both baby and adult; all of this is terrain very familiar to anyone who has ever had a child. Director Rémi Bezançon, adapting the story from a novel, covers it with a delicate touch, slightly satirical but unsuccessfully philosophical. (The philosophy student turned mom narrates the film.) The results, prettily performed by Louise Bourgoin and Pio Marmaï, are sweet but pointless. K.T.
Sept. 15, 6:30 p.m., Roy Thomson; Sept. 16, 4:45 p.m., Isabel Bader « A Happy Event » - Exclaim – September 9, 2011
By Serena Whitney Up until now, films dealing with a pregnancy have usually adhered to the rule of comedy rather than the reality of what parenthood entails. Typically these fluffy mainstream films are simply made to comfort and delude expectant mothers while they stuff their faces with pints of ice cream and read What To Expect When You Are Expecting. Renowned director Remi Bezancon takes on the task of providing audience members with a "fly on the wall" look at how a pregnancy can bring a couple closer together and then pull them apart in his third full length feature, A Happy Event. Barbara (Louise Bourgoin), a young grad student, falls for a video store clerk named Nicolas (Pio Marmai) and their romance blossoms after partaking in the conventional rites of passages in relationships, such as getting in paint fights and smearing shaving cream all over each other in bed. After a moment of sheer joy and madness, Barbara and Nicolas try to make a baby, and they succeed, despite the fact these two free spirited individuals aren't financially secure. Barbara begins to struggle with the reality of being pregnant, embracing her pregnancy one day then resenting it the next. After the birth of her child, Barbara and Nicolas must face the many hardships that come from parenthood, and their careers, sex life and relationship all start to suffer from it. A Happy Event is the film Knocked Up strived to be. Bezancon's visual style and his uncanny ability to embrace inappropriate humour, as well as being able to showcase couples at their most vulnerable, make this film stand out from the rest. Viewers will gasp and chuckle when seeing controversial scenes of sex from a foetus's point of view, Barbara's vibrator, which only works when she whistles, or when she asks the doctor if there are enough nutrients in sperm for the baby when she swallows during sex. However, viewers will also wince when Barbara goes through post partum depression and when the once blissful couple's life starts to shatter simply because they're trying to conform to society's norm of what constitutes a "happy" family. In A Happy Event, Bezancon teaches viewers that happiness is a goal, not a privilege in life. For Barbara, it means sacrifice ― giving up alcoholic drinks for non alcoholic piña coladas, abandoning her dreams of being a full time writer to be a full time mother and surrendering a passionate and fiery romance for a relationship with sexless stability. It is in these brutally honest and raw moments that the film is able to affect viewers the most, whether they like it or not. Every film about pregnancy has taught us how stretch marks and labour pains come with the territory, however there is no antenatal massage lotion that can smooth away the emotional scars and damage caused by motherhood. Director Remi Bezancon conveys this delicate message beautifully in this admirable and touching film. (eOne)
“TIFF Today: Jeff Who Lives at Home, Breathing, I'm Carolyn Parker, A Happy Event, The Patron Saints” – Blog TO - September 15, 2011
Posted by Casandra Campbell
With only a few days of TIFF left, we're in the home stretch, but there are still a couple big ticket events and first time screenings to be had. Tonight's gala event will see the premiere of Hysteria, a Tanya Wexler film about the invention of the vibrator. The film, which is headlined by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy, and supported by Jonathan Pryce and Rupert Everett, sold out long ago. Today's options for the last minute planner, however, are still pretty darn good. There are plenty of great films screening today with tickets available — including a red carpet gala!
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A HAPPY EVENT (6:30pm, Roy Thompson Hall) Tonight's gala screening for A Happy Event is not sold out, giving the uninitiated a chance to get a glimpse of the red carpet experience. French director, Rémi Bezançon, follows a young couple through the unexpected birth of their first child. Although, it's a happy experience overall, most of the film is centred on their dramatic lifestyle adjustment!
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The Lady – Luc Besson
“Besson breaks out the latex for comic-strip romp” – The Globe and Mail – September 9, 2011 WARREN CLEMENTS
Audiences at this month’s Toronto International Film Festival may choose to see director Luc Besson’s film The Lady , about Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi; A Happy Event , with Louise Bourgoin as a woman who has mixed feelings during and after pregnancy; and Chicken With Plums , starring Mathieu Amalric in a mainly live action follow up to the animated Persepolis .
Then again, they could just stay home and watch The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec , a delightful 2010 romp from France directed by Besson and starring Bourgoin as the title character and Amalric, much disguised, as the principal villain. After all, it’s a safe bet those other films don’t set a pterodactyl loose in a lovingly recreated Paris of 1911 or reanimate Egyptian mummies so they can muse that the Louvre’s courtyard would look a lot better if only it had a pyramid in it.
Besson is no stranger to films of fantasy and action. He wrote and directed Léon: The Professional, (La Femme) Nikita and, set in a future world that Bruce Willis must save from Gary Oldman, The Fifth Element . He tried for a long time to secure the rights to French writer illustrator Jacques Tardi’s comic strip collections about writer adventurer Adèle Blanc Sec, the first of which appeared in 1976. It was years before Tardi, who had been approached by other filmmakers and been disappointed, would entrust Besson with the material.
He needn’t have worried. The characters look as if they had walked straight out of the books, thanks to a few hours in the makeup chair. Amalric isn’t the only actor smothered in latex to reproduce the grotesque features (in his case) or comically bulbous faces (in the case of a bumbling police officer and a hapless pedestrian) that Tardi could achieve with a few pen strokes.
Even Bourgoin has a few whirlwind scenes in which, to infiltrate a prison, she must don a fat suit as a cafeteria lady, sport a mustache and dress as a nun (not all at once). Her endless day of makeup sessions is captured in one of the bonus features on this week’s DVD, but those who don’t speak French will miss her humorous asides. Unlike the film itself, the extras don’t have subtitles. Critics have compared this movie to Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films, and there’s an obvious spot of homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark when Blanc Sec breaks into an Egyptian burial chamber. Reviewers have also noted that Spielberg will be releasing his own version of a popular comic series about a writer adventurer: the Tintin tales by Belgium’s Hergé. But all those heavily made up faces bring a third highly stylized comic strip film to mind: Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy , in which Al Pacino was one of several name actors rendered all but unrecognizable in the service of comic art.
Oh, the story? A wizened scientist manages through long distance concentration to hatch a museum’s egg, from which emerges a pterodactyl that promptly causes the death of a government minister and sparks a police investigation that threatens to keep Blanc Sec (yes, dry white, like the wine) from saving her sister, who – but that would be telling.
If you wonder at film’s end whatever happened to that zookeeper and the big game hunter, sit through the closing credits. You’ll find out.
“TIFF Press Conference Diaries: The Lady is a study in heroism ” – National Post – September 12, 2011
Ben Kaplan
Michelle Yeoh talked about playing Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi at Monday afternoon’s press conference for the Luc Besson film The Lady . “I lived and breathed her for the last four years,” said Yeoh of the Nobel Prize winning human rights activist, a mother of two who spent 15 years under house arrest for her political views. “I slept with her and I woke up with her — I was totally submerged in her — and I still think about her very much.”
Writing a character like Suu Kyi, a woman who draws comparisons to Gandhi, proved to be an interesting challenge for screenwriter Rebecca Frayn. “It’s much easier to tell the story of a sinner than a saint,” said Frayn, adding that the key to unlocking her story was to focus on the relationship between Suu Kyi and her husband, Oxford professor Michael Aris. “As I began looking more into this relationship, it became clear that this was a great untold love story. Through their relationship, I found the basis of my script.”
Playing Aris in the picture is Englishman David Thewlis, a rogue most often associated with the Harry Potter pictures and his deep catalogue of charismatic men and thieves.
“For someone who usually plays morally bankrupt people, to play someone of such high integrity was quite a stretch for me,” said Thewlis, also appearing at the festival in the Shakespeare mystery Anonymous . “Suu Kyi is one of the most admirable people I’ve come across in my entire life and I hope this film might put the Burmese struggle into the spotlight.”
For director Luc Besson, a French filmmaker best known for action pictures like Taken and The Transporter , making a picture about the democratic struggles of Burma brought to mind other heroes from across the globe.
“There are thousands of people who give their lives for their country; my grandfather for example,” said Besson, who shot some of his picture inside Burma and cast Burmese non actors in the film’s supporting roles. “It was the first time an actor ever asked me to leave his name off the credits, but that reminded us of what we’re doing — these people were afraid for their families.”
Posted in: Ampersand, Movies, TIFF 2011 “The Lady: A simplistic script about a remarkable sacrifice” – The Globe and Mail – September 12, 2011 kate taylor
Directed by Luc Besson (France/U.K.)
When Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to nurse her dying mother and found herself cast as the saviour of her homeland’s democracy movement, she left behind two teenage sons and her husband, Oxford professor Michael Aris, in England. Over the next decade, much of which she spent under house arrest, they were only permitted a handful of visits; if she ever returned to them, she would have abandoned Burma for good. This remarkable personal sacrifice is the theme of Luc Besson’s biopic, but its only drama is provided by Burma’s sadistic military junta: If Suu Kyi or the unfailingly supportive Aris ever know a doubt, we don’t see it here. A simplistic script is marred by leaden dialogue and odd choices about when to use English or Burmese; performances by Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis are as two dimensional as the writing.
Sept. 12, 9:30 p.m., Roy Thomson; Sept. 13, 11 a.m., Elgin; Sept. 17, 6 p.m., Scotiabank 2
Nuit blanche ( Sleepless night ) – Frederic Jardin
“French film has room for Godard & guns” – National Post – September 14, 2011
National Post
With more than 600 titles to view at the Toronto International Film Festival ranging from George Clooney's latest directorial offering to a 15 hour documentary about cinema, it's hard to know what to see. In this regular festival series, the Post's Melissa Leong asks TIFF programmers for their top picks or hidden gems. Today, Colin Geddes, programmer for Midnight Madness.
Film Sleepless Night (Nuit Blanche)
Director Frederic Jardin
Country France/Belgium/ Luxembourg
Screenings Sept. 14, 3 p.m., AMC 1; Sept. 16, 9: 45 p.m., Scotiabank Theatre 11
What it's about The French action film, Nuit Blanche, is about a cop who takes down a drug transport one morning.
A nightclub owner kidnaps the police officer's son and tells him to return his stash by the end of the night.
Journey to TIFF "It was brought to my attention by this young French kid who loves horror and action films. He's a sales agent for Bac Films. In the beginning of the summer, out of the blue, he said, 'We just got a title you have to see.' The director of photography is Tom Stern, who's been Clint Eastwood's longtime DOP. It really surprised me and caught me off guard." Memorable scene "There's a scene where he goes into the kitchen of the nightclub and has to fill plastic bags full of flour so they'll look like cocaine in order to trick the mob boss to get his son back. He's flashing his badge and getting the kitchen help to do it."
Why you should see it "It's a really slick thriller. It's exciting and exhilarating and it's not something that people think about when it comes to French cinema. You think Godard. You don't think guns and running across tables in a nightclub." [email protected]
By Greg Quill Entertainment Reporter
“What to Watch at TIFF 2011, pt. 4” – Blog TO – September 15, 2011
Posted by Staff
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SLEEPLESS NIGHT (Friday September 16th, 9:45pm, Scotiabank 11) Sleepless Night takes the classic story of a good cop doing bad, throws in a half dozen chase scenes and double crossings and serves it on a platter in a giant warehouse style club. The French crime thriller has some experience at its back to cover all that madness as the cinematographer is Tom Stern, the cinematographer who has worked with Clint Eastwood for decades and is currently shooting The Hunger Games . The story follows Vincent, a morally ambiguous cop who finds himself in the worst situation imaginable when his son is kidnapped by an angry mobster. Why is the mobster angry? Vincent and his partner stole his drugs, that's why. With nowhere to turn, the only way for him to get his son back is to deliver the drugs directly to the mobster at his glitzy club, but unfortunately for Vincent, there are other players in the game. With all the odds mounting against him, the film is a frenetic chase after chase in an enclosed space as Vincent continues pulling any punch possible to save his son. (DD)
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J’aime regarder les filles ( Watching all the girls go by ) – Frederic Louf
“Watching all the girls go by” – National Post – September 15, 2011
Nathalie Atkinson, National Post
Fréderic Louf and I are lingering over espresso at Nikki Beach, perched on the cool, shaded Bell Lightbox terrace above the pandemonium of the film festival. The impatient horns below are barely audible. Within the hour, he'll be among them, in a taxi to the airport, back to France. He takes a picture, to show his wife and twin nineyear olds the journalist who "liked his movie on Twitter." I'm the filmmaker's first, last and only interview of the film festival.
"I don't feel as important as Brad Pitt or Madonna," Louf says with a rueful smile. "I must admit I feel a little second class." But since he's only at TIFF to help his producer find a European distributor for his movie J'aime regarder les filles, he doesn't seem to mind much. It's a comingof age story with charm and political depth, and opened in France in July (to good reviews) but has yet to be sold even to French speaking territories outside the country. The name comes from the 1981 hit Patrick Coutin song (literally, "I like to look at girls") and is set in that era.
The hero is Primo, an undisciplined 18 year old about to vote for the first time in what would become a country changing election. Primo is sublimely played by wunderkind Pierre Niney, who at 22 is the youngestever member of the esteemed Comédie Française, one of the few state theatres in France. "I had him in mind since 2006, when I saw him in a French film at the time, a tiny role," Louf recalls. "He was 16 and played Nintendo in the couch at the back of a nothing scene but he's the only one you saw on the screen. Then I saw him in LOL, a very successful film in which again, he only had one scene but it was the best scene of the movie."
Instead of studying for his final exams, Primo falls in with a group of bourgeois Parisian teens, and fakes his way into a spot in their circle. It's talky and high tone and there are so many seemingly knowing nods and winks that it feels like a Gallic homage to Whit Stillman's Metropolitan. Which is why I was astonished to learn that Louf claims to know nothing of that movie, or of the films of John Hughes, although he's heard of both directors. "Perhaps we have some Whit Stillmans in France?" he adds helpfully. Louf is more inspired by Claude Chabrol and Michelle Deville ("a great stylist many of his images are still in my head").
It's a movie about immaturity. "Some of the characters are a little archetypal, maybe even stereotypical," he explains. But he insists it isn't a teen movie. "When the French want to see that genre, they see American movies," he says with a shrug.
"The thing I absolutely wanted to avoid was to make a typical teenage movie à la française," says the director, "where we cast these teenagers simply because they have silhouettes. In France we don't make a lot of those movies, we don't have the tradition that this continent does, of making the teenage movie every three months. We don't have the market for it. These actors really inhabit their character."
That J'aime regarder les filles was released on the 30th anniversary of the 1981 election of François Mitterrand that it chronicles is no coincidence. There's a political message, although it's subtle. "Of course when you're an 18 year old man you're just interested in girls," he says of Primo's first priority. "But your brain is large enough to accept some other ideas. When it's not in your pants.
"Primo is very immature and I wanted him to be aware that he has to start making choices, not just in love but to have a political conscience. And for that there has to be a political catalyst in the background."
Primo's encounter with his best friend Malik, the firstgeneration son of Algerian parents, changes his philosophy. Louf also positioned the story in that groundbreaking era to remind the French "who have just been kicked with four years of Nicolas Sarkozy in the teeth, in the face, in the ass and on their backs, and who for the most part are really demoralized and jaded" that 30 years ago, "we had something like hope. And that it wasn't for nothing."
Given that the film is largely autobiographical and Louf was 18 at the time of Mitterrand's election, I ask how he voted. "That's my secret!" he splutters, which I take to mean that he's now ashamed of that fateful ballot, and says as much.
"At that age, either you do as your parents did," he stalls, "or you do the exact opposite. I knew I was against history, against the good sense of evolution. I could feel the momentum," he concedes.
"I was right wing at the time," he finally admits. "But I have since reformed."
? J'aime regarder les filles screens Sept. 16 at 5 p.m. at AMC 2. [email protected] Habemus Papam – Nanni Moretti
“What’s hot at TIFF” – Maclean’s – September 7, 2011
By Brian D. Johnson on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 11:25pm 0 Comments
Here are mini reviews of 21 films I like so far at TIFF. (Some I love.) Ten were screened in Cannes. The others I saw more recently, in advance media previews. As the festival unfolds, more favorites will be added, and the list will appear as a fixture of our dedicated TIFF page . Click on each title to read the TIFF program note and screening times:
(…) Habemus Papam What a delicious premise: a freshly elected Pope decides he’s not up to the job. Italian provocateur Nanni Moretti ( Caro Diaro , The Son’s Room ) directs himself as an atheist shrink who’s hired to psychoanalyze the paralyzed Pope (Michel Piccoli) in the Vatican. Too bad that relationship didn’t take over the film. But then it would be The Pope’s Speech—not Moretti’s style. Instead, the Pontiff escapes into the streets of Rome, rides the bus incognito, and contemplates his failed ambitions as an actor. Piccoli delivers a masterful, career capping performance in this funny, touching, and willfully underwhelming satire. Call it The Old Man and the (Holy) See . (…)
“Habemus Papam: A fallible comedy about the burden of infallibility” – The Globe and Mail – September 10, 2011 liam lacey
Directed by Nanni Moretti (Italy/France)
This comedy from writer director Nanni Moretti ( The Son's Room , Dear Diary ) begins with an Analyze This like premise. The newly elected Pope (graceful, 87 year old French star Michel Piccoli) has an anxiety attack, and the conclave of cardinals is stuck because they dare not announce his name until he recovers. The opening sequence, which takes us behind the Vatican walls, suggests a vintage screwball comedy, as a psychiatrist (director Moretti) is brought in to cure the Pontiff. But soon Habemus Papam gets lost in the secular wilderness, as the incognito Pontiff wanders about Rome, mixing with the common flock, in an overly pat commentary on the burden of infallibility.
Sept. 15, 6:30 p.m., Lightbox 1; Sept. 16, 11:45 a.m., Scotiabank
“How a black-and-white silent movie from France is poised to become a hit” – The Province – September 13, 2011
By Jay Stone, Postmedia News September 13, 2011 TORONTO — Back in 2009, when the movie world was caught up in the excitement of Avatar's innovative 3 D, a French director named Michel Hazanavicius was taking part in an experiment of a different kind. He went to Los Angeles to make a black and white silent film.
The movie people were charmed. "They were delighted to see that a guy from France was able to do this movie, because it's their own story," Hazanavicius recalls. "Suddenly, a guy comes and says, 'I'm going to do your story. I'm not from here, I don't speak perfect English, but I'm going to do it.'"
The movie, called The Artist, is the surprise hit of the movie year, a critical smash at the Cannes Film Festival (where it won the best actor award for its leading man, Jean Dujardin) and screened at the Toronto Film Festival this past week.
The Artist is an unabashedly old fashioned project, from its almost square screen format to its story, which is the history of silent films, itself.
Dujardin plays George Valentin, a fictional star whose career is threatened by the advent of talkies, while an ingenue (played by Berenice Bejo, the director's wife) is becoming a sensation in the new medium.
It's a tale that blends much movie history, borrowing from films such as Singin' in the Rain and A Star Is Born, as well as real life Hollywood history, such as the career of John Gilbert, a silent star who was destroyed by talking pictures.
Hazanavicius has wanted to do the movie for years, even though "people thought I was crazy."
"I think there's a lot of directors who have the same fantasy, to make a silent movie," he said, mentioning Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. "I think most of us have this fantasy, so I've been lucky. Maybe I wanted it a little bit more than the others."
He got his chance when he made a couple of spy parodies that were French hits, "so they started to say OK, maybe we'll let him do what he wants for this one."
"I think it's the ultimate way to tell a story for a filmmaker," Hazanavicius said. "It's the purity of cinema . . . It's something with the format, something that as an audience, you don't believe what you see is reality. It's something else. It's a transcription, it's a transformation, it's a transfiguration of reality. You accept many things from silent movies. You don't try to see is it credible; it is not credible. That's not the point."
He wrote a screenplay that dealt with the history of silent movies because he thought it would help explain the idea.
"I think it's easier for the audience to accept a silent movie when the story is about a silent actor. 'I don't hear him. Why not? I will play the game.' I know people need justification."
He was also careful to write a screenplay that wasn't too complex.
"If there is too deep (a) relationship between characters, you need words because you can't show everything. But on the other hand, you are free to do a lot of things. You don't have to be realistic because your proposal at the beginning of the movie is not to be realistic. You say to the audience, 'This is a game. The people are in black and white, they will move their lips but you will not hear them. It's a game.'"
One of the challenges was to ensure the actors didn't overdo it. Rather than relying on the overwrought style of silents, where players would mug and use extravagant gestures, he evokes the era by running the film slightly faster than usual and using visual cues. In The Artist, the shades have high contrast when things are going well for the heroes, and become greyer as their fortunes fall. Hazanavicius had his costume designer make George's suits two sizes too big so that he looks like he has shrunk. Throughout the film, the character is shown going down stairs, symbolic of his declining career.
It's an elegant kind of storytelling, and it attracted several English speaking stars, including John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller and Malcolm McDowell. It was a rare chance to make a film from the classical age.
"Maybe Clint Eastwood could say, 'Today I want to make a silent movie' and everybody says, 'OK, God wants to make a silent movie,'" Hazanavicius says. "But I think he's the only one."
He doesn't know who will come to his film when it opens in November, but he expects it will attract more than cinephiles and movie historians.
"I think the teenagers, not the real stupid ones, but the teenagers from real life, I think they should come because there's something about a pure love story, like in the old days," he says. "There's no cynicism in this love story and teenagers love when there's no cynicism. They want to believe." [email protected]
Les biens aimés ( Beloved ) – Christophe Honoré
« Films picked up at TIFF: Steve McQueen’s Shame and Christophe Honore’s Beloved (Les biens-aimes) » - Toronto Life – September 11, 2011
TIFF is often lauded as the first place to look for Oscar worthy films—the festival has previously premiered Precious, No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker, Chariots of Fire, and, of course, last year’s King’s Speech , to name a few. Naturally, distributors are always in town for the festival and eager to snatch up the next hot ticket item. Already Variety is reporting that the first two films to get deals at this year’s festival are Steve McQueen ‘s sexual thriller Shame and Christophe Honore ’s romantic drama Beloved (Les biens-aimes) .
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Sundance Selects bought Honore’s French film Beloved (Les biens-aimes) , which stars Catherine Deneuve and her real life daughter Chiara Mastroianni . The film spans 45 years and follows Madeleine (Deneuve), a prostitute in the 1960s, and her daughter Vera through misadventures in love. Honore and Sundance Selects seem to like each other: this is the fifth time the two have collaborated, having previously partnered on Dans Paris, Love Songs, La Belle Personne and Make Plans for Lena .
Omar m’a tué ( Omar killed me ) – Roschdy Zem
“Omar killed me” - Now Magazine – September 9, 2011
Omar Killed Me (Omar M'a Tuer)
France 85 minutes Directed by Roschdy Zem Program: Contemporary World Cinema Starring Sami Bouajila, Denis Podalydès NOW Rating: NNN NOW Review Omar Raddad's rousing true story gets a solid dramatization that's part prison drama, part procedural. A Moroccan immigrant to France working as a gardener, Omar (Bouajila) is convicted of murdering his wealthy client after some faulty, circumstantial evidence and systematic prejudice incriminate him. The story is largely told in flashback while a novelist (Podalydès) gathers clues in an effort to exonerate Omar. Bouajila delivers a moving performance, but the other actors are limited by characters that aren't fleshed out beyond types. Director Zem handles this sensational material admirably, with a mannered approach that avoids grandstanding or preaching, doing justice to a story still awaiting its conclusion. (Radheyan Simonpillai )
Des films français et francophones au TIFF
« Des films francophones à ne pas rater au TIFF » - L’Express – Semaine du 6 septembre au 12 septembre 2011
Par Guillaume Garcia – Semaine du 6 septembre au 12 septembre 2011
Omar m’a tué (Omar killed me) , de Roschdy Zem rappelle l’histoire d’Omar Raddad, emprisonné à la suite du meurtre d’une femme en France. Le film revient sur une période où le racisme justifiait parfois le pire. (Photo ci dessus) The Artist , de Michel Hazanavicius, avec l’acteur français Jean Dujardin, montre la difficulté avec laquelle un comédien du cinéma muet passe au cinéma parlé. Un hommage au cinéma des années 20. Café de Flore , de Jean Marc Vallée met en scène Vanessa Paradis en mère dévouée auprès de son enfant atteint du syndrome de Down. Le film se joue sur deux époques, les années 60 à Paris et Montréal de nos jours. Le Premier homme , de Gianni Amelio est tiré du roman du même nom, de l’écrivain français Albert Camus. Cette autobiographie nous fait suivre Jacques Comery, qui retourne en Algérie en 1957 et revit ses souvenirs. Présumé coupable (Guilty) , de Vincent Garenq met en scène Philippe Torreton dans le rôle d’un homme accusé de pédophilie, avec sa femme, crime qu’il n’a pas commis. Comment retrouver son honneur et prouver son innocence? Le Havre , d’Aki Kaurismäki nous emmène dans la ville portuaire du Havre, en France, suivre le quotidien d’un couple âgé, de la classe ouvrière, qui vit au jour le jour et ne manque pas de solidarité. J'aime regarder les filles , de Frédéric Louf, nous plonge dans la vie des adolescents avec en toile de fond les élections françaises de 1981 et l’arrivée au pouvoir de François Mitterand. Entre sérieux et comédie, un film rafraîchissant. Monsieur Lazhar , de Philippe Falardeau nous montre un homme maghrébin devenu instituteur à Montréal et en décalage complet par rapport à l’éducation à la québécoise. Tiré de la pièce de théâtre Bachir Lazar. Nuit#1 , d’Anne Émond, nous envoie au milieu d’une Rave party, où se rencontrent deux jeunes adultes. Après une nuit de sexe, ils se mettent à parler, sans plus jamais s’arrêter et se livrer leurs plus grands secrets. Une nuit avec toi, de Jeanne Leblanc , est un court métrage sur l’amour, le désir et les problèmes d’image lorsque l’on est en surpoids. Faut il se tourner vers ceux qui nous ressemblent ? Une chose est sûre, l’amour n’est pas facile. L’ordre et la morale (Rebellion) , de Matthieu Kassovitz revient sur un événement de l’histoire de la Nouvelle Calédonie. Issu d’un fait réel, le film n’en reste pas moins une fiction. Starbuck , de Ken Scott tire le portrait d’un grand enfant, incarné par Patrick Huar, qui découvre, à l’approche de la quarantaine, qu’il est le père biologique de 533 enfants. Une belle remise en question en perspective. Ceci n’est pas une liste exhaustive. Plusieurs courts métrages sont également francophones. Pour la liste complète des films du Festival international du film de Toronto: tiff.net/thefestival/filmprogramming#all
Grandtoronto.ca - Festival international du film de Toronto – September 8, 2011
Du 8 septembre 2011 au 12 septembre 2011 Toutes les dates lundi 12 septembre 2011 dimanche 11 septembre 2011 samedi 10 septembre 2011 vendredi 9 septembre 2011 jeudi 8 septembre 2011 TIFF Bell Lightbox 350 rue King Ouest Toronto Affiché par GrandToronto.ca Catégorie : Festival Pour Adultes Événement en : Français Anglais Du 8 au 18 septembre, le 36e Festival international du film de Toronto s’installe au TIFF Bell Lighbox. À partir du 23 août, connectez vous au www.tiff.net et découvrez la programmation officielle du 36e Festival international du film de Toronto. Consulter les tarifs applicables au tickets and packages Les dates et horaires des projections seront disponibles ultérieurement au calendrier Films français (ou relatifs à la France) L’Artiste , de Michel Hazanavicius avec Jean Dujardin et Bérénice Béjo (cf. illustration) Une vie meilleure de Cédric Kahn, avec Guillaume Canet et Leïla Bekhti Carré blanc de Jean Baptiste Léonetti, avec Sami Bouajila et Julie Gayet Café de Flore de Jean Marc Vallée, avec Vanessa Paradis et Kévin Parent Crazy horse de Frédérick Wiseman (public adulte) Poulet aux prunes de Marjane Satrapi et Vincent Paronnaud (Persépolis) avec Isabella Rossellini et Mathieu Amalric Elles de Malgoska Szumowska, avec Juliette Binoche et Anaïs Demoustier The Lady de Luc Besson, avec Michelle Yeoh La Femme du 5e de Pawel Pawiloski, avec Kristin Scott Thomas Love and Bruises de Lou ye, avec Tahar Rahim, Corinne Yam et Jalil Lespert Un heureux évènement de Rémi Bezançon, avec Louise Bourgoin, Pio Marmai et Josiane Balasko Omar m’a tuer de Roschdy Zem, avec Sami Bouajila et Denis Podalydès Trotteur d’Arnaud Brisebois, avec Francis Leclerc Un Été brûlant de Philippe Garrel avec Monica Bellucci, Louis Garrel et Céline Sallette Un Monstre à Paris (film d’animation) de Bibo Bergeron Films québecois (ou relatifs au Québec) I’m yours de Leonard Farlinger, avec Karine Vanasse La ronde de Sophie Goyette Les dimanches de Jean Guillaume Bastien, avec Anna Belle Didier et Alexandra Caron Marécages de Guy Édoin, avec Pascale Bussières et Luc Picard Monsieur Lazhar de Philippe Falardeau avec Marie Ève Beauregard, Seddik Benslimane et Louis Champagne Nuit # 1 d’Anne Émond, avec Catherine de Léan et Dimitri Storoge Starbuck de Ken Scott, avec Patrick Huard Surveillant de Yan Giroux, avec Olivier Leduc, Martin Dubreuil et Ghislain Bibeau