French Film Festival 1

[Edit: images added, links to Last Night at Riviera appended]

[This post has been largely re-worked]

The Alliance Française French Film Festival 2007 kicked off in Melbourne last Tuesday and runs to Tuesday April 3 (15 days). Screenings are at the Palace Cinemas at Como (South Yarra), Westgarth (Northcote) and Balwyn.

I have a strong proclivity for French cinema – I saw 27 in 2006, second in number only to films from the US. Contemporary names like Ozon, Cantet, Chereau and Guédiguian come to mind, though none of these names appear at this year's festival. My perception is that the festival is more about previewing middle-of-the-road light-weight films that are getting a commercial distribution than in showcasing the pinnacle of cultural and artistic excellence that French cinema is famous for. In other words, getting bums on seats.

What to do? I find with a bit of planning, research and consulting others, there are gems to be found. As far as planning, my priority is to see films that I know don't have a commercial release as I can always see those later. I know of at least three films (Hey Good Looking!, Priceless and The Singer) that open straight after the festival, so I'm in no rush to see these right now.

I'm also not a big fan of French comedy, as least not those that are released here. I find little to differentiate them from most Hollywood comedies. Francis Veber's Le dîner de cons (The Dinner Game, 1998) is a rare exception, though I've not thought much of anything Veber has made since. I tend to seek out the drama, which the above-mentioned names do so well. My pick at last year’s festival were Ozon's Le temps qui reste (A Time to Leave, 2005) and Emmanuelle Bercot’s Backstage (2005, which also screened recently at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival).

Out of the 25 films programmed for Melbourne, at least fourteen are comedies, so that narrows my focus considerably. I’m not ruling out comedy all together; they’re just not a big priority. Interestingly, at a recent French Film Festival in New York, only 2 of the 16 films programmed were comedies. That says a lot about the different markets.

For research, there’s always the invaluable IMDB, and word-of-mouth via blogs. This year I’ve also sought the opinion of a fellow blogger from Sydney, where the festival has already screened. Matt Riviera, himself of French origin, from Last Night at Riviera has recommended: Comedy of Power, Inside Paris, Private Property, Bad Faith and OSS 117: Cairo – Nest of Spies.

From my research, I’ve earmarked: Poison Friends, Premonition and The Right of the Weakest. The criteria: they’re all dramas, don’t have a commercial distribution and all have a reasonable average score on IMDB (around 7/10).

La faute à Fidel (Blame It On Fidel, Julie Gavras, 2006)
This is an interesting and well-made film. It depicts a 9 year old girl’s perspective of the changes in family life as her lawyer father and writer mother become involved in political activism. Set in the 1970’s, it starts against the backdrop of an uncle executed under Franco’s regime in Spain.

This is an interesting theme, and I have seen a number of films recently that connect to this theme: Salvador (Puig Antich) (Huergo, 2006), The Executioner (Berlanga, 1963), The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice, 1972) and Pan’s Labyrinth (del Toro, 2006). I even saw similarities with Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar, in that both stories were filmed from the perspective of an innocent (Balthazar was, of course, a donkey). Pan’s Labyrinth and The Spirit of the Beehive also shared this perspective. It adds a different layer, because we get to experience or understand reality through a different filter. The camera work in Blame It On Fidel often takes the angles a child would see. At parties, we would see people from below looking up, and often cutting off people’s heads.

The lighting and cinematography are lovely, the acting is consistently good all round and the film is worth a look.

Je vous trouve tres beau (You Are So Beautiful, Isabelle Mergault, 2005)
The subtitled title for this film was You Are So Handsome. In changing the name for the festival, the film is perhaps more marketable but a subtle meaning has been lost. When an elderly farmer’s wife dies and he seeks a mail-order bride from Romania, the line of young female candidates all open with “you are so handsome” (which he is not).

Basically the film is a light-hearted romantic comedy and will probably be a crowd-pleaser. It’s the type of film I consider pretty much Hollywood in French language. It’s not particularly smart and not my sort of film, though I acknowledge there’s a strong market for this kind of film.

Le lièvre de Vatanen (The Year of the Hare, Marc Rivière, 2006)
Up until about one third of the way into this film, I thought it was reasonable as a children’s film. You know, the type of show kids might watch on ABC TV when they get home after school where a character (usually an adolescent) goes on some adventure with a cutesy animal.

In this film, it’s an adult protagonist but I truly thought it was a cheesy kids film until there was some nudity obviously not intended for a young audience. Then my worst fears were realised and I knew the remaining hour would be tedious (and it was).

Not really a French film (it’s a Belgian, Bulgarian and French co-production, set in Canada), it jumps between slapstick humour, cheesy humour and drama that just doesn’t work for me at all. I could have walked out at any time (but didn’t). I'm a bit disappointed that this film was advertised as drama/adventure. I suppose it is has some elements of that, but it really was comedic. The drama/adventure aspect was not what I call adult entertainment.

As an aside, I’ve noticed in the past that Palace Cinemas seem to attract a middle-age, upper middle-class female audience that loves to chatter, even during films. There was a distractingly high volume of chatter during the ads before the film by this demographic at the Westgarth. It didn’t go away when the film started. I identified at least three groups of women all chatting and laughing away. I figured it’s got to die down but after five minutes it was still as enthusiastic and showed no sign of abating.

This is a dilemma: do we suffer in our silence, or do we speak out and then feel self-conscious to the detriment of our enjoyment of the film? Well, enough is enough, and I decided to say something and not allow myself to feel self-conscious. I called out loud and firmly, “for fuck’s sake, will you all just shut up!!”. It worked, and everyone enjoyed (or not) the rest of the film. I figured most people wouldn’t know who spoke up, but a couple of women approached me later and thanked me profusely for having the guts to say what everyone else wanted to. I appreciated that. This tends to support the idea that the French Film Festival is more a social event for certain demographics rather than a serious cultural event for cinephiles.

See also Matt Riviera's reviews at the Sydney French Film Festival: 1, 2, 3 & 4