French Film Festival 2010 - 5 (White Material)

White Material (Claire Denis, France, 2009)
So this is the film that Claire Denis was too preoccupied with in preparation for its premiere to make it to an 'In Conversation With Claire Denis' event at MIFF last year. Well, I had tickets and was very disappointed that she couldn't make it, but now I forgive her. Her film that did screen at MIFF was 35 rhums/35 Shots of Rum and while it was widely lauded, I was underwhelmed by it. Good, but nothing special. White Material is, for me, a return to form.

Tacking themes similar to Disgrace, it succeeds in ways that Steve Jacob's film doesn't. There's none of the melodrama, plenty of contemplative moments (with an excellent and understated score) that leave ample space for one to feel a looming and overwhelming dread. The dread is hard to escape, because the film starts with how it ends - we know that no good can come out of this. There's pillage, murder, destruction. There are government militia, rebels and the innocents in between are in danger from both.

Isabelle Huppert plays Maria Vial, a coffee plantation owner in an unnamed African country, presumably a former French colony. Despite the risks, the threats and the warnings, she refuses to abandon her land, in denial of the obvious danger she is placing herself, her family and her workers in. The themes are relevant today; think Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe.

Huppert is looking painfully thin and is very authentic in this role. Christopher Lambert as her ex-husband, Nicolas Duchauvelle as her son and Isaach De Bankolé as a rebel leader put in solid support roles, but it's Huppert who dominates the screen. She effectively depicts both obstinance and desperation.

The title of White Material refers to the locals' description of property owned by the colonialists. The film is an indictment of the evils of civil war, specifically in Africa, with the depictions of violence, child soldiers and corruption. There are some brief challenging scenes of violence but mostly the mood is one of dread, of what could happen at any moment. The suspense in the film is as palpable as anything created by Hitchcock and I'm thinking Psycho here, though I'm not suggesting that these films are alike in any other way.

The film's flashbacks can be a little confusing, so one has to pay attention. I found it a little over-long (though this is only a minor quibble). Denis' Beau travail, also set in Africa, remains one of my favourite French films. White Material is not quite up to the same level of excellence, but one still feels that one is in the hands of a very competent film-maker. For fans of Denis, it shouldn't disappoint.

Isabelle Huppert at ACMI - 4

ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert has ended, so maybe life will get back to normal in the Melbourne Film Blogger's household (well, maybe until MIFF starts on July 25, when the film fever starts all over again). While I expected to see eight of the ACMI titles, I ended up seeing thirteen of the twenty! No wonder I'm exhausted. With three of the films I'd seen previously, that's only four that I've not yet seen.

Some of the films I liked more than others, some I was disappointed with. Overall, in the context of a retrospective, which is a focus on a particular person or theme, I was mightily impressed with the quality and variety of films selected for the program. While I prefer to see Isabelle Huppert in serious and challenging roles (she certainly has an attraction and talent for these), it was a good balance to see her out of type.

In the films I saw, Huppert portrayed:

• A morally corrupt mother (Ma mère)
  
• A shy teenage apprentice hairdresser (La dentelliére)
  
• A prostitute three times (Sauve qui peut (la vie), La vie promise and Heaven's Gate)
• An unfaithful wife (Loulou)
• A mother in the midst of various crises (La séparation, Le temps du loup and Comédie de l'innocence)
• A murderess (Merci pour le chocolat and La cérémonie)
• A former nun writing pornographic stories (Amateur)
• A seventeenth century queen (Saint-Cyr)
  

Huppert can portray a wild, promiscuous woman as effectively as a repressed virgin, and everything in between. The range is impressive, and to see it in the concentrated context of a retrospective is all the more effective.

There were some interesting contrasts. In Godard's Sauve qui peut (la vie), Huppert was very convincing as a prostitute (in a film that overall didn't particularly engage me). Yet in Dahan's La vie promise, I found it hard to buy into Huppert's role as a prostitue. She seemed too nice to be the character she portrayed. She certainly has the ability, so I suspect it was the direction that let her down.

Of the films I saw, Ma mère was the most challenging, Le temps du loup was the most gripping, La séparation was my favourite film overall (and my favourite performance by Daniel Auteuil), followed closely by La dentellière (perhaps the most subtle film of the lot) and Loulou. Of course, Haneke's La Pianiste is also an excellent and challenging piece, which I saw when it had its theatrical release, and was both the first Haneke and Huppert film I've seen.

The films I missed were: Coup de foudre, Cactus, Une affaire des femmes and Madame Bovary.

One thing that fascinated me about the retrospective as a whole is that in spite of Huppert's unusually and almost unprecedented strong screen presence, she rarely 'hogs' the screen. Either she chooses roles where this is the case, or the directors she works with use her effectively without overexposing her. I'm feel reasonably sure that Huppert plays a significant part in this prior to accepting a role. I don't think she is ego-driven at all, and is prepared to take many risks as an actress, but is not prepared to sell herself short by appearing in mindless trash movies that pay bigger bucks.

Kudos once again to ACMI for putting on such an impressive and serious retrospective, and especially to Roberta Ciabarra who curated the season. Ten of the titles are part of a touring program that has screened around the world, and Roberta selected another ten titles. It was particularly bold to open with Ma Mère and I think many of the white-faced and silent faces that left the cinema might have sworn not to go back for any more of the screenings, as some of the later screenings had fairly small audiences (one had as few as 30-40 people). The final night was, however, relatively well-attended with about 150 or so people (not bad for a Tuesday night).

Of the twenty films:

• 2 were Australian premieres (Ma mère and Le comedie de l'innocence)
• 8 had no OFLC classification (so hadn't been seen outside of a film festival)
• 2 have R18+ classifications
• 16 were in French and 4 in English (3 American & 1 Australian)
• 4 were by Claude Chabrol and 2 were by Michael Haneke
  

Of the last 13 films I've seen, 12 were part of the Huppert focus - I sacrificed my Melbourne Cinémathèque screenings to get as much Huppert as possible. Here are my impressions of the final three.

La vie promise (The Promised Life, Olivier Dahan, 2002)
This is an earlier effort by the director of La vie en rose, which is about to be released. I haven’t seen it yet, but what I’ve heard of it hasn’t been particularly flattering. La vie promise had some things going for it but I find it hard to recall them because right from the start there were significant negatives that overwhelmed the positives to the extent that the film rarely engaged me. The most significant flaws were:

• A pretentious pseudo-arty set-up at the start that didn't really work, and irritated when the theme resurfaced at different times during the film
• The use of American music seemed very contrived, and grated in tandem with the above point
  
• Unnecessarily shaky hand-held camera. It went beyond bordering on the ridiculous. It gave an impression of trying too hard to appear gritty and serious when really the film was fairly conventional. This was perhaps the most disturbing element for me and I felt I had to keep looking away from the screen and watching with my peripheral vision.
  
• Huppert's role as a prostitute was unconvincing. She was made to look completely grotty and unattractive, with obnoxious behaviour, yet close-ups of her face revealled a kind and warm person inconsistent with the character.
• Coincidences were too much like a Hollywood thriller.
  

Perhaps I'm being kind in saying that it wasn't a bad film, but it wasn't good either.

Comédie de l'innocence (Comedy of Innocence, Raúl Ruiz, France, 2000)
Be warned, spoilers follow. It's a pity I saw this film after Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004) which is highly derivative of Ruiz's vastly superior film, but which spoilt the surprise for me. Comedy of Innocence is very mysterious and being a Ruiz film, has an air of the surreal. The mystery has a sense of the absurd which injects a light sense of humour. It wasn't always clear what was happening and why (and that's a positive). Only at the end was it clear that it was a similar scenario to Birth, though not to an extent for my partner to pick up.

The visuals, music and characters all worked well in tandem and created a tense atmosphere. Huppert plays a relatively conservative role, but in an unusual situation. While I'm happy to sit in an empty cinema, considering this was a Ruiz film and an Australian premiere, it was disappointing that only about 40 or so people turned up for the screening. This could be attributed to the film being a late addition to the program and not included in any of the printed promotional material, and also because it was a late night screening on a Monday.

La cérémonie (The Ceremony, Claude Chabrol, France, 1995)
Chabrol used Huppert sparely in this film based on a Ruth Rendell novel, but like Merci pour le chocolat, was reminiscent of a restrained and taut Hitchcock thriller. There was a constant sense of the unknown, of things not being revealed. Sandrine Bonnaire takes centre stage as Sophie, the new domestic help for a couple and their children at an isolated country home. Huppert's character is the local postal worker, Jeanne.

All seems well, though Sophie acts a little strange and has secrets. So too does Jeanne and the two hit it off quite well. The man of the house, Georges (Jean-Pierre Cassel) doesn't like Jeanne (he suspects her of reading his mail), and Sophie's blossoming relationship with her bothers him. It all gets complicated and grim. The film is good entertainment as a reasonably conventional but intelligent thriller, largely due to the effort put into writing good characters. Bonnaire's performance was chilling and Huppert effectively played a light, perky character out of type.

Related posts: Isabelle Huppert at ACMI 1, 2, 3 or All

Isabelle Huppert at ACMI - 3

The films from ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert in this post are a varied lot: a social-realist horror film, a film-noir comedy, an American western and a period drama. The ACMI programmers have certainly given us a diverse range of films in which to appreciate the subject: the very talented Isabelle Huppert.

Today and tomorrow are your last chances to catch some of the finest screenings of French films, including one by the very enigmatic (and rarely seen in this country) Raúl Ruiz:

• Mon 7.00pm: La vie promise (The Promised Life, Olivier Dahan, 2001)
• Mon 8.45pm: Comédie de l'innocence (Comedy of Innocence, Raúl Ruiz, 2000)
• Tue 7.00pm: La cérémonie (The Ceremony, Claude Chabrol, 1995)
  

Le temps du loup (The Time of the Wolf, France/Austria/Germany, Michael Haneke, 2002)
Somehow I missed seeing this film made in between my first Haneke experience (The Piano Teacher, 2001) and my second (Hidden, 2005). I think I was put off by a description I heard of it as a horror film. Genre brings expectations, and while the film does not really fit into that genre, it is not altogether inappropriate either (though any horror is not what the title may initially suggest). It is more of a social drama/thriller about an unidentified threat to civilisation as we know it.

The film is sparse, austere, and with little dialogue. While the plot is very different to Hidden, it shares that film's style. The plot has more in common with say Children of Men, without the stylistic embellishments (and that's not a criticism). While Cuarón's film describes a world crisis without explanation, Haneke's provides so little information, that we don't even know what the threat is. What we see in abundance is the disturbing social responses from the perspective of a family caught away from home and away from the city. The film also recalls Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), but without the zombies.

Like Ma mère (My Mother) and Nue propriété (Private Property) - both of which starred Isabelle Huppert - the film's opening credits are without any sound, adding to a sobering sense of mystery and foreboding. The whole film is without music other than a character's unenhanced playing of a tape in a cassette recorder.

Haneke is a difficult director for some audiences. His films (the ones I've seen) are cold. He uses cold colours. People are emotionally distant, don't communicate effectively, don't relate. While this makes it hard for some to engage with unsympathetic characters, it peels back the medium to reveal a raw core. One doesn't have to like a character to appreciate the nuance depicted and Haneke's work is full it. His depiction of a scenario without explanation is so intelligent and effective. We get to share the experience of the characters, trying to learn facts and make sense of 'reality' as if we were there ourselves.

Huppert's character is mother and protector of her two children on holiday in the country when disaster arrives suddenly and shockingly. Think of the abrupt moment in Hidden. There are a couple of moments like this in The Time of the Wolf. While the brilliant Huppert has top billing, her role is subordinate to the enormity of the situation she finds herself in. The portrayal of the situation is itself relegated to the background, with the prime focus being on how people react, individually and collectively.

The Time of the Wolf is both very original and very bold in both its conception and execution. It powerfully succeeds in everything it sets out to achieve, ending with ambiguity but (like Children of Men) with some sense of hope. Having now seen three Haneke films, I look forward to seeing anything else by this very talented and challenging director.

Amateur (Hal Hartley, USA, 1994)
Cinema is an emotional experience and a good serious film takes time to digest. While I generally don't like to see two films in a day, exceptions can be made for something as outstanding as ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert. Fortunately the ACMI programmers put on a comedy on after the very harrowing The Time of the Wolf.

Amateur is my first experience of Hal Hartley's films. It's a strange beast and crosses different genres: film noir, black comedy and parody. It doesn't take itself seriously, is silly yet intelligent. There is a real shortage of good, intelligent comedy in cinema today to the extent that I rarely see a comedy any more. So this film is welcome relief.

In the context of an Isabelle Huppert retrospective, it's interesting to see how this actress is utilised by American directors and how her performances compare to those in French films. She has a good command of the English language, so I think she could portray anything in English she has in her native French. However, it seems that American directors appreciate Huppert more for her willingness to tackle sexually challenging characters rather than her much more special talent at depicting subtle and ambiguous emotional roles. Or maybe it's a case that Huppert is not interested in the same kind of roles when appearing in American films. I don't see this as a negative - it's just an observation. It does add to the variety of roles she has played.

In this film she unsurprisingly plays a former nun (and always smoking, something she seems to do in every film I've seen her in). I found neither the film nor Huppert's performance outstanding, but a welcome addition to the retrospective as an example of the varied films she has appeared in and a variation on her range. The performance certainly is against type and am open to the possibility that I brought expectations with me into the cinema. The film was well-written, very enjoyable and with very interesting characters.

The official website for Amateur quotes Huppert: "I call Amateur a metaphysical thriller. It's a strong thriller full of deep and philosophical themes and questions. But it's never intellectual or cerebral. To carry all that depth and ask all those deep questions in a simple, action movie is truly great art." The site also quotes Huppert's reasons for accepting the role: nobody would ever have given her this role in France. It goes against the preconceptions of who she is and the kind of work she does, and this was an opportunity for her to break out of that.

Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, USA, 1980)
Isabelle Huppert was about 27 when she made this film, and doesn't she look young! Again, it's interesting to see how an American director utilises her talents. Playing a loveable 'whore', she's not pushed or challenged to any great degree, but delivers some of her trademark emotional nuance that few American actresses are capable of. The depiction of prostitutes in this film was similarly repeated in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, and Kris Kristofferson's Averill reminded me of Eastwood's characterisations, particularly as the cool-as-a-cucumber Inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry.

I'm not a great fan of the western genre, though this film departs from the typical goody/baddy stereotypes. While it does test a contemporary audience - labouring somewhat over 225 minutes (nearly four hours) - it has much to admire. The story concerns itself with a death list that the stock association puts together - with a $50 bounty for each person on the list. The list appears to be comprised completely of poor starving immigrants who have settled harsh land and have stolen cattle to feed their struggling families. The film seems to be a critique on the corrupt relationship between government and big business and the arrogance towards the 'little man' in the land of free enterprise. It could almost be a metaphor for oil and Iraq and definitely has universal and timeless relevance that resonates to this day.

Typical with genre, the widescreen is used effectively, and there was good attention to period detail - this film must have cost a bundle to produce. There was a smoky soft-lens look about the film which reminded me of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, which was a quieter film but similarly slow-moving. Heaven's Gate does have action - it's a western after all. It seems like Cimino was attempting to rescue the genre from legend and place it within both an art film and more serious historical and political context. If that was his intent, he largely succeeded, though I believe the film did poorly at the box office.

There's a great line up of recognisable actors other than Kristofferson - particularly Christopher Walken, but also John Hurt, Jeff Bridges and Micky Rourke - and it was interesting to see them with much younger faces. Huppert's role as Ella was not particularly major, but seemed to serve as the emotional core of the film and connected various characters. It must have been a strange and perhaps liberating experience for her to move from dark French films to a grand project like this. I enjoyed the film in context, and it added variety to the Huppert retrospective, but it's not the type of film I normally go out of my way for.

Saint-Cyr (Patricia Mazuy, France, 1999)
Prior to seeing Saint-Cyr, the only other French period film I had seen was Patrice Chéreau's very bloody La reine Margot (Queen Margot, 1994). While these films are very different to each other in content and style, both are very extravagant productions vastly superior to most of their English counterparts. In fact, Queen Margot is one of the first foreign-language films I saw, and its brutality shocked as much as its beauty enthralled me.

Saint-Cyr has none of the brutality but much beauty. Isabelle Huppert plays Madame de Maintenon, a mistress then wife of Luis XIV (Jean-Pierre Kalfon). A strict woman, with the assistance of Luis XIV she founded Saint-Cyr, a special boarding school that selected 250 poor girls with the aim of elevating them through moral and social training, perhaps to be part of the royal entourage.

Madame de Maintenon is depicted as a strict and demanding woman, prone to whims. The film depicts the gradual training of the girls, the teaching of French (many of them spoke regional dialects) and the conflicted emotions as the girls reached marriageable age. When the girls are courted by the local nobility, Madame de Maintenon forcefully coerces the abbot (Simon Reggiani) to apply strict rules for their behaviour.

It was interesting to note a small role by Jérémie Renier, prior to his gaining prominence in the Dardenne brothers' L'enfant and Joachim Lafosse's Nue propriété. Isabelle Huppert is an actress whose screen presence could easily overwhelm a film. Of the dozen or so films I have seen her in, I have yet to see a one in which she has allowed herself to dominate the screen in the way that Hollywood films often exploit their actors. In this she portrays compassion, dignity, severity and subtlety with another fine performance.

Related posts: Isabelle Huppert at ACMI 1, 2, 4 or All

Isabelle Huppert at ACMI - 2

In case you're wondering where Isabelle Huppert at ACMI - 1 is, it's my post on Ma mère.

I've moved my comments about the four Huppert films I saw last week from The Week in Review to below, after Merci pour le chocolat.

I bumped into Roberta Ciabarra after last night's screening of Merci pour le chocolat. Roberta curated the magnificent Focus on Isabelle Huppert, and I told her that I consider it the best season that ACMI's put on yet (that I've seen, anyway). I also think the Focus on Land and Freedom earlier in the year and last year's Focus on Stanley Kubrick were pretty darn hot, too.

As I said to Roberta, this season is the French Film Festival for serious cinephiles, whereas that other festival caters more to the Toorak matrons (who also love to talk all the way through the 'light-as-a-souffle' romantic comedies and family dramas, and kid themselves that they're serious film-goers). I've made no secret of my love of French cinema, and this season has the greatest concentration of serious French films that I've ever seen.

Merci pour le chocolat (Nightcap, Claude Chabrol, 2000)
Before tonight, the only other film I've seen by this prolific nouvelle vague director was L'ivresse du pouvoir (A Comedy of Power, 2006) which screened at this year's French Film Festival. As I commented on then, it wasn't a film that especially engaged me, but Isabelle Huppert's performance was strong, subtle, nuanced and convincing. L'ivresse du pouvoir is a serious film not really aiming for a mass market while Merci pour le chocolat is clearly aiming at a more mainstream audience. It looks good, is reasonably intelligent with generally good performances all around but a little contrived, very much in the manner of a Hitchcock thriller. In fact, I'm sure that Chabrol modelled the film on Hitchcock's style (along with Éric Rohmer, he once wrote a book about Hitchcock).

The film is intelligent entertainment, with genuine suspense. There is attention to detail in the characters to set up different intriguing scenarios, some of which are never fully explained or reconciled (to the film's credit). It is set in Switzerland and the scenery of Lausanne looks great on screen. This is definitely better than most of the middle-of-the-road comedies and family dramas that do the run each year at the French Film Festival, but don't expect gritty social realism.

La dentellière (The Lacemaker, Claude Goretta, 1977)
This and the remaining feature films on this week's The Week in Review all screened as part of ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert. This season is my most anticipated at ACMI ever, and films like this one are they reason why. It's not sensationalist in any way. It just quietly meanders, in a very observational manner, sort of a cinematic essay on a girl's transition to womanhood. The film's title appears to refer to a Vermeer painting of the same name.

Huppert must have been at least 23 years old when this film was made, but certainly looked the 18 years that she was depicting. She portrayed a very shy and quiet girl who falls in love with an older man (mid-late 20's) and the film studies their relationship. It's a slow boil affair that remains engaging throughout and ratchets up the emotions at the end, largely due to Huppert's amazing ability to depict so much without dialogue simply by her facial expressions and body language. An exquisite film that is both sad yet uplifting.

Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Slow Motion, Jean-Luc Godard, 1979)
My first Godard film and I don't understand it very well at all. If one thinks that a film is meant to be understood in one sitting then this film doesn't pass the test. But so many different art forms take time and study to understand, and this deliberately obscure and incoherent film may well fall into that category. I'm no Godard-convert based on this single sitting, and remain open to possibilities depending on other films of his and perhaps getting a better understanding of what he's about. While the performances were good, and the 4-way sex scene was very funny, I didn't really like this film much at all. It just didn't engage me.

Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980)
This Gérard Depardieu character sure plays an ugly brute with conviction, even in his younger days. He was absolutely obnoxious, and Huppert's character was effectively unexplained. The film depicts a questionable sense of morality at the lower end of the food-chain in Paris. Pialat (whose films had a season at Melbourne Cinémathèque last year) shows himself to be a competent director. The film was gripping, challenging and realistic throughout.

La séparation (Christian Vincent, 1994)
This is close to my favourite type of French cinema - not really close to Kieslowski, who is in a category of his own for me - but really solid, authentic social realism. Basically just a two-hander with the best role I have seen Daniel Auteuil in yet, and he even gets to upstage Isabelle Huppert. This film grabs one from the start and takes one on a roller coaster ride of a couple in crisis. While very different to Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Iklimer (Climates) in both visuals and tone, these two films would have to be the best I have seen to depict a disintegrating relationship.

The complexity in Vincent's film was exacerbated by the presence of a fifteen-month old child (who, with the same surname as the director, I'm assuming was his son). The pain that is produced during a break-up and some of the ramifications - emotional, financial and logistical - were depicted with such verisimilitude and the ending was sublime.

Related posts: Isabelle Huppert at ACMI 1, 3, 4 or All

Ma mère

Ma mère (My Mother, Christophe Honoré, 2004)
There are shocking things depicted in Ma mère – things a human being should never be subjected to. A parent’s role is to protect, nurture, empower and instil a sense of responsibility in his or her child. What if a parent subjects his or her child to the very worst type of activities that responsible parents aspire to protect their children from? That’s the exploration of this film, loosely adapted from an unfinished novel by Georges Bataille.

I sometimes find a number of challenges when writing about serious films like Christophe Honoré’s Ma mère. The film is itself challenging to audiences, of a level similar to Ôdishon (Audition, Takashe Miikie, 1999) or Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible, though this film is without the violent horror of those films. A theme of transgression is similar to The King (James Marsh, 2005), but is much more graphic and confronting than Marsh’s excellent film. It goes beyond transgression to calculated moral corruption of the innocent.

I’d go so far as to say that Ma mère is the most challenging film I’ve seen with an OFLC classification. With the regrettable demise of the Lumiere Cinema (the only Melbourne cinema to screen both Audition and Irréversible), I doubt whether any other local cinema would ever touch a film like this.

The challenge in writing about a film like this is understanding the director’s intention. Having seen Honoré’s Dans Paris (Inside Paris, 2006) at this year’s French Film Festival, I can see that he is not averse to bleak and serious family drama. Neither of these two films are light fare at all (though the more recent film did show signs of a little frivolity). Incidentally, Louis Garrel had major roles in both these films and excels in brooding, understated roles – he has good screen presence.

Is Honoré deliberately aiming to shock, like the above-mentioned films, or say Eli Roth’s Hostel and Hostel 2? I asked myself a similar question after seeing Noé’s Irréversible. I still don’t have a clear answer. Firstly, Ma mère is no pop culture porno snuff film (as The Age’s Jim Schembri has recently pretty much called Hostel 2). This film is played straight. The characters are all very real, and the acting is understated.

Honoré is not pulling any punches and must be aware of the capacity of the film to shock. I think the level of realism and the non-erotic nature of the sex and nudity is indicative of a film that is serious about its artistic integrity above commercial appeal. This must be taken as a serious film and I don’t find it exploitative.

The horror of Honoré’s film is not sexual but of an emotional and psychological nature – how much damage one parent can inflict upon a child. One of the most skilful aspects of the film that I liked so much is the subtle psychological depictions that are not explained. We don’t necessarily understand the motivations of the characters, yet they ring true and one can believe in them.

The use of music is very poignant in the film. Both opening and closing credits are without music or sound. Like Joachim Lafosse’s Nue Propriété (Private Property, 2006, in which Huppert also starred) this has a sobering effect, conveying to the audience that this is a serious film that is not going to prop us up with feel-good scenarios. And it doesn’t.

In the opening sequence, Héléne (Isabelle Huppert) leaves a car at night in what seems like one questionable scenario and into another. She meets up with a man and they engage in an apparently psychologically and mutually abusive interaction – it turns out they are in some kind of relationship (but I won't go into details). Again, as in Private Property, Huppert is used in a restrained manner. Her screen presence could easily have dominated the film, but Honoré deftly pulls her out of frame and allows Garrel’s performance to quietly sizzle on screen.

The film takes its time unfolding the relationships and the locale (The Canary Islands); some things are never explained. The location selection was excellent – the scenes are varied, interesting and beautiful without ever falling into any postcard cliché.

In spite of the aesthetics, like Once Were Warriors, this is not a film one enjoys in the traditional sense. With both these films, I came out of the cinema a little stunned, physically affected by the experience. It’s not a film for everyone, not even for many cinephiles. But if you like challenging cinema - and I find there is always a shortage - this is must-see.

Ma mère is a bold film and kudos to all the participants, particularly the director and the actors for portraying the characters in what must have been a very challenging effort. And kudos to ACMI for being bold enough to open the Focus on Isabelle Huppert with such a controversial film. I would like to see more of this kind of programming by Melbourne’s pre-eminent centre for cinephiles.

Ma mère opens ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert on June 29. Twenty films will be screened as part of the retrospective which finishes on July 10. All Melbourne screening times.

Ma mère screenings:

• Melbourne: ACMI, Fri 29 June, 7pm
• Sydney: not screening - unfortunately you guys miss out on this gem
  
• Brisbane: QGMO, Fri 27 July, 6pm; Wed 1 August, 6pm
  

Links:

• Related posts: Isabelle Huppert at ACMI 2, 3, 4 or All
• Official website \ View trailer \ ACMI \ IMDB
• Isabelle Huppert: IMDB \Wikipedia \ Melbourne Film Blog posts
  
• Christophe Honoré: IMDB \Wikipedia

Isabelle Huppert Rumour

[Edit: Sydney program and times added]

As previously announced, ACMI is screening a Focus on Isabelle Huppert from June 29 to July 10, and includes 20 of the 75 or so films that Huppert has appeared in. Sydney gets a shortened program at The Chauvel Cinema which is screening "over 10" titles between July 12 - 18, though program information on their website is a little scant. After Melbourne, the program travels to Brisbane where 19 titles will be screened, though some of them are different to the Melbourne program. The Brisbane opening is on July 13, with the sensational Nue propriété (Private Property, Joachim Lafosse, 2006), my favourite film at this year's French Film Festival and runs to August 2. Nue propriété is not screening in Melbourne.

As I have previously mentioned, I am very excited about this retrospective. It is screening the types of films I try to distill from the films on offer at each year's French Film Festival (many of which are middle-of-the-road crowd-pleasers that I have little interest in). The French Film Festival is my favourite festival other than MIFF, but this Huppert retrospective seems like a much better standard of films than the overall standard of MIFF (which I find needs much planning and research to avoid the 'duds').

A rumour surfaced today that Ms. Huppert herself may be making an appearance as part of the touring retrospective, which has been organised by the French Embassy (they are importing the prints) and Alliance Française. Intrigued at this piece of information, I phoned my media contact at ACMI, who confirmed she had heard the 'whispers' but couldn't confirm. I was told that Ms. Huppert is very busy and currently involved in a play but may make a short appearance, if possible. I also contacted a very helfpful Françoise Libotte at Alliance Française who confirmed that the French Embassy is indeed trying to arrange a visit, and that Ms. Huppert is also keen to come, but that "until the ticket has been booked, nothing is confirmed".

I have compiled a few quotes attributed to Ms. Huppert that are as interesting as the role she plays and will post some of them soon. It would be a great addition to the Huppert retrospective to hear from the artist herself about her approach to her work and about her experiences with some of the world's most renowned directors and fellow actors.

My original contact conjectured that a visit would be to Sydney whereas Ms. Libotte seemed to think a visit would be to Melbourne. I have been assured that information will be provided as it comes to hand. Stay tuned.

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Sydney program* (thanks to Stella Chambers from Chauvel Cinema):

Thu July 12	6.30pm	Opening night drinks
	7.00pm	La dentelliere
Fri July 13	7.00pm	Lou Lou
	9.00pm	Coup de foudre
Sat July 14	4.00pm	Saint-Cyr
	6.30pm	Coup de torchon
	9.00pm	La ceremonie
Sun July 15	2.00pm	La dentelliere
	4.30pm	Sauve qui peut (la vie)
	6.30pm	Comedie de l'innocence
Mon July 16	6.30pm	Madame Bovary
Tues July 17	7.00pm	La vie promise
Wed July 18	6.30pm	La pianiste
	8.45pm	La separation

* or download the more detailed PDF as kindly provided by Trent below (in comments)

Addition to Huppert Season

Breaking news from ACMI, and not yet on their website, is that another title has been added to the Focus on Isabelle Huppert season (Fri 29 June – Tue 10 July). Raúl Ruiz’s Comedie de l'innocence (Comedy of Innocence, 2000) will have its first ever theatrical screening in Australia at the season. That's a total now of 20 films screening for the retrospective. Ruiz's Klimt (2006) screened recently at ACMI and was my introduction to this acclaimed director's work.

“Adapted from the novel The Boy With Two Mothers by the Italian surrealist Massimo Bontempelli, Comédie de l'innocence is a subtly crafted psychological thriller.. were it in English, would appeal to the popular audience that enjoyed M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense and Alejandro Amenábar's The Others, both of which it resembles.” The Guardian, 2002

A letter to ACMI

For many years I had a bin hire business (I sold it in 2000) and always appreciated frank feedback from my customers. I also make it a point to offer feedback - both positive and negative - to others when I feel the occasion warrants it. ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert is, in my opinion, such an occasion, and I decided to send an email. As it encapsulates several things I wanted to post here, I shall reproduce the bulk of the email here:

As an avid film-goer and amateur critic I wanted to offer some feedback. It is my observation that since the Lumiere cinema closed in 2005, there's been a bit of a vacuum of gritty cinema in Melbourne. Some people say that ACMI has filled it somewhat, though my perception is no-one has had the guts to screen what the Lumiere did, particularly with films like Irreversible, Audition and L'enfer.

Now, I don’t know how commercially successful the Huppert season will be (and I hope it will be the sell-out it deserves to be), but I think that this is an excellent lineup of films that deserves to screen regardless of popularity. With art, I don't think popularity should be the prime criteria. Most French films that get a commercial release in this country are not much better than the mindless Hollywood counterparts that are distributed. Isabelle Huppert is drawn to the serious French films that serious film lovers can't get enough of, and that I usually have to seek out at the French Film Festival (like this year's Private Property and A Comedy of Power) or MIFF.

It's going to cause me some anxiety trying to get to as many of the 16 films in the season that I haven't seen, in a very short period. It's a pity it wasn't screening over a longer period with so many (19) films.

It also got me thinking that there's other actors who are drawn to gritty roles. Seeing Tim Roth in Made in Britain at the Focus on Punk reminded me of how he could make a good Focus season (especially as he has also directed a seriously good film, The War Zone) and last night I saw Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man, also part of the Punk season. A focus on Stanton would also be great.

Danielle Poulos, Communications Coordinator at ACMI very kindly responded to the email and sent me three double passes, two of them for the Huppert season. While I appreciate the generosity, I must confess that my sharing my opinions was completely self-serving. I wanted to give the programmers the type of ammunition that might be required in future to get other serious events off the ground.

Isabelle Huppert - ACMI Screening Times

The following will likely only be of interest if you're in Melbourne. I've put together the film screening times in a form that's more convenient for me than the ACMI website.

Isabelle Huppert: Woman of Many Faces
An exhibition of photographic portraits of the iconic French actress by leading international photographers.
Thu 14 Jun - Tue 10 Jul 2007, Open daily

Ma mère (My Mother, Christophe Honore, 2004) (R)
Fri 29 Jun 2007, 7pm

La dentellière (The Lacemaker, Claude Goretta, 1977) (MA)
Fri 29 Jun 2007, 9.15pm

Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Slow Motion, Jean-Luc Godard, 1980) (Unclassified)
Sat 30 Jun 2007, 4.30pm

Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980) (Unclassified)
Sat 30 Jun 2007, 6.30pm

Coup de foudre (Entre Nous, Diane Kurys, 1983) (Unclassified)
Sat 30 Jun 2007, 9pm

Cactus (Paul Cox, Australia, 1986) (M)
Sun 1 Jul 2007, 4.45pm

La séparation (The Separation, Christian Vincent, 1994) (M)
Sun 1 Jul 2007, 7pm

Merci pour le chocolat (Nightcap, Claude Chabrol, 2000) (Unclassified)
Mon 2 Jul 2007, 6.45pm (also Sat 7 Jul 2007, 9pm)

Une affaire des femmes (Story of Women, Claude Chabrol, 1988) (M)
Mon 2 Jul 2007, 9pm

Madame Bovary (Claude Chabrol, 1991) (PG)
Tue 3 Jul 2007, 7pm

Le temps du loup (Time of the Wolf, Michael Haneke, 2003) (MA)
Thu 5 Jul 2007, 6.45pm

Amateur (Hal Hartley, USA, 1994) (M)
Thu 5 Jul 2007, 9pm

La pianiste (The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke, Germany, 2001) (R)
Fri 6 Jul 2007, 6.45pm

I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell, USA, 2004) (M)
Fri 6 Jul 2007, 9.15pm

Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, USA, 1980) (M)
Sat 7 Jul 2007, 4.45pm

Merci pour le chocolat (Nightcap, Claude Chabrol, 200) (Unclassified)
Sat 7 Jul 2007, 9pm (also Mon 2 Jul 2007, 6.45pm)

Saint-Cyr (Patricia Mazuy, 2000) (Unclassified)
Sun 8 Jul 2007, 5pm

8 femmes (8 Women, François Ozon, 2002) (M)
Sun 8 Jul 2007, 7.15pm

La vie promise (The Promised Life, Olivier Dahan, 2002) (Unclassified)
Mon 9 Jul 2007, 7pm

La cérémonie (The Ceremony, Claude Chabrol, 1995) (M)
Tue 10 Jul 2007, 7pm

ACMI Focus on Isabelle Huppert

I first noticed Isabelle Huppert in her icy role as an emotionally disturbed piano teacher in Michael Haneke’s La pianiste (The Piano Teacher, 2001). This bold film made me sit up and notice both these names.

Haneke followed up with Le temps du loup (The Time of the Wolf, 2003, also starring Huppert) and the much acclaimed Caché (Hidden, 2003).

The very prolific Huppert has appeared in 75 films since 1972, when she was 19; that’s about three films each year. She has also appeared in several recent films, including Gabrielle (Patrice Chéreau, 2005), one of my favourite films at MIFF last year, and two films at this year’s French Film Festival. My favourite at the festival was Nue propriété (Private Property, Joachim Lafosse, 2006) in which Hupert portrays a single mother struggling with her adult sons. In L’ivresse du pouvoir (A Comedy of Power, Claude Chabrol, 2006), she portrays an obsessive investigating magistrate. While not one of my favourites, Huppert’s role was absorbing and exemplifies what draws me to her performances. She is a very nuanced actor with whom we can easily switch from feelings of contempt to sympathy in a second. She is equally capable of depicting fragility and power within one character.

“I don't try to sympathize with my characters, I just try to empathize with them”, she has been quoted as saying. She appears in the type of French films that I seek: social realist, gritty dramas that explore the dark side of human nature that may be either ultimately uplifting or superficially depressing, but usually reveal a side of human nature that few actresses can depict with authenticity. She also has a very natural and timeless Gallic beauty.

I am very excited that ACMI has announced a season of 19 (yes, nineteen!) films in which Huppert has starred, screening from Fri June 29 to Tue July 10. Aside from the above-mentioned auteurs, these films are by directors such as Maurice Pialat, Jean-Luc Godard, Hal Hartley, Australia’s Paul Cox, François Ozon, Christophe Honore, Olivier Dahan and others. The Focus on Isabelle Huppert also includes a photographic exhibition of portraits of Huppert by various photographers, to appear in ACMI Lounge from Thu June 14 to Tue July 10.

I’ve seen three of the films programmed, so that leaves 16 to try to see in 13 days! Ah, bliss and anxiety!

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The following is mostly derived from the blurb on ACMI’s website:

Cool, intense and hypnotic, France’s most daring contemporary actress is celebrated in a retrospective charting an iconic screen career.

Curated by Roberta Ciabarra. Read the program notes. Presented in association with the Sofitel French Rendez-vous 2007, with the generous support of the Alliance Française and the Embassy of France.

La dentellière (The Lacemaker, Claude Goretta, 1977)
Huppert garnered a Best Newcomer BAFTA for this breakout role, early (and prescient) intimation of a great talent in the making.

Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980)
Nelly (Huppert) is married to a hapless advertising exec whose heavy-handed attempts to rein in his restless paramour only serve to deepen her resolve to skulk away with swaggering gadabout, Loulou (Gerard Depardieu).

Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Slow Motion, Jean-Luc Godard, 1980)
Godard referred to Sauve qui peut (la vie) as his “second first film” coming, as it did, after more than a decade’s experimentation with video. “Isabelle is clearly the film’s focal point.” The New York Times

Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino, USA, 1980)
The reputation of Cimino’s monumentally staged western has justly been rehabilitated in recent years, and screens in the restored 225 minute director’s cut in glorious Panavision.

Coup de foudre (Entre Nous, Diane Kurys, 1983)
Based on an autobiographical novel by director Diane Kurys (Peppermint Soda, Six Days Six Nights) the film re-teams Huppert with the under-rated Marchand (most recently seen in Christophe Honore’s sublime Dans Paris), her co-star in Loulou.

Cactus (Paul Cox, Australia, 1986)
Huppert travelled to Australia to take up the role of Colo, a Frenchwoman in exile from a stifling marriage who embarks on a tentative romance with a lecturer at a school for the sight-impaired.

Une affaire des femmes (Story Of Women, Claude Chabrol, 1988)
Chabrol based his film on the true-life case of Marie-Louise Giraud, a working-class Frenchwoman (played by Huppert) who kept home and hearth together during the Occupation by working as a backyard abortionist.

Madame Bovary (Claude Chabrol, 1991)
Huppert likened Emma Bovary to “an idealist.a feminist without knowing it”. Her Emma is at once coquettish, exasperating, pitiless (towards her self as much as others) and ultimately deeply affecting.

Amateur (Hal Hartley, USA, 1994)
Huppert approached self-confessed Godard aficionado, Hal Hartley, who jumped at the chance to cast her in one of his deadpan, absurdist films.

La séparation (The Separation, Christian Vincent, 1994)
As Anne, Huppert gives nuanced expression to the uncertainties and compulsions of a woman who suffers (and inflicts suffering) by her own hand, but cannot retreat from her position.

La cérémonie (The Ceremony, Claude Chabrol, 1995)
The Venice Film Festival awarded Huppert the Volpi Cup for Best Actress in the film that marked her fifth screen collaboration with frequent director, Claude Chabrol.

Saint-Cyr (Patricia Mazuy, 2000)
Mazuy’s lavishly staged drama takes its title from a boarding school founded in the seventeenth century by Louis the XIV’s mistress to educate daughters of the nobility made destitute by wars.

Merci pour le chocolat (Nightcap, Claude Chabrol, 2000)
In his seventh on-screen collaboration with Huppert, Chabrol explores the nature of perversity, good and evil within the domain of family.

La pianiste (The Piano Teacher, Michael Haneke, Germany, 2001)
The Cannes Film Festival Jury unanimously awarded Huppert the Best Actress prize for her audacious performance as a respected piano teacher whose cool-headed intellectual rigour masks a predilection for destructive sexual compulsions.

8 femmes (8 Women, François Ozon, 2002)
Huppert is cast as prim horn-rimmed spinster Augustine, but holds her own in the glamour stakes - in a cast that includes the magisterial Catherine Deneuve in full Lana Turner mode - before the film’s denouement.

La vie promise (The Promised Life, Olivier Dahan, 2002)
J. Hoberman said this about Huppert in his Village Voice review: “this superb actress can register more fugitive shifts in expression in a single take than most actresses manage in an entire movie.”

Le temps du loup (The Time of the Wolf, Michael Haneke, 2003)
A sudden act of violence ruptures every moral certitude Anne (Huppert) and her two children have taken for granted in their middle class lives.

Ma mère (My Mother, Christophe Honore, 2004)
Honore’s provocative film is based on the novel by Georges Bataille, whose reputation as an exponent of the ‘literature of transgression’ belies the deeper exploration of human motivations his works attempted to illuminate.

I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell, USA, 2004)
Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) is an acutely angst-ridden environmental activist railing against corporate greed.

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LINKS: ACMI / IMDB / msn movies / Wikipedia