(Daniele Ciprì, 2012)
Based on a novel by Roberto Alaimo, Daniele Ciprì’s directorial debut It Was the Son (È stato il figlio) is an ambitiously operatic and grandly incoherent misfire. Catapulting the viewer – in a style similar (but rarely as tightly wound) to the Coen Brothers at their best – through a whirlwind of originality and noxious black humour, it still fails to offer anything particularly memorable or impressive along the way. (Continue reading here)
(Joachim Lafosse, 2012)
Labelling itself as a film destined for tragedy from its opening shot, Joachim Lafosse’s Our Children only intermittently becomes flooded by its own despondent (and true) story. A subtle family drama of sometimes overwhelming complexity, Lafosse juggles a snarling interrogation of marriage with some exceptional performances, pitting Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup together again after their similarly notable appearances in 2009’s A Prophet. (Continue reading here)
(Benjamin Renner, Vincent Patar, Stéphane Aubert, 2012)
Marrying perfectly judged humour with incessant imagination, Ernest and Celestine is an absolute joy; a French animation that transcribes Gabrielle Vincent’s wholesome children’s books into an almost faultless 80-minute burst of unabashed delight. First-time filmmaker Benjamin Renner joins forces with the distinguished duo behind that glorious stop-motion oddity A Town Called Panic – Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubert – to great effect, bringing together a film that celebrates creativity through its story of a friendship that does battle with seemingly insurmountable odds. (Continue reading here)
(Michael Haneke, 2012)
The deserved Palme d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Michael Haneke’s latest, Amour, sees the provocative European auteur tackle the weighty issues of ageing, illness and the inevitability of death, delivering perhaps his most intimate and fearlessly perceptive film to date, even if it doesn’t quite eclipse his finest works. What he does here with film form – utilising the confined space of a single location as well as a careful use of sound to staggering effect, offer further proof that, much like his impeccably rendered protagonists, Haneke is growing old gracefully and bringing his unfettered filmmaking along with him.
Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play Georges and Anne, an octogenarian couple living a cultivated life in Paris. Retired music teachers, the two live out a comfortable existence padded out by music and the occasional visit from their daughter Eva (Haneke regular Isabelle Huppert), a music teacher with financial worries. Opening with a sequence at a busy piano recital, with Haneke’s camera transfixed on an audience of gawping spectators (including our two protagonists) Amour – a perfect reconstruction of how we as an audience will similarly be watching the film, our collective attentions glued to the ensuing events, the crux of slowly begins to unravel to make way for a brutally honest portrait of physical degradation, the persistence of humanity and, most of all, love.
When a stroke leaves Anne paralysed down one side of her body, her legs rendered immobile and speech abilities dwindling, the relationship between her and her husband is put to the test, weathered on a daily basis by the improbabilities of dealing with an erratic and physically and mentally damaging illness.
Predominantly set in their cushy, echoey Paris apartment (save for the opening scene), the rest of the film slowly plays out through scenes powered by the shrinking of Georges and Anne’s world, with Georges taking on the tasks of caring for a wife who quickly begins to lose faith in whatever her now fraught future life has in store, bound to a wheelchair and reliant on the help of others. Never underplaying the difficulty of staying alive despite the failings of a weakening body, Haneke sculpts and sculpts his film until what’s left is a quietly meditative and emotionally raw journey whose destination is altogether painful and unavoidably traumatic.
Sensitive without giving in to schmaltz or easy conclusions, Amour is a triumph of simplicity and the naturalness of existence, a film that weaves together fine, naked performances from Trintignant and Riva (the latter especially deserves kudos for her incredibly brave portrayal) with a ravaged and sometimes aching examination of the challenges of dealing with the sudden effects of a seemingly random illness. Instead of surveying or even questioning the proper causes of Anne’s stroke, Haneke here focuses on the aftermath and intimate minutiae of both being in a long-term relationship and living with someone who has become so ingrained in one’s own sense of self. Georges and Anne are a couple dependent on one another for emotional and cultural nourishment; they listen to music together in their living room, they eat their meals and reminisce, telling stories from their respective childhoods, and this is described in early scenes full of gentle warmth, with the lead actors displaying an authentic chemistry. Every line in Haneke’s script is imbued by truth and sincerity, every scene a remarkable evocation of human relationships.
Similar to his master class in tension building – Hidden (Cache) – Haneke makes full use of a mostly static camera and a non-existent soundtrack, focusing wholeheartedly on diegetic sounds that are occasionally interrupted by short bursts of music, elements that augment this unbearably moving story. Sometimes cold, mostly perfect, Amour is a stunning film, one where, occasionally, the normalities and strictures of watching a film melt away, allowing an almost dumfounding and truthful distillation of reality and a slice of pure life to play out in devastatingly regimented form.
(Jacques Audiard, 2012)
Jacques Audiard showed himself to be a filmmaker willing to take bold steps in daring directions with 2009′s celebrated A Prophet. With Rust and Bone he journeys further into the inner workings of damaged souls, taking a grotty wander through the harshness of overcoming physical and mental roadblocks. An amalgamation of Canadian writer Craig Davidson’s set of stories, Audiard’s latest meets perseverance with down-and-dirty life reassessments, mixing together a gruff and sometimes inconsistent cocktail of moral hardships that are as uneven as they are relentlessly tragic.
The star of Bullhead – Belgium’s Best Foreign Language entry at this year’s Academy Awards, Matthias Schoenaerts relays his excellent abilities at channelling the robustness of his persuasively rugged stature through his performance as a mostly unlikable, hot-headed brute who finds it difficult to cap his cantankerous rage. He plays Ali, a man searching for a home for himself and his malnourished five-year-old son Sam (Armand Verdure). Imposing on his estranged sister and quickly finding work as a bouncer in a Côte d’Azur nightclub, Ali soon meets (and saves) Stephanie (courageously performed by Marion Cotillard), a self-destructive beauty who trains killer whales at a local marine park.
After losing both her legs in a tragic, whale-inflicted accident, Stephanie recalls the kindness of Ali’s stranger and turns to him for help in her acquaintance with a new and drastically altered life. Becoming fused together by mutual understandings and a desire to fulfil gaping loneliness, Ali and Stephanie embark on an intimate and understanding relationship, providing each other with a gratifying and sexual light at the end of their dark, struggling tunnels.
Somewhat marred by a rhapsodic and sometimes manipulative use of music (most significantly Audiard’s utilisation of that age-old trick of cutting disturbing scenes with jovial music, seen here with Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ during one of the film’s many devastating moments), Rust and Bone is, for the most part however, a candid and visually audacious work from Audiard, who imbues the screenplay he co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain with an intense treatment of the melodrama Davidson’s story’s provide in droves. Yet, as much as the film makes full use of the hardships faced by the two initially unsympathetic – but engrossing – protagonists, it mirrors somewhat the piecemeal nature of its source material, cutting from one emotionally fraught and powerfully shot incident to the next and creating a merciless smorgasbord of unsubtle tragedy, uneasily gelled together with little payoff.
Wringing out as much pathos from the otherwise absorbing and ultimately hopeful narrative, Rust and Bone is a muddy slice of urban disease set in a world where happiness is something only rewarded to the strong and determined, but even then easily stripped away by the inescapable nature of life’s punishing coincidences.
(Xavier Dolan, 2012)
The latest from diligent Québécois auteur Xavier Dolan, whose previous two films I Killer My Mother and Heartbeats opened to a mixture of acclaim and premature heckles, Laurence Anyways is another flamboyant and gorgeously dressed spin through sexual identity crises and gender legislation. Here Dolan’s eye veers away from his previous cinematic treatments towards a topic altogether broader and more far-reaching. (Continue reading here)
Big Screen, Little Screen 