The French Film Festival, 5th to 17th March, Cinema Como




Actually, I lie. I'm only going to review the three films I saw as part of the French Film Festival, this will not be a comprehensive summary of the entire event. I can hear most of you sighing with relief, 'Thank God she won't bore us with French crap!!' Well stop reading now if you want to.




Anyway, for those of you who don't know, Cinema Como stages this event annually, about 12/13 films are shown across the 2 weeks or so, and most of them will never get another Australian release apart from this, one or two usually do. So I make a point not to go see the main drawcard films, as they will no doubt be released later on. All films are subtitled, and all are given a blanket (R) rating regardless of content, apart from the obligatory documentary or occasional children's movie.




I've usually been pretty happy with what I went to see at the festival, but this year my judgement failed me, and out of the three films I saw, only one was good. One was passable and the last one just crap. They have booklets/pamphlets/assorted promo material available, describing and reviewing the movies, but I've now realised that this booklet is really just a piece of fluff, promoting every single movie no matter how much it stinks. Next year I'm going to choose films based on more critical reviews, I've decided.




Anyway, the best film I saw was called 'Betty Fisher et autres histoires'(Betty Fisher and other stories). Remember how I said all movies had subtitles?? Well, for some reason this one didn't, although this warning was plastered everywhere so we were forewarned. It's the story of Betty Fisher, an author, who's a single mum and really loves her 4 year old son. It's also the story of Carole, a waitress who's a bit of a floozy and doesn't really care about her 4 year old son, let alone know who his father is. And it's also the story of Margot, a self-absorbed woman who suffers from a rare illness, and her relationship with her daughter, Betty.




When Betty's son accidentally dies, she is devastated. Her mother happens to be staying with her at the time, and isn't really much of a comfort to her as she's rather egotistical and totally off the planet. But her Mum can tell she's down, and kidnaps a small boy, who happens to be Carole's son, to replace the son Betty lost. Carole, in turn, is too busy planning her own social life that she takes two days to notify the cops of his disappearance, probably because she didn't notice he was gone. The cops start a manhunt for little Jose, with Carole's landlord/current sleeping partner as the main suspect in a Jaidyn Leskie-esque jealous defacto plot, which couldn't be further from the truth as he cares more about Jose than she does. But he's black, and that counts for a lot in France. You thought Australia had race issues?? Meet France. Anwyay, there are a few other plot twists and turns, Betty has to decide what to do with the little boy who's now in her life, and how to explain him to her friends/her son's father/her new love interest, as well as how to cope with her own deluded and bizarre Mother. Good acting, nicely directed, even darkly funny in parts. The only downside for me was that I missed some of what was said, when the French went a bit too fast for me, or when slang words were used. You don't learn much slang in French classes. Some, but not enough!! 'Betty Fisher' is a very subtle, quiet film, much is left unsaid. A few well known actors(hey, if I've heard of them before, they're well known, okay??) and good performaces. Rating out of 10?? Ummm...probably 7.8 or so, just coz I didn't understand all of it, and will probably make more sense next time around.




The other good thing about this movie, is that there was an actor in it called Roschdy Zem. Isn't that the funkiest name?? My sister and I like Roschdy Zem. He was in 2 other films at the Festival too. Go Roschdy!! I don't care how good an actor he is, he should be in more films coz his name is Roschdy Zem.




Moving On. I can see B rolling her eyes. The next film I will mention is called 'Le Pacte des Loups'(The Brotherhood of the Wolves). I'm a bit torn on this one, initially I didn't like it, but I am reminded of the good cast, interesting characters and good visuals, so it will be my question mark movie. I definitely found it too long though, it took too much time to get to it's final conclucion.




This movie is set in the 17-somethings, in regional France where some kind of beast has been terrorising the locals, eating women and children. Investigators and villagers initially believed it to be a wolf, but when Gregoire de Fronsac arrives in town with his shady side-kick, his past experiences in the wild and keen scientific mind lead him to believe that it cannot be a wolf because it's jaws are too wide, and it has iron teeth. Gregoire has been sent to investigate and find the Beast, which seems like a simple task at first but grows more and more daunting. He meets the local nobility and has to be approved of, but also falls for the rich/pretty/feisty daughter. His side-kick Mani, a native American Indian he bought back with him from Canada impresses and bafffles the locals at the same time. The are suspicious because he is clearly inferior to them due to his race, but he is an intelligent man who actually knows things. French colonial dudes feel threatened by this 'savage' who speaks their language, but tolerate his Master because he has been sent by the Government to seek out the Beast. Good costumes, nice sets going on.




Anyway, to cut to the chase, this ain't no 'Jaws'. Because this is pre-revolutionary France, the Beast must have some sort of political role to play, it's not simply slaughtering the locals because it's hungry, it's actually serving the interests of the aristocrats and the church in their bid to retain power. Or something. This film lost me at this point, I never quite understood the aim of the mysterious 'Brotherhood', who set the Beast on locals. There's more to the movie than all this, quite a few different things are going on as well. Gergoire loves Marianne but because she's chaste and requires chaperoning, he attends the local whorehouse where a mysterious prostitute(who's not a prostitute but an enemy of the Brotherhood) stays on his mind. She's played by Monica Bellucci, who starred in Malena last year. Didn't see it, but she's superb on screen in this. There's something Isabelle Adjani-like about her part in this, reminded me of 'Queen Margot' for anyone who's seen that.




This movie is a bit of a mix; part historial epic, part romance, part swashbuckling adventure, part horror, and bizarrely enough for a period movie, part Hong Kong action too!! Yes, it's true, I've never seen a period film such as this one(eg. 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves' for example) actually use the camera techniques and martial arts moves usually associated with Jackie Chan or other action dude(can you tell that's not my genre of expertise??). This is mainly due to the work of David Wu, credited as an editor, see the IMDB for the list of other films he's had a hand in as a Director, Actor and Editor and you can immediately tell they aren't your typical French arthouse classics. Eg. 'Bride of Chucky', 'Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust', 'Hot-Handed God of Cops'(and I quote!!).




So this film confused me muchly, despite prescence of subtitles!! I will not give a score here, because I really don't think I understood it properly, and had stopped paying attention by the end. When I see it again, I'll let you know. But there's an actress called Emilie in it so it can't be all bad. actually, acting across the board was quite good. Special effects and surround sound pretty effective too, and visually outstanding. Em's Rating: Question mark.




Last movie I saw was called 'Tanguy' and I thought it was going to be so good. The premise sounded interesting; a married couple are sick of living with their 28 year old son and try to get him to move out of home without officially kicking him out. He won't leave that easily and they start devising subtle schemes to get him to move out. For example, they put smelly fish in his room and stink it out, chuck out his favourite shirt, start coming on to his girlfriends, wake him up at 4am telling him they can't sleep, start vaccuuming at 5am, stop buying his favourite brand of yogurt, undo a screw on the floor so he continually walks into it...etc. Mum even takes up sculpture, involving a power sander which shorts out the electricity while he's typing his PhD thesis. He finally moves into a little appartment that they pay for, but then suffers from a nervous condition because he's not used to living on his own, so he is forced to move back in. His mother develops a nervous tic. His father just gets angry. Then dad makes some strict rules that he has to live by, eg. no borrowing the car, he must sleep in a cot and can only watch the Disney Channel before bed by 8:30pm.




Anyway, it's meant to be a comedy but was just so badly directed and scripted that it doesn't really go anywhere. I can't decide what the problem here really was; to me it seemed like the script had been written in the wrong order, the scenes just didn't fit together properly. Way too long, would have worked much better shorter, especially as it's a pretty playful comedy. There was plenty of scope for this to be an original, funny film but somehow it just fizzled. I want my $12 back!! Strictly for tv, don't even hire the video. And there wasn't even Roschdy Zem in it to brighten it up for us.




There ends my wrap up, and I could have gone on for longer, believe me, the quality of the staff at Como warrants a review in itself. A very favourable review of the male staff members indeed...




Keep watching stuff and telling me about it. I know I will!! Tell you about it, that is. I won't tell myself.


Em!!