AFIRE (2023) opens Friday

Friends Leon and Felix go to a house by the sea owner by Felix's family. Leon is going to work on his novel, Felix is going to work on an upcoming exhibition of his work. Things become complicated when they discover that Nadja and David already there. Things become further complicated as out of control wildfires threaten the house.

A winner at this year's Berlin Film Festival, the film was also the subject of a great deal of discussion at this past Tribeca Film Festival where everyone was asking each other if they had seen the film yet. The talk was such that I was excited but because of scheduling I couldn't make any of the Tribeca screenings and had to wait for the run up to the theatrical release.

I'm going to be completely upfront and say that I know that all of the talk in the weeks running up to my seeing the film effected how I feel. I do like the film but I know my expectations for the film did not match up with the film I saw so my reaction is probably some what tempered by all of the talk as a result. I say this because there was so much hype at Tribeca I was expecting something different.

Regardless of my liking the film instead of loving it there are two things that would have been an issue  even if I had seen the film with no build up.

The first problem with the film is the main character of Leon. A self-absorbed writer who is unaware of anything outside of his own wants and desires, he is a hard man to like. While there are hints of something behind the narcissism, I mean he has friends, he is still the sort of guy you wonder why anyone would want to spend time with since his two main traits are complaining and chain smoking. His ticks are hard to accept, especially when we are supposed to like the guy, but instead of liking we kind of just feel sorry for him. It also feeds into the other problem with the film, the plotting.

The other problem is a director's Christian Petzold's plotting which is much too deliberate. Watching as the the extremely well drawn characters go through their paces  you can feel the how Petzold is moving them around. You can feel them being used as a novelist would use his characters to get his points across. While it can partly be explained by a bit at the finale, it still makes it a tough slog as things don't feel real with beats such as Leon being forced to suffer with how bad his novel is several times and the forest fire not really being thing until it is feeling artificial constructions that will are kind of assured will mean something later (kind of like Chekhov's gun).  I would have liked not to feel like I was being manipulated from the first frame.

Reservations aside, the film does manage to pull things together in the final moments and I felt a tug of the heart strings and got misty at several points in the closing minutes (even if I full knew they were completely unrealistic). Honestly, I would have loved a whole film that had the structure and emotion of those final minutes.

Is the film worth seeing?

Yes. But I'm not certain it's going to be one of your great films of the year.

ABBE PIERRE - A CENTURY OF DEVOTION (2023) Cannes 2023

70 years in the life of Henri Groues, a Catholic priest who became beloved figure in France before his death in 2007. 

Until this film I never ran across Groues or his story. It is the story of a man who knew he had to follow the life of a man of god but found bumps along the way (he was asked to leave the monestary because be was deemed too fragile for the life, he lead a band of the resistance that fought the Nazi's and took Jewish refugees to safety) before he found his calling trying to help the homeless and the poor. It's a moving tale about a man's search for meaning and a path way to God.

The film that has been made of his life is a grand epic of the sort no one does any more. Its on my list of best looking films of 2023.  No one shoots a film like this any more. Its a film that gives as grand vistas in some moments and puts us up and close at others. Technically this is one of the true treasures of the film year. Look at the shots, the high shots, the close shots, the colors, the sunsets and sunrises, the way the sense of wonder the film generates with each image. I am in awe. I want to see this film on a big screen just so the images can reduce me to tears seeing them bigger than life and ten times more beautiful.

As amazing as the film is technically, the narrative is not up to the visuals. Don't think that that means it's bad, rather it's not up to the god like visuals.  While the film tells the story, it tries to tell too much of it.  Its covering 70 years in too short of a time. I don't blame the filmmakers but Groues, lead one hell of a life and achieved way too much. This should have been at least an hour longer or a mini series.

Regardless of quibbling about the script, you have to see this- nay- you NEED to see this on the big screen. This is the sort of film that made generations fall in love with the movies.

ALL TO PLAY FOR (RIEN A PERDRE) Cannes 2023

Virginie Efira gives another stellar performance as a single mom trying to do the best she can with her kids.

The film begins with two boys rushing to get medical aid. One brother is pushing the other in a shopping cart. The film then shifts gears as Slyvie (Efria) is visted at her nightclub job by the police who take her to the hospital where her son is being treated. It seems she had left the younger son home asleep and gone off to work. The older boy had not yet made it home and she thought since he was sleeping there would be no trouble. The problem is the kid got up and tried to cook something to eat, destroying the stove and burning himself.  All should be okay, except that because the authorities were involved all sorts of investigations were started and despite it being an accident there is a question of whether Sylvie should keep her kids.

Feeling more real than pretty much any film out of Hollywood, ALL TO PLAY FOR is a wonderful look at people dealing with a bad situation. Since we are with Sylvie and her family we understand there was nothing malicious going on, so we see how the turn of events rocks their world. We also get to see a whole bunch of well formed characters deal with the hands life gave them.  There is a complexity to all of the relationships that lift the film up from your typical telling of similar stories. We are not focused on the events but on the relationships with the result that get to see them as real people and feel truly connected to them. By  following the characters we get more insight then simply following the events.

This is a wonderful slice of life and a must see film.

Three Women's tales at Cannes: MARGUERITE'S THEOREM, LEGUA, and CREATURA

In screening films for Cannes I unintentionally ended up putting together a triple feature of films looking at the lives of women from different perspectives. Because the films resonated more being presented together I am presenting the films as a triple feature review

MARGUERITE'S THEOREM (2023) 

This is the story of a young woman who is living a neatly ordered life. Heading toward completing her thesis in prime number she has her world rattled to the core when during a talk a mistake is made and she has to go back and start over.

One of the best films I’ve seen at this year’s Cannes Film Festival MARGUERITE'S THEOREM  is a beautifully acted and made film about a driven woman trying to find the correct path. While specifically about the young woman in question, the film resonates outward to reveal the layers that exist in anyone who seek to have a perfectly controlled life.

Recommended

LEGUA (2023)
The stages of life as portrayed by three generations of women in one family. A middle aged woman goes to help he mother care for the home of a rich family who are never there. They are to keep the house fresh in case the family shows up. Meanwhile the youngest daughter is a will o the wisp and simply drifts from thing to thing.

The arc of our lives played out before our eyes. Grandmother is set in her way and doesn’t want to change.Life is set. Daughter is trying to get by and asking is this what life has come to, her plans being beat down by life, while the youngest sees possibilities in everything. The drama is the clash of the world view and the realization that this is the arc of life.

This is a beautiful film with a very deliberate pace. It’s a film that moves at the speed of life which may not thrill others but is destined to leave others wanting more. Normally this would not be a film I would chose to see but because I’m covering Cannes I got to discover this gem.

Worth a look.

CREATURA (2023)
A young woman moves in into a house with her boyfriend and suddenly has to deal with a sudden lack of desire. She then begins o reexamine her life to see what brought her to this place.

I’m not going to lie, while I can admire CREATURA and I could tell you how good the parts of the film are I always felt like an outsider. I’m not sure if its because a number of things are left unsaid, the filmmakers not spelling certain things out specifically, or because the film is very much rooted in the female experience. I say this because through much of the film I kept feeling that had I been a woman it would have made more sense to me.

Very well done, but I think this is going to play better for women than men.

Backlog (2023) Cannes

This is the true story of a young woman who was raped and then had to wait years to have her rape kit looked at.

This short film is a scream into the night about the horrific problem of rape kits not being tested. A problem across the country on a massive scale, the fact rape kits are not being tested has resulted in serial rapists being allowed to walk free for years. The problem is so bad that when municipalities have started diminishing the backlog they found just how bad a problem they were having. 

The film doesn't really go into the full extent but does go into one case where the victim had to fight for justice and ended up appearing before congress. It's a sobering tale that needs to be heard.

The Other Laurens (2023) Cannes 2023

The niece of a private detective asks him to investigate the death of her father, his estranged and rich twin brother. He supposedly died in a drunken car crash but the girl insists that her father had given up drinking. Getting to the house he finds things are odd with his American wife, bikers and assorted unsavory people wandering around.

Good looking off kilter thriller is a cinematic ride that is going to keep you guessing about what is going on to the very end. That last statement I mean in both a good way and a bad way. I mean it in a good way because this multilayer thriller has a lot going on. There is so much going on regarding the mystery and the themes the film is exploring beyond that that it takes a good chunk of the film before things begin to come together. The problem is that by the time the end credits roll I’m not sure they’ve explained everything. When I got to the end I wanted to watch the film again because I felt like I had missed something.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure there is enough there to make it worth a second viewing. While I enjoyed the ride, I didn’t care about the destination.  I don’t think I was really satisfied at the end.  Part of it was some of the digressions along the way specifically the speeches, and thematic explorations of who we are/rich vs poor really never lead anywhere. I also don’t like the way the film works overtime making things obscure for our hero only to give us a just okay resolution. Much of my dislike is how people speak in ways that people really don’t. It might just be the subtitles but at the same time some of the English dialog feels artificial as if it was written by someone who can speak American English but not in a way that Americans actually speak.

Forgive me if this review seems more negative that it should. There is so much in OTHER LAUREN I like, say what you will it has style to burn, and it made me really lean in and want to see where it was going, but I am really disappointed it didn’t stick the landing.

Reservation aside if you want to take a really good cinematic ride whose parts are better than the whole give this is a shot.

Omen (2023) Cannes 2023

Young man returns to Africa with his pregnant wife in order to reconnect with his family and his heritage. 

Wonderful cinematic journey is one of the great finds of this year’s Cannes.  I was absolutely delighted by this film which not only showed me a part of life I never knew, but did so in such away that made me want to lean in and know more. What an absolutely amazing visual experiences I’ve seen this year. Mixing the real world with a spiritual one this is a film that walks in the shadows between worlds for an experience that deepens the story of man returning to his old world.

It has been a several days since I saw the film and I am still replaying sections of it in my mind. I desperately want to see the film again, preferably on a big screen, where I can really let the film take me on its trip instead of being distance from the shock and awe of it’s wonders.

You need to see this film, especially if you love films that are unique cinematic visions.

Highly recommended.

Chicken for Linda (2023) Cannes 2023

When a mother punishes her daughter a bit excessively, she instantly regrets it and asks what she can do to make up for it. This results in a request for her to make chicken and peppers. The trouble is Mom can’t cook and there is a general strike on and its nigh impossible to get chicken.

Utterly charming animated film may possibly end up in the Oscar mix when it reaches American shores. This is a sweet slice of life that is full of great characters, who are really all the people we know. What makes this film go as gloriously as it does is the fact that the film isn’t predictable. Every turn feels like life, it all feels right from start to finish. Movies are not supposed to feel like that, especially animated ones.

A joyous masterpiece.

I was delighted from the first frame to the last- laughing and smiling my whole way through.

Destined to play everywhere at every festival for the next year CHICKEN FOR LINDA is a must see.

(Ex)perience with Love (2023) Cannes 2023

A couple who can not conceive a child is told that in order to do so they must go back and sleep with all of their past lovers.

What starts out as a seeming sex farce instead becomes something much more complex as the silliness gives way to an intriguing examination of not only revisiting our past and what we find there, but also a rather complex look at the nature of love. It's a film that will have you pondering your life as you chuckle.

This unexpected gem works because of Lucie Debay and Lazzare Gusseau as the couple in question. Beautifully portraying a couple trying to work out their future, they give us a two people we genuinely like and completely accept as a pair. We like them to the point that we want to hang out with them. As such we also buy anything that they are doing. We take the craziness of the set up and just go with it.

Having characters we like allows us to dive in and go where ever directors Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni wants to take us. As the film moves from a farce like comedy into something more complex we simply go with it because the characters are so well fleshed out. We accept it because in each narrative turn Sirot and Balboni open us up to new possibilities. We are forced to consider more than what was initially on our plate.

I was beyond delighted and when the film ended I started emailing fellow writers telling them that they had to cover this. (That's a rave)

Highly recommended

In the Rearview (2023) Cannes 2023

Director Maciek Hamela’s volunteer aid van travels across Ukraine transporting people to safety. It transports families, travelers and sick people the hundreds of miles from the fighting to safety in Poland.

Made up almost entirely of conversations with people traveling to safety in the van IN THE REAR VIEW is a moving film that throws the war into a new light by making it about life rather than just destruction. It is a film about the life that is actually being lived by the people on the ground not the tales that are on the news reports. For example, the film begins with the question "Besides the cow what did you leave behind?" this then spins out into a discussion of what was left behind, including the cow and life in Ukraine. Conversations go all over the place, to expected places and unexpected places including kids being annoyed with each other on the long trip. Outside of the conversation there are the images of a country at war. We see soldiers, ruined buildings and the things you'd expect in a country under attack. Sometimes the images are out the front window, mostly it's the view in the rear-view mirror with the war shooting by.

I really like this film a great deal. To me it's one of the best films on what is happening in Ukraine because we get to see more than just "war". For me the fact that the film is comprised of long sequences of people talking about is what makes the film. It gives us a feeling that what we are seeing is more or less a portrait of what is happening in the country sans varnish. Yes, there are visible cuts and time shifts, but it's kept to a minimum.  We get a sense of not only the people beyond being refugees, but also a sense of Ukraine itself.  It isn't just bombed out buildings or the images we see on the TV news but something more, something greater as we see different parts of the country. 

For the first time I felt like I was seeing something other than just the sexy TV parts.

This is great filmmaking. 

Recommended.

Cannes Shorts: Tits (2023)

This is a small scale  gem. The story of two young man and a young girl who go with friends to the beach and get left behind. She was swimming without a top and since the friends took their clothes the young man gives her his shirt. As they walk back home a friendship starts.

This is just an absolutely lovely little film about two people really finding each other. It’s a film that gloriously shows what happens when people can simply be and connect. I had a smile on my face the entire time.

Highly recommended, this is film just premiered at Cannes and it has me waiting to see what the filmmakers do next.