L'Immortel (22 Bullets)

Just give me a film with Jean Reno and I will be entertained. Any film with him will do. L'Immortel is no exception. It also features Kad Merad (of Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis fame), which is a bonus.

The film starts with Jean Reno (character name: Charly), retired mafia-esque bad guy, visiting his mother with his small son in tow. On their way home to Marseille, they sing along to opera arias and the little boy is let out of the car to watch a street performance (featuring a dancing goat) while daddy drives off to find a parking space. It's a good thing the boy was not in the car, as it turns out. As he exits the car, a group of heavily armed (rival?) gangsters stop their vehicle in front of him, unloading their collected gun into him. Charly breaks down, bleeding, his body riddled with 22 bullets (hence, the English title). Miraculously, he survives (hence, the French title). This, of course, requires revenge.

Before Charly goes on his killing spree, however, he loses one close associate, which is what really tips the scale. Shortly after the funeral, Charly walks into a birthday celebration of the murderous group and announces that he will come for them. But instead of killing them all then and there, he promises to come for them one by one, when they least expect it. He is there to kill the birthday boy, only. His plan and announcement to spread the revenge out makes for a better premise for the film. Without it, there might not even be a film.

And then the violence commences. There are shootouts, assassination attempts, betrayal, car and motorcycle chases, hiding family members and the desperate police force trying to solve the initial attack on Charly as well as figuring out what the hell else is going on.

And to not belie the title, Charly survives again and again situations that would have killed off a lesser man.

Works for me.

6/10

La jetée

In post-apocalyptic Paris, the survivors of WW III live underground. There, they experiment with time travel, hoping that in the past or future they find means to assist them in the bleak present they live in.

The scientists have a hard time finding suitable subjects to send through time. They find a prisoner, who seems perfect for the experiment, as he has what they consider an 'obsessive' memory. Most consistently he holds onto a moment from his childhood, in which he saw a woman on a peer and he has a vague memory of a man dying.

After several days of experimenting, the prisoner manages to move freely in the past, where he finds the woman from his memory again and establishes a relationship with her. Motivated by the successful travel to the past, the scientists send him to the future next. There he obtains a power unit, that he brings back with him and that enables the scientist in the present to re-generate their society.

As he is now redundant, the prisoner is to be executed. The people he met in the future offer to save him by bringing him forward to their time permanently. He instead asks to be sent back to the past he previously visited. There he finds the woman again in exactly the same context of his childhood memory. He realizes that he himself is the dying man he saw as a child, his executor was sent after him into the past.

Sounds familiar?

In 1995, Terry Gilliam retold the story in the brilliant Twelve Monkeys.

This, the original 1962 version, is brilliant in its own way. Made up almost entirely of still images (once the woman is seen blinking a few times) and told via voice-over (except for the whispered German of the scientists).

8/10

Livide (Livid)

Huh?

I don't get it.

Are they vampires? And why can Anna fly?

Why are the French trying so hard to confuse the rest of the world?

2/10  

La cage dorée

I saw this lovely comedy about Portuguese immigrants to France and their identity issues at a showing that also featured an interview session with director Ruben Alves. Alves himself was born in Paris to Portuguese parents and with this film tried to aid people like himself in finding a place for themselves and better understanding their identity.

It is about José and Maria, a hard-working couple that never complains and both have made themselves valuable to their employers. So much so that they profit off them and trample all over them in the process. When José's brother, who he has not spoken to in 30 years, passes away he leaves the family house and wine business to José under the condition that they will keep the business going.

They are reluctant to tell anybody about it before they have really made up their minds about actually going. But then Maria's pushy sister finds out and word spreads like fire. Suddenly, their employees offer them benefits and tell them how important and irreplaceable they are. What complicates matters more is that José and Maria have two children that were born in France and have reservations about leaving.

Many funny and sentimental situations spawn from this set-up. Really charming.

8/10

L'année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad)

Here is a film that has divided cineasts since it came out.

Some hate it. It has been included in Harry Medved's 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of all Time (and How They Got that Way), but that book also lists the likes of The Omen, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia or Valley of the Dolls (so it needs to be taken with a grain of salt).

Some love it. Those who do (this includes me), do so passionately, it seems. Roger Ebert gave it a coveted four star review. And while I'm linking to other pages and many an article has been written about Marienbad, here is another one. You're welcome.

The story is quickly told. At a luxurious hotel in Marienbad, a man approaches a woman and tells her that they have met and fell in love the previous year at the hotel and he wants her to run away with him now. The woman, however, does not seem to recall the meeting of the year before. What complicates matters is that she is there with her husband. In the end, we don't know if the first meeting ever happened.

That is really all of the story. There are several theories of what it all means. The most common one is that the narrative is based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which the man has to convince the woman to come with him (out of the underwold) and to do so on her own account.

What we are shown is a series of breathtaking images. In wide shots the shadows do not match. The people are decked out in Chanel clothing. The pose like mannequins for a long while before they start moving. Heard words do not match moving lips.

Seeing this, to me, was utterly fascinating. And I am not usually a fan of French cinema of the 1960's and 1970's like so many others, unexplicaply, appear to be.

Love it or hate it, the film is unique and you have never seen anything like it.

10/10

Bunny and the Bull

Recluse Stephen, who hasn't left his apartment in a year, relives a road trip through Europe he took with his friend Bunny a while back.

And it is just plain weird.

4/10

Intouchables (The Intouchables)

This is the true story of (very) rich Philippe, who broke two cervical vertebrae when paragliding and spends his days in a wheelchair and being cared for by a collection of employees. When the need for a new medical assistant arises, rather than pick someone with any experience in the medical film, Philippe hires Driss, who is fresh out of jail and only came for a signature to not lose his unemployment benefits.

What Driss has over all the other applicants is a devil-may-care attitude and a lust for life that Philippe desperately needs. The young man is from the suburbs and used to having to share quarters with numerous family member. Now he finds himself in an expensive town vila with - best of all - his own bathtub.

After the initial fascination with Philippe's condition (once Driss pours hot water over Philippe's legs because he can't quite believe that it doesn't hurt him at all), the two men develop a friendship that lasts until this day. The real life duo is shown right before the end credits.

Funny and heart warming.

8/10

Amour (Love)

Michael Haneke's films are never easy to watch. Whether they are about of couple of youngsters senselessly murdering an entire family on their summer vacation, violence committed by a group of children in a small pre-WWI German town or about a couple being stalked, this is not entertainment. There is, however, some morbid fascination in watching them.

His latest, Amour, is about old age. Anne and Georges, a couple of former music teachers, enjoy a relatively active and happy retirement, until Anne has a minor stroke, that leaves her in need of constant help. Georges is trying is best to care of his wife, helping her in and out of her wheel chair or the toilet, cutting her food for her and seeing to her well being as best he can.

Anne's health keeps deteriorating and after suffering a second stroke, more assistance is required. Now she needs to be fed and cleaned and can barely speak anymore. She had already mentioned to Georges that she is not happy with this way of living when she was still somewhat independent and now the only way she can express her total unhappiness with this kind of life is by keeping her mouth tightly shut when her husband is trying to feed her or give her water out of a sippy cup. Eventually, Georges cannot watch her suffer anymore.

Emmanuelle Riva is simply magnificent as the ailing Anne.

A brilliant and devastating film.

9/10

À L'Intérieur (Inside)

This is among the most out-of-proportion bloodbaths I have ever seen on film.

A very pregnant Sarah loses her husband in a head-on collission. The day before she is to deliver her baby, a strange woman (Béatrice Dalle playing a totally insane bitch) attacks her because she wants the baby.

What follows is an orgasmic outburst of violence and gallons of blood.

It's not like it is just Sarah vs. the crazy bitch. No, Sarah has alerted the cops of an intruder and they make sure "she is gone" before driving off and promising to have a patrol swing by later to check on things.

Jean-Pierre, who is scheduled to drive Sarah to the hospital next morning, comes by to check on her - he gets stabbed, chocked with a pillow and stabbed some more.

Sarah's mother comes by and gets killed by her own daughter, who simply hacks away at the first moving thing outside the bathroom she is hiding in. By this time her water has broken, but she stays rather active for some time after.

The night patrol comes by - two of the cops get suspicious and investigate further. One gets stabbed in the neck, the other has his face shot off. Cop no. 3 hears the shots, chains the prisoner in the backseat to himself, takes him with him into the house and does. Not. Call. For. Backup. Cop gets shot, prisoner takes a pair of scissors in the skull.

By this time, Sarah has a gun lying beside her on the bed and when crazy bitch comes to make out with her (just because) she does. Not. Shoot. Her. Also, she choses not to leave the house when she has the chance.

Crazy bitch gets her face burned badly thanks to the ever-helpful can of some cleaner or other and her smoking habit. It is at this point that Sarah gives herself a tracheotomy (yes, yes she does). Then cop no. 3 - who is not dead after all - starts hitting Sarah, or rather her belly for no reason. Crazy bitch - who lost her own baby in the car accident that killed Sarah's husband (and here is where it all suddenly makes perfect sense!) - kills off the cop and cuts the baby out of Sarah.

Seriously? WHAT. THE. FUCK?

2/10