Suicide Shop at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema or explaining how difficult it is to give you 365 good movies a year.

The idea behind Unseen Films was to highlight good movies you probably don't know about. Occasionally we'll take a side road to warn you about something really bad, or we'll take a break with the Turkey week celebrations. Mostly though we try to only talk about films we think you might want to try for one reason or another.

The out right exceptions to the only good film rule are film festivals and press screenings. As far as I am concerned if I see something at a festival or at a press screening I'm going to review it good bad or indifferent since odds are it's not something you'll know about. That's my personal rule and it doesn't apply to everyone else here at Unseen who are pretty much given free reign to review things as they see fit. Some times they just don't feel it and they don't write- I on the other hand will, as Chocko has said, review anything...

...well not anything. There are literally hundreds of movies I see that never get mentioned at Unseen Films. For every film reviewed I probably see on average, three or four others. One of the reasons I work so far ahead (I'm into the end of June programing wise plus the Turkey Week is done) is because I can go for days or weeks without being able to write anything up or seeing anything good. Occasionally I'm saved by a film festival or a press screening, but more often then not I'm fumbling around looking for something good to write up- Now if I was doing everything I saw I could program the blog for years ahead, but I don't do that , I just want to write up the good stuff...

Which brings me to The Suicide Shop an animated 3D musical from France directed by  Patrice Leconte the man behind Man on the Train, Intimate Strangers, Girl on a Bridge and Monsieur Hire dark dramas with real people. To say that Leconte mostly missteps is being kind. To be completely honest had this not played at Rendez-vous with French Cinema I would probably never have mentioned it at all (well one thing would have gotten mentioned, but I'll get to that)

The film is based on a black comedy novel from 2006 about a family that runs the title establishment. They help people put an end to their lives, something the recent economic down turn is making a frequent occurrence.  (By the way everyone is named for someone who committed suicide with the father's name being Mishima). Into their gloomy lives comes Allan (Alain in the novel), a naturally happy young boy who's happy attitude disrupts the status quo and makes everyone wonder if they are in the wrong business.

This was made in 3D, for reasons that completely and utterly elude me. This is the case of 3D craze killing a film. If it's possible for a film to look flatter in 3D than 2D this is it. I was so frustrated by the 3D that I took off my glasses and simply watched the projected image. I know you're thinking I'm crazy because the image is blurry, with good or aggressive 3D it is, but with this film so little is in 3D much of the movie, subtitles excepted, was unblurred and hence not in 3D. (By the way the glasses completely wipe out all of the brilliant colors in the film)

The music in the film isn't bad, but completely and utterly wrong for a film of this sort. The songs seem to have been written for the stage as either show stopping solos or as big musical numbers. None of the songs get proper direction (as show stoppers of the right sort) and fall even flatter than they should in the context of the film.  The number on the school bus is a down beat showy number that just has the kids on the bus singing. The number by the shrink has him wheeling around huge empty expanses.  With rare exceptions if you're going to have your characters burst into song you have to go big, that isn't what happen here, they go small and the film stumbles.

The story told here is very scattershot and there have been some changes from the source. I know things like the novel's near apolcalyptic setting that brings on the customers depression is gone, it's simply bad economics driving the suicides. Worse the pacing is off and things get left behind. You can feel the film taking it's time for much of the first hour before rushing to a conclusion in the final twenty minutes. Things are so rushed that where you get to know almost every character some what, we never get to know older brother Vincent who never arcs, he just sort of is. The story's plodding nature in the first hour is so bad that we get repeated numbers and sequences where we watch the customers shop for a means to their end. Its amusing the first time or two but they just repeat it over and over again which becomes deadly since it takes away from the characters which are slowly developing.

There some good things here, the look is great and I like that the film is very dark even in most of the funny moments. Personally I think that if someone could go at this with a pair of scissors you could get a great 20 or 25 minute movie out of it. If you went back and redid it completely you probably could get a whole feature out of it.

Now at the top of the review proper I said that while most of the film never would have been mentioned here at Unseen one thing would and that was the handling of the daughter Marilyn. Marilyn is a chunky blonde girl who wants to kill herself, that is until Allan tells her she's beautiful and buys her a  scarf to kiss her neck for her birthday. The arc of her character as she opens up is beautiful. It.is possibly one of the best character arcs I've seen in any film in a very long time. The sequences of her dancing in the window as she's watched (unbeknownst to her) by Allan's friend's is amazing in making a statement for beauty in all it's forms. Even better is the boom box car sequence which has Marilyn literally bouncing into dancing and into the arms of a stranger. Not only is it some of the best character animation I've ever seen (no really it is - just freaking watch how she moves and her expressions) it's also amazingly romantic. These two sequences saved the movie for me and made me aware that with a better script and better direction this movie could have been something truly great instead of just okay.

I don't think it's worth spending money to see this in 3D, but if you get a chance to see it say on Netflix, do so but only for the sequences with Marilyn.

The Day of the Crows (2012) NYICFF 2013 and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema

You're going to hear this compared to the work of Studio Ghibli- forget it. This may play in a similar field but in reality when the film comes together it reveals itself to be it's own powerful tale.

The story follows a young boy only known as Son who lives in the forest with his father. His father is a tough man who teaches his son that there is nothing outside of the forest but the World Beyond. He warns him that should he ever go outside it he will disappear. Son is content to follow his father's instructions until seeing people in the fields outside the border makes him wonder. He lets it go until his father is badly injured in a fall and the spirits of the forest who are is friends tell him to take his father out into the World Beyond for help. This sets in motion a chain of events that will, of course, change everything forever.

You gotta stay with this film for a little bit. It's not that it's bad, it's more that it seems to be going in different directions, with it's various animation styles, (some realistic,some anime like, some cartoony) and magical realism colliding with seeming out right fantasy which makes for a weird mix. There is a point to it all and if you can hang in there you'll be greatly rewarded. By the time the end came I was welling up with tears and had I not wanted to talk to the head of the NYICFF with red puffy tear filled eyes I probably would have been out right crying from the bittersweet ending.

I love when a film upsets my expectations. I love it when a film reveals itself to be fully in control of what it's doing. I love when a filmmaker seems to go at the end "and you thought I didn't know what I was doing..." which is why I love The Day of the Crows. Its one of those films that doesn't do what you expect, and is so much better than you could ever have hoped.

The film seems to be ripping off the Ghibli canon, but this is darker territory. There is death and damage. People are truly broken individuals who aren't always put right in a story book way, but in a real way that comes from losses too deep and pain somewhere past enduring. I can't remember Miyazaki ever having people this broken in his films, nor such careless violence (There is a point to it) or even violence in his films. I know I've never seen any children run out of a Ghibli film out of fear, and that happened here as several younger kids left upset by some of the darkness.

This is a great great film. As of right now it has no US release planned so you really need to get to any of the screenings at the NYICFF or Rendez-vous with French Cinema because this is something you want to see.  This is one of those hidden gems that this website was started to highlight.

Go see this film.

Augustine (2012) Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2013

I'm going to state up front I'm going to be bitchy and reveal the end of the film. if you don't want to know keep reading- however note this is a not particularly successful film (hence the bitchiness) with a killer performance by Soko as a young woman prone to seizures.

Okay you've been warned.

The film begins with Augustine, a maid in a fancy house, serving dinner to the family she works for. All is going swimmingly until she has a seizure and pulls the entire meal on top of her as she writhes around the floor. With her right eye seemingly permanently closed she goes with her cousin to see a doctor who diagnosis ovarian hysteria and admits her to the hospital. She attracts the attention of Mr Charcot who is trying to help women with her condition,which allows him to gain attention for his program.

A good looking film, that out side of a stellar performance by Soko as Augustine is one I can't really recommend. Soko some how manages to convulse on cue in such a manner it's truly frightening. During the film all I could think about was how much better David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method would have been with her in the lead. When the first seizure happens at the dinner party I kind of sat up in my seat because it looked a bit too real.

The problem for me comes from the fact that when the film ends I couldn't figure out why I was being told any of it.  Seriously the film is a series of treatments and exhibition between the doctor and patient, that seems to imply in the end that getting laid will cure all your ills. Forgive me but the vast majority of the film is longing looks between the two and then she's cured, she sleeps with him and goes off into the night.

I know I'm reading it wrong but the implication seems to be that it's all sex (I mean she drops when she sees a cute guy at the dinner) and that if she  has sex she'll be fine. (And watch how her seizures change from epileptic in style to sexual once she's with the doctor a while.)

Even allowing for it all being sex, the questions for me are first whats the point? why are we seeing this? I have no clue. And second why so much repetition? Its all variations of the same thing over and over again. Frankly I stopped caring about an hour in and I hung around waiting for a revelation that never came.

Perhaps I missed something,perhaps not. One of the people at the press screening loved the film. I couldn't be bothered.

The film plays the 3rd and 6th if you're interested.

A Lady in Paris (2012) Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2013

Jeanne Moreau is a bitch on wheels in the charming but prickly and not wholly successful A Lady in Paris.

The plot of the film has Anne Rand (that's the character's name) leaving her home in Estonia to go to Paris to take care or Frida, an Estonian ex-pat who has been living in France for decades. She has been hired by Stephane to watch over Frida who is bitchy and depressed and recently tried to swallow the entire medicine cabinet. Frida instantly starts bullying Anne and a complex game begins to be played by the women who kind of form an uneasy alliance.

I like this film but I'm still mixed about it since ultimately it failed to amount to much for me. Don't get me wrong, the film has some great performances and Paris has rarely looked this lovely but for a couple of reasons the film doesn't fully work.

The first problem is Anne is dumped into the situation after being told almost nothing. Frida is a bitch and there is a reference to her trying to kill herself but that's it, with the result that she stumbles and bumbles through several breakfasts before anyone tells her what she's really doing wrong.

The second problem is there seems to be this whole vast expanse of backstory for most of the characters that is never explained. Frida's misdeeds are revelaed, but what of Anne's story? We can sense more to her than we're told, but she never says a damn thing. As for Stephane we get pieces but not enough, and where did the attraction between him and Anne that one can sense in the final couple of scenes come from? I don't know.

The third problem is that the film hits a bit too many cliched points,for example the arranged tea is obviously going to go south, so why even have it? there are a couple of other moments that every film like this hits so things are not all that surprising.

Lastly the film kind of stops. Its heading in one direction, switches back and then...it stops...and? My over riding feeling when the film was done was...AND?  And you're telling me this story why? I was fine following along, but when the film stopped I still was waiting for a reason to have been told this story.

I do like the film, but I don't know what I was asked to listen to this story.

Playing over the weekend at Lincoln Center, I believe all screenings maybe sold out and you may have to wait on a stand by line.

Journal de France (2012) Rendez-vous with French Cinema 2013

Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret look back at Depardon's career as a filmmaker and photographer in a film that will amaze the hell out of you with it's images and mixture of image and music.

The conceit of the film is that Nougaret is in Depardon's basement going through his film cans while he's off traveling around France taking pictures. The film bounces between his footage and his photos as the pair explains what we are seeing. Following his career chronologically the film shows us what happen in Venezuela and Biafra during their civil wars, Prague during the uprising, his time following a French presidential candidate, his time in the Central African Republic, his time with rebels in Chad, his film on news reporters, and his various films on the French Criminal Justice system. We also get to see the meeting of Depardon and Nougaret several decades back.

The film is full of stunning images and marvelous sequences set to music, such as the second one in the film which follows Depardon trying to take a photo of a street. Moving from the sunny street to a road shrouded in fog with a lovely piece of music, the film suddenly grabs you by the throat and you're off traveling the world until the final sequence of clips from everywhere in rapid succession.

On a purely visual level this film MUST be seen on a big screen for fullest effect. there is something about seeing men crossing the desert in a sand storm,or people fighting in South America or even just the French country side on a large scale that just makes you realize what the power of the documentary image can be.

Equally stunning are some of the less visual moments, Nelson Mandela giving a moment of silence or  hearing a mercenary talk about the up coming fight that had to be fought only to next see his dead body to be carried from the field and his friends trying to locate his missing money and possessions or even hearing how the best way to win the presidency is simply not to say or do anything.

There is so much here that when it was done I wanted to ask them to run it again.

Yea I loved the film.

See this film when it runs this weekend at Rendez-vous with French Cinema.