At FIAF's CinéSalon in September and October: BEYOND THE INGENUE as girls become women

What looks like yet another in FIAF's continuing stream of extremely interesting and well-curated (by Charlotte Garson and Delphine Selles-Alvarez) CinéSalon series of terrific Tuesday afternoon-and-evening movie sessions -- Beyond the Ingenue -- made its debut this past Tuesday with a film by and starring one of France's current cinema treasures, Noémie Lvovsky (most recently stealing the show in Summertime). Next Tuesday (September 20) will see the Pialat classic, À nos amours, then Céline Sciamma's Water Lilies on September 27, followed by that ever-watchable classic, Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach on October 4. You can view the entire series schedule by clicking here.

What has piqued TrustMovies' interest most, however, is the double bill of short films that has its U.S. Premiere on Tuesday, October 11 at 4 and 7:30pm: HARAMISTE (which I believe translates roughly as "forbidden to Muslims"), a shockingly delightful 40 minutes directed and co-written by Antoine Desrosières (shown at left), which will be shown in tandem with the 1994 made-for-French television film U.S. GO HOME, directed and co-written by Claire Denis. Both movies tackle the sexuality of adolescent girls on the verge of womanhood, but the twenty-year difference between the times in which these films were made speaks volumes, both about what is currently "permissible" -- even in France, forever the amour capital of the western world -- and how France (and everywhere else) has changed due to the results of immigration.

Further, the fact that Haramiste is inhabited by two young Muslim girls -- older and younger sisters -- makes what happens here just about jaw-dropping for those of us trained to think of Muslim females who cover their heads as somehow more "religious" and/or demure and sedate than their western counterparts.

And yet because these girls have lived in France for maybe their entire (or close to that) lives, aside from covering their heads, they seem, well, quite French. And quite teenage. And quite sexual. And quite verbal. The film's first scene takes place at a bus stop where the two are awaiting their mother, as they are accosted by a group of boys. They hold their own, while seeming both "interested" and properly staid and retiring. Yet, as soon as the boys leave and the girls open up to each other, all bets are off.

The bus stop scene, however, is nothing compare to what we get in the second scene, which takes place in the girls' bedroom. Yikes. This is so revelatory, and so funny, and so disarming, and so, well, scandalous, that I am somewhat surprised that a fatwa has not been taken out against the filmmaker and his cast. (Golly, maybe one has been.) In any case, Haramiste should turn topsy-turvy a lot of your pre-conceived notions and (hopefully) make you laugh your head off in the process.

Desrosières' cast -- Souad Archane (above, left) and Inas Chanti (above, right) --  could hardly be better (both girls contributed to the dialog and screenplay, as did Anne-Sophie Nanki), and the technical aspects of the film are just fine. But it's the very idea of the film, as well as its execution, that seals the deal.

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Ms Denis' movie, U.S. GO HOME (the filmmaker is shown above), though now twenty-two years old, is actually set back some fifty years -- during a time when the Vietnam War raged and the French (who had their own previous bad experience over there) were having none of it. Here, two young girls of the day (played by Alice Houri, below, left, and Jessica Tharaud, right) engage in their own sexual awakenings and experiences, helped (more like hindered) along by one of them's brother (a young and hugely charismatic Grégoire Colin, shown two photos below, who would go on, five years later, to star in Denis' Beau Travail).

Budding sexuality competes with political, social and economic concerns, all of this very nicely enmeshed by Denis. As is her wont, the filmmaker offers up behavior above all, and we watch, fascinated, as these two girls -- friends, but probably not for much longer -- pursue their own course with men, women, and each other.

Along the way, we encounter an American soldier (played by Vincent Gallo, below, right, with Ms Houri) who will appear again later, and quietly, rather sweetly (for Mr. Gallo) connect with Ms Houri's character. In one sense, not much happens here; in another, everything does. The night turns into morning and a new day in so many ways.

Made for French television in 1994, U.S. Go Home has, over the years, assumed a place in the canon (television-wise, at least) -- and rightfully so. Full of life and the fabulous music of the time, the 68-minute movie shows off these fine actors, at least three of whom would move on to other challenging and effective performances (Ms Tharaud appears to have stopped acting after Denis' Nenette and Boni, in which she, Houri and Colin also starred.)

I would call this double bill a must-see, and since it most likely will not be opening in theaters anytime soon, I suggest, for those of you in the tri-state area, heading for FIAF on Tuesday, October 11 -- and getting your tickets soon. Click here to see the entire Beyond the Ingenue series, and here to get tickets for the Denis/Desrosière double bill.

Back to Africa, as Denis and Huppert knock our socks off with WHITE MATERIAL

Africa has never been far away from the films of Claire Denis -- from the first and comparatively benign (everything's relative) Chocolat to the new and slowly horrifying WHITE MATERIAL. Even when Denis' setting is Paris and its environs, her characters, some of them, at least, are dealing with the African emigrant experience in France. And her most critically-acclaimed work, Beau Travail (though not my favorite) deals with the French Foreign Legion, whose "home" is the sun-splashed desert of the "dark continent." As special and full of wonder (and two peak performances) as is a film like the Paris-set, bourgeois-bound Friday Night, Denis' work set in Africa commands its own special power, yet none of her films till now have had quite the power of this new one.

White Material is also perhaps as close to mainstream a movie as the filmmaker, pictured at left, has given us. "Close" for Denis, I mean. Relatively easy to follow as it goes from the present to an extended flashback that brings us back to the beginning and slightly onward, the movie is heavy with those mainstream staples -- threat,  violence and terror -- though all of them are handled in a manner that makes us increasingly uneasy, rather than slapping us in the face with standard blood-and-guts. In fact, for a long while we see no killing, no use of violence.  Instead we see its threat -- or its aftermath. When at last, the on-screen, you-are-there killing arrives, it comes from exactly where we do not expect it and is thus even more shocking and unsettling.

It seems to TrustMovies that Denis' theme here is the fruits of Colonialism, harvested on the home ground of the colonized: How self-destructive the big C is to the colonizers themselves and how, once armed revolution takes hold, the colonized become as or more savage than their suddenly overthrown keepers.

The filmmaker's story is about a sick-unto-dying French family who has for three generations owned a coffee plantation in Africa.  The opening shots -- wild dogs running loose and our main character, Maria Vial (played by the great Isabelle Huppert, above) traveling up a road and hoping for help from passing autos that do not stop -- sets the tone for what is to come. Maria wants, no matter what, to hold on to the family plantation.

We meet Huppert's husband André (Christopher Lambert, above), who is trying to negotiate some kind of monetary settlement for the plantation from the powers-that-may-soon-be, including the town's mayor (William Nadylam, below), who has organized his own militia to fight the growing strength of the home-grown rebels jockeying for power. We also meet the household servants, including one with whom André has fathered a son.

Maria's father-in-law (Michel Subor) still controls the plantation but appears to have given up on everything, maybe including life itself. The Vial's grown son (played by Denis irregular Nicolas Duvauchelle, most recently seen in Wild Grass and The Girl on the Train) still acts like a baby half the time, due perhaps to his mom's inappropriate "mothering." When he chases after two young rebels and is made to undergo a terrible humiliation, this sets off familial crises in which the cracks become too big for everyone to bear and all hell break loose inside the family, just as the same thing is occurring outside.

 
Real control eludes nearly everyone here, and even those who seem to possess it for a time (the rebel leader Boxer, played by another magnetic actor Denis used early on: Isaach De Bankolé, shown below) know how transient it will be. In near-complete control, yet seeming loose and intuitive, the filmmaker builds her story and her tension boldly, with always just enough information to keep us up-to-snuff but on our toes, with Huppert's character always in control of herself, if of little else.

This actress just gets better and better. (Really, has she not been, from The Lacemaker onwards, close to perfect?) Huppert rarely change her appearance much (her costumes, of course) yet she has that special ability to seemingly create each character from the inside out.  Consequently we don't doubt a word she says, nor an expression that passes over her often enigmatic face.

White Material (the title refers to the "possessions" of the colonizers) is a decidedly accessible movie, unlike, say Denis' Intruder of a few years back. It tells a gallopingly good story, in addition to being about something important that the world and its people still seem to have trouble comprehending. It should increase this filmmaker's coterie considerably, even as it burnishes her art to a brighter sheen.

The movie, from IFC Films, opens here in New York City on Friday, November 19, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the IFC Center. It will also be available from IFC On-Demand starting Wednesday, November 24. Click here to learn how to get it from your local TV-reception provider.