Mubi's retrospective For Ever Godard is showing from November 12, 2017 - January 16, 2018 in the United States.Jean-Luc Godard is a difficult filmmaker to pin down because while his thematic concerns as an artist have remained more or less consistent over the last seven decades, his form is ever-shifting. His filmography is impossible to view in a vacuum, as his work strives to reflect on the constantly evolving cinema culture that surrounds it: Godard always works with the newest filmmaking technologies available, and his films have become increasingly abstracted and opaque as the wider culture of moving images has become increasingly fragmented. Rather than working to maintain an illusion of diegetic truth, Godard’s work as always foreground its status as a manufactured product—of technology, of an industry, of on-set conditions and of an individual’s imagination. Mubi’S Godard retrospective exemplifies the depth and range of Godard’s career as...
- 11/19/2017
- MUBI
Iggy Pop watches over a troupe of troubled circus performers in the stark new trailer for the French film, Starlight. The Sophie Blondy-directed film first made the festival rounds in 2013 and will arrive on Blu-Ray and video-on-demand May 9th.
Pop plays an angel-type figure who appears throughout the film as the members of the failing circus company find themselves embroiled in feuds and love triangles on the shores of the North Sea. As the troupe struggles to attract an audience, they split into warring factions with the ballerina Angele,...
Pop plays an angel-type figure who appears throughout the film as the members of the failing circus company find themselves embroiled in feuds and love triangles on the shores of the North Sea. As the troupe struggles to attract an audience, they split into warring factions with the ballerina Angele,...
- 4/25/2017
- Rollingstone.com
Holy Lola
City of Lights, City of Angels Film Festival
Plenty of films have dealt with the longing for a child or the emotional and political ramifications of adoption. But Holy Lola, Bertrand Tavernier's vivid and affecting new film, immerses viewers in the experience of foreign adoption. Revolving around a French couple's moment-to-moment endurance test through hope, red tape and an unfamiliar culture as they try to adopt a child in Cambodia, the film convincingly re-creates the semi-stateless state of Westerners who travel abroad in pursuit of a baby to love. At once thoughtful and visceral, the well-acted drama, which screened at the City of Lights, City of Angels fest, deserves wider stateside exposure.
Holy Lola is similar in setup to John Sayles' Mexico-set Casa de los Babys but without being static or didactic. Tavernier wastes no time on background before plunging into the humid downpours of monsoon season in Phnom Penh, where 40-ish "country doctor" Pierre Ceyssac (Jacques Gamblin) and his wife, Geraldine (Isabelle Carre) -- a bespectacled blonde who's weary of being told how young she looks -- have come to adopt a child. Along with other guests at their hotel, which caters to French would-be adopters, the Ceyssacs inhabit a strange limbo somewhere between tourism and exile.
The script by Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier and the director is refreshingly free of psychologizing; through shorthand and the cast's naturalistic work, we know all we need to know about the hotel's cross-section of France, from working-class couple Marco and Sandrine (Bruno Putzulu and Maria Pitarresi) to Annie (Lara Guirao), alone and especially resilient. Whether still searching for a child or awaiting exit paperwork, they seesaw between hope and disappointment for weeks on end.
The drama's moral questions are as implicit as the need to care for a child. In postcolonial Cambodia, where bureaucrats quote Hugo or appreciate offerings of Shalimar, Westerners' only power is money. Wielding the most power are the story's unseen Americans, while the Ceyssacs ply local orphanages with food and toys, hoping to be in the right place at the right time when a child becomes available. They befriend a clinic doctor (Vongsa Chea) who helps them navigate the labyrinth. An encounter with baby traffickers in the impoverished, mine-dotted countryside proves dispiriting on many levels.
There's a wonderful moment when the Ceyssacs and another couple cross a dangerously busy thoroughfare four abreast, arms linked. It's a lovely picture of the way they collectively withstand the dislocation and try to make sense of a formidable bureaucracy. The equanimity Pierre and Geraldine attain during months of uncertainty becomes clear only when new people arrive at the hotel, anxious and green.
Alain Choquart's ace camerawork captures the intimate drama with immediacy, and Henri Texier's propulsive music is a major contribution.
HOLY LOLA
A Little Bear/Les Films Alain Sarde/TF1 Films Prods. production with the participation of Canal Plus, Sofica Valor 6, Sogecinema 2
Credits:
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Screenwriters: Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier, Bertrand Tavernier
Producers: Frederic Bourboulon, Alain Sarde
Executive producers: Agnes Le Pont, Christine Gozlan
Director of photography: Alain Choquart
Production designer: Giuseppe Ponturo
Music: Henri Texier
Costume designer: Eve-Marie Arnault
Editor: Sophie Brunet
Cast:
Dr. Pierre Ceyssac: Jacques Gamblin
Geraldine Ceyssac: Isabelle Carre
Marco Folio: Bruno Putzulu
Annie: Lara Guirao
Xavier: Frederic Pierrot
Sandrine Folio: Maria Pitarresi
Michel: Jean-Yves Roan
Dr. Sim Duong: Vongsa Chea
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 128 minutes...
Plenty of films have dealt with the longing for a child or the emotional and political ramifications of adoption. But Holy Lola, Bertrand Tavernier's vivid and affecting new film, immerses viewers in the experience of foreign adoption. Revolving around a French couple's moment-to-moment endurance test through hope, red tape and an unfamiliar culture as they try to adopt a child in Cambodia, the film convincingly re-creates the semi-stateless state of Westerners who travel abroad in pursuit of a baby to love. At once thoughtful and visceral, the well-acted drama, which screened at the City of Lights, City of Angels fest, deserves wider stateside exposure.
Holy Lola is similar in setup to John Sayles' Mexico-set Casa de los Babys but without being static or didactic. Tavernier wastes no time on background before plunging into the humid downpours of monsoon season in Phnom Penh, where 40-ish "country doctor" Pierre Ceyssac (Jacques Gamblin) and his wife, Geraldine (Isabelle Carre) -- a bespectacled blonde who's weary of being told how young she looks -- have come to adopt a child. Along with other guests at their hotel, which caters to French would-be adopters, the Ceyssacs inhabit a strange limbo somewhere between tourism and exile.
The script by Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier and the director is refreshingly free of psychologizing; through shorthand and the cast's naturalistic work, we know all we need to know about the hotel's cross-section of France, from working-class couple Marco and Sandrine (Bruno Putzulu and Maria Pitarresi) to Annie (Lara Guirao), alone and especially resilient. Whether still searching for a child or awaiting exit paperwork, they seesaw between hope and disappointment for weeks on end.
The drama's moral questions are as implicit as the need to care for a child. In postcolonial Cambodia, where bureaucrats quote Hugo or appreciate offerings of Shalimar, Westerners' only power is money. Wielding the most power are the story's unseen Americans, while the Ceyssacs ply local orphanages with food and toys, hoping to be in the right place at the right time when a child becomes available. They befriend a clinic doctor (Vongsa Chea) who helps them navigate the labyrinth. An encounter with baby traffickers in the impoverished, mine-dotted countryside proves dispiriting on many levels.
There's a wonderful moment when the Ceyssacs and another couple cross a dangerously busy thoroughfare four abreast, arms linked. It's a lovely picture of the way they collectively withstand the dislocation and try to make sense of a formidable bureaucracy. The equanimity Pierre and Geraldine attain during months of uncertainty becomes clear only when new people arrive at the hotel, anxious and green.
Alain Choquart's ace camerawork captures the intimate drama with immediacy, and Henri Texier's propulsive music is a major contribution.
HOLY LOLA
A Little Bear/Les Films Alain Sarde/TF1 Films Prods. production with the participation of Canal Plus, Sofica Valor 6, Sogecinema 2
Credits:
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Screenwriters: Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier, Bertrand Tavernier
Producers: Frederic Bourboulon, Alain Sarde
Executive producers: Agnes Le Pont, Christine Gozlan
Director of photography: Alain Choquart
Production designer: Giuseppe Ponturo
Music: Henri Texier
Costume designer: Eve-Marie Arnault
Editor: Sophie Brunet
Cast:
Dr. Pierre Ceyssac: Jacques Gamblin
Geraldine Ceyssac: Isabelle Carre
Marco Folio: Bruno Putzulu
Annie: Lara Guirao
Xavier: Frederic Pierrot
Sandrine Folio: Maria Pitarresi
Michel: Jean-Yves Roan
Dr. Sim Duong: Vongsa Chea
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 128 minutes...
- 4/13/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Pere et Fils
Little Bear, Max Films Prods.,
Ajoz Films, Gaumont
PARIS -- Comic-actor Michel Boujenah has chosen a gentle road movie for his first foray into the directing world. "Pere et Fils" explores the complicated road map of the relationship between fathers and sons but fails to come up with anything fresh and new. Not that French audiences mind as they've taken the movie to their hearts with a decent boxoffice tallys.
The story follows Leo's (Philippe Noiret) attempt to bring his family closer together. He has three sons: David (Charles Berling) is the eldest. He's rich and runs a successful small business that employs the youngest son, Simon (Pascal Elbe). The middle son, Max (Bruno Putzulu), is unemployed. He and David are estranged, and Leo hopes a family trip to Quebec will mend bridges between the two. Leo pretends he is seriously ill so the sons will agree to the trip. The ruse works, and the sons reluctantly accompany Papa on what they believe will be his last vacation.
The movie runs a predictable course, with Boujenah opting for laughs rather than digging below the surface. Leo is a strict patriarch, and the way his sons are bound to him by a sense of filial duty is reminiscent of a much earlier time. Today, do grown men in their 30s bend to Daddy's will even when it's against their own interests? Do they so easily turn a cheek when he lies, bullies and manipulates them?
Avoiding the issue of how the relationship between generations has changed during the past 30 years, Boujenah stays on safer ground. Tackling the relationship among the brothers is less complex and more easily resolved. Eventually, a bar-room brawl sparks intense bonding among the siblings, and all is forgiven.
Boujenah is more comfortable with the movie's humorous side as he has a sharp eye for the absurd. For example, he teases out every comic angle from a story line in which Leo consults a notorious, eccentric healer of pigs to cure his alleged illness. However, Noiret stripped to his underwear indulging in a spot of tree-hugging is not a sight easily forgotten.
Noiret is superb as the fiery Leo who wants to connect with his sons before it's too late. The other actors suffer in comparison and at times seem like bit-part players. And Boujenah shows he is an able storyteller. He simply needs to find more dark to contrast with the light.
Ajoz Films, Gaumont
PARIS -- Comic-actor Michel Boujenah has chosen a gentle road movie for his first foray into the directing world. "Pere et Fils" explores the complicated road map of the relationship between fathers and sons but fails to come up with anything fresh and new. Not that French audiences mind as they've taken the movie to their hearts with a decent boxoffice tallys.
The story follows Leo's (Philippe Noiret) attempt to bring his family closer together. He has three sons: David (Charles Berling) is the eldest. He's rich and runs a successful small business that employs the youngest son, Simon (Pascal Elbe). The middle son, Max (Bruno Putzulu), is unemployed. He and David are estranged, and Leo hopes a family trip to Quebec will mend bridges between the two. Leo pretends he is seriously ill so the sons will agree to the trip. The ruse works, and the sons reluctantly accompany Papa on what they believe will be his last vacation.
The movie runs a predictable course, with Boujenah opting for laughs rather than digging below the surface. Leo is a strict patriarch, and the way his sons are bound to him by a sense of filial duty is reminiscent of a much earlier time. Today, do grown men in their 30s bend to Daddy's will even when it's against their own interests? Do they so easily turn a cheek when he lies, bullies and manipulates them?
Avoiding the issue of how the relationship between generations has changed during the past 30 years, Boujenah stays on safer ground. Tackling the relationship among the brothers is less complex and more easily resolved. Eventually, a bar-room brawl sparks intense bonding among the siblings, and all is forgiven.
Boujenah is more comfortable with the movie's humorous side as he has a sharp eye for the absurd. For example, he teases out every comic angle from a story line in which Leo consults a notorious, eccentric healer of pigs to cure his alleged illness. However, Noiret stripped to his underwear indulging in a spot of tree-hugging is not a sight easily forgotten.
Noiret is superb as the fiery Leo who wants to connect with his sons before it's too late. The other actors suffer in comparison and at times seem like bit-part players. And Boujenah shows he is an able storyteller. He simply needs to find more dark to contrast with the light.
- 7/9/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Pere et Fils
Little Bear, Max Films Prods.,
Ajoz Films, Gaumont
PARIS -- Comic-actor Michel Boujenah has chosen a gentle road movie for his first foray into the directing world. "Pere et Fils" explores the complicated road map of the relationship between fathers and sons but fails to come up with anything fresh and new. Not that French audiences mind as they've taken the movie to their hearts with a decent boxoffice tallys.
The story follows Leo's (Philippe Noiret) attempt to bring his family closer together. He has three sons: David (Charles Berling) is the eldest. He's rich and runs a successful small business that employs the youngest son, Simon (Pascal Elbe). The middle son, Max (Bruno Putzulu), is unemployed. He and David are estranged, and Leo hopes a family trip to Quebec will mend bridges between the two. Leo pretends he is seriously ill so the sons will agree to the trip. The ruse works, and the sons reluctantly accompany Papa on what they believe will be his last vacation.
The movie runs a predictable course, with Boujenah opting for laughs rather than digging below the surface. Leo is a strict patriarch, and the way his sons are bound to him by a sense of filial duty is reminiscent of a much earlier time. Today, do grown men in their 30s bend to Daddy's will even when it's against their own interests? Do they so easily turn a cheek when he lies, bullies and manipulates them?
Avoiding the issue of how the relationship between generations has changed during the past 30 years, Boujenah stays on safer ground. Tackling the relationship among the brothers is less complex and more easily resolved. Eventually, a bar-room brawl sparks intense bonding among the siblings, and all is forgiven.
Boujenah is more comfortable with the movie's humorous side as he has a sharp eye for the absurd. For example, he teases out every comic angle from a story line in which Leo consults a notorious, eccentric healer of pigs to cure his alleged illness. However, Noiret stripped to his underwear indulging in a spot of tree-hugging is not a sight easily forgotten.
Noiret is superb as the fiery Leo who wants to connect with his sons before it's too late. The other actors suffer in comparison and at times seem like bit-part players. And Boujenah shows he is an able storyteller. He simply needs to find more dark to contrast with the light.
Ajoz Films, Gaumont
PARIS -- Comic-actor Michel Boujenah has chosen a gentle road movie for his first foray into the directing world. "Pere et Fils" explores the complicated road map of the relationship between fathers and sons but fails to come up with anything fresh and new. Not that French audiences mind as they've taken the movie to their hearts with a decent boxoffice tallys.
The story follows Leo's (Philippe Noiret) attempt to bring his family closer together. He has three sons: David (Charles Berling) is the eldest. He's rich and runs a successful small business that employs the youngest son, Simon (Pascal Elbe). The middle son, Max (Bruno Putzulu), is unemployed. He and David are estranged, and Leo hopes a family trip to Quebec will mend bridges between the two. Leo pretends he is seriously ill so the sons will agree to the trip. The ruse works, and the sons reluctantly accompany Papa on what they believe will be his last vacation.
The movie runs a predictable course, with Boujenah opting for laughs rather than digging below the surface. Leo is a strict patriarch, and the way his sons are bound to him by a sense of filial duty is reminiscent of a much earlier time. Today, do grown men in their 30s bend to Daddy's will even when it's against their own interests? Do they so easily turn a cheek when he lies, bullies and manipulates them?
Avoiding the issue of how the relationship between generations has changed during the past 30 years, Boujenah stays on safer ground. Tackling the relationship among the brothers is less complex and more easily resolved. Eventually, a bar-room brawl sparks intense bonding among the siblings, and all is forgiven.
Boujenah is more comfortable with the movie's humorous side as he has a sharp eye for the absurd. For example, he teases out every comic angle from a story line in which Leo consults a notorious, eccentric healer of pigs to cure his alleged illness. However, Noiret stripped to his underwear indulging in a spot of tree-hugging is not a sight easily forgotten.
Noiret is superb as the fiery Leo who wants to connect with his sons before it's too late. The other actors suffer in comparison and at times seem like bit-part players. And Boujenah shows he is an able storyteller. He simply needs to find more dark to contrast with the light.
- 12/10/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: People Who Love Each Other People Who Love Each Other (Maybe) / Bisset does fine work for Tacchella, but pic fails to connect emotionally
Jean-Charles Tacchella's new feature is a roundelay farce on sex, relationships and romantic attachments. Enjoyable but slight, the movie finds a groove and rides out the quirky, understated rhythms.
"People Who Love Each Other" bears some relationship to Tacchella's best-known work, "Cousin Cousine", in conveying the pause and retreat of unconventional couplings, though the new work will struggle to find an audience.
The movie features another flawless Jacqueline Bisset part embodying French bourgeois chic to its fullest expression. She plays Angie, a twice-married, 40ish career woman who has been carrying out a clandestine off-and-on relationship for some 20 years with Jean-Francois (Richard Berry), a celebrated radio storyteller. Their affair is apparently ended when Angie suddenly announces she's moving to Florida to open an antique shop.
Angie's younger daughter, Winnie (the excellent Julie Gayet), arrives from Montreal to further her career as a translator, though she finds instead a succession of unsuitable men. The most passionate and romantic, Laurent (Bruno Putzulu), a raffish bohemian intellectual, attracts her, though his open-ended views of sex and commitment don't parallel hers.
The narrative forwards five years, when Angie, broke and failed in her business ventures, returns to France and resumes her relationship with Jean-Francois (in her absence he has become cruel and cavalier with women). Tacchella's script orbits around these four, posing and underlining their tenuous connections, touching on Winnie's perpetual unhappiness and Laurent's dogged but unsuccessful pursuit of her.
"People Who Love Each Other" never quite gets under the surface to explore the emotional implications of its own subjects. While there is something lovely and unforced about its narrative symmetries, the film also is deeply frustrating in its refusal to fully consider the weight of its concerns.
Tacchella's greatest skill has always been his work with actors. Berry projects a weary romanticism; Bisset a privileged entitlement; Gayet the possibility of attachment and love; and Putzulu a quest for freedom and individuality.
PEOPLE WHO LOVE EACH OTHER
A co-production of Blue Dahlia Prods., Le Studio Canal Plus,
France 3 Cinema, JCT Prods., Artemis Prods.,
Samsa Film and Tornasol Films
Credits: Producer: Gerard Jourd'hui; Director-writer: Jean-Charles Tacchella; Director of photography: Eric Faucherre; Lighting: Dominique Chapuis; Music: Raymond Allessandrini; Production manager: Daniel Delume; Set designer: Jean-Marc Tran Tan Ba; Editor: Anna Ruiz. Cast: Jean-Francois: Richard Berry; Angie: Jacqueline Bisset;
Winnie: Julie Gayet; Laurent: Bruno Putzulu. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 90 minutes.
"People Who Love Each Other" bears some relationship to Tacchella's best-known work, "Cousin Cousine", in conveying the pause and retreat of unconventional couplings, though the new work will struggle to find an audience.
The movie features another flawless Jacqueline Bisset part embodying French bourgeois chic to its fullest expression. She plays Angie, a twice-married, 40ish career woman who has been carrying out a clandestine off-and-on relationship for some 20 years with Jean-Francois (Richard Berry), a celebrated radio storyteller. Their affair is apparently ended when Angie suddenly announces she's moving to Florida to open an antique shop.
Angie's younger daughter, Winnie (the excellent Julie Gayet), arrives from Montreal to further her career as a translator, though she finds instead a succession of unsuitable men. The most passionate and romantic, Laurent (Bruno Putzulu), a raffish bohemian intellectual, attracts her, though his open-ended views of sex and commitment don't parallel hers.
The narrative forwards five years, when Angie, broke and failed in her business ventures, returns to France and resumes her relationship with Jean-Francois (in her absence he has become cruel and cavalier with women). Tacchella's script orbits around these four, posing and underlining their tenuous connections, touching on Winnie's perpetual unhappiness and Laurent's dogged but unsuccessful pursuit of her.
"People Who Love Each Other" never quite gets under the surface to explore the emotional implications of its own subjects. While there is something lovely and unforced about its narrative symmetries, the film also is deeply frustrating in its refusal to fully consider the weight of its concerns.
Tacchella's greatest skill has always been his work with actors. Berry projects a weary romanticism; Bisset a privileged entitlement; Gayet the possibility of attachment and love; and Putzulu a quest for freedom and individuality.
PEOPLE WHO LOVE EACH OTHER
A co-production of Blue Dahlia Prods., Le Studio Canal Plus,
France 3 Cinema, JCT Prods., Artemis Prods.,
Samsa Film and Tornasol Films
Credits: Producer: Gerard Jourd'hui; Director-writer: Jean-Charles Tacchella; Director of photography: Eric Faucherre; Lighting: Dominique Chapuis; Music: Raymond Allessandrini; Production manager: Daniel Delume; Set designer: Jean-Marc Tran Tan Ba; Editor: Anna Ruiz. Cast: Jean-Francois: Richard Berry; Angie: Jacqueline Bisset;
Winnie: Julie Gayet; Laurent: Bruno Putzulu. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 90 minutes.
- 11/2/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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