With GUY, French actor/writer/director Alex Lutz has created a marvel of a mockumentary

Before viewing GUY (or Guy Jamet, the full name of the character shown on the poster above), TrustMovies had never heard of Alex Lutz, an award-winning French actor, comedian, writer and director. Post-viewing, however, he will remember this man and his one-of-a-kind work for, well, in perpetuity, he hopes.

Guy Jamet, I must tell you right off the bat, does not exist. Nor does the music he sings, the people he interacts with, nor really anything we see and learn about this aging pop idol. Yet Guy and the entire world around him has been imagined and researched so beautifully and then brought to life so remarkably well in this supposed-to-be-a-documentary movie about him that, even though you know -- from the press materials and too-much-information coverage of the film -- that what you're seeing is "fake," so real, so complete does it seem that you're likely to be amused, delighted and greatly moved by it nonetheless. (That's Mr. Lutz, above, shown pretty much as he is now, and on the poster, top, and below, playing the role of the 72-year-old aging pop star. The performer, by the way, won this year's coveted César Award for Best Actor in this role.)

So, yes, Guy is what is most often called a mockumentary. Yet mockumentaries are supposed to mock. But this one, while almost always witty and sometimes satiric, is so rich, warm, and human, full of emotion and sadness at the passing of time, missing of opportunities and the knowledge of our own inability to head off our worst impulses that it leaves you with more of a sense of reality and worth than do many of the actual documentaries and narrative bio-pics I've seen over the years.

Further, I haven't even gotten into the amazing skills with which, Mr. Lutz manages to create and inhabit the elder self (he also plays the younger version, though it is mostly that 72-year-old with whom we're spending our time). Everything -- from his movements to the superlative aging make-up and/or prosthetics applied -- seems nothing short of perfection. Mr. Lutz is quite something.

And when, along the way, we see, intercut with each other, the younger and older versions of Guy and one of his "loves," (above, with Élodie Bouchez, and below, with French icon Dani), the effect is mesmerising and moving in equal measure. Here, an entire cultural history opens up before us, and while the events and characters, the times and the songs may seem initially rather ordinary, something happens as they wash over you. Eventually it all gather the importance and feel of real life.

About the music: While it seemed to me captured to near perfection, "Isn't this sort of mediocre?" my spouse asked, mid-way along. And, yes, the songs here are absolutely of their time and place. Yet by the point at which the end credits rolled, "Boy, this song has really grown on me," spouse noted. I felt quite the same.

The movie is organized around the idea of a young filmmaker named Gauthier -- Tom Dingler, above -- getting Guy to agree to making this film about him by, among other things, telling him what a huge fan of his was Gauthier's mom. In reality, his late mother has informed Gauthier via letter than Guy is actually the young man's birth father. So the film is fraught with unspoken father/son issues throughout, some of them funny, others more telling. Probably the most emotional-yet-reticent scene of all involves Guy's lunch with the son he knows of and has recognized, shot by Gauthier at a discrete distance so that neither we nor he can hear what is being said by the father and his recognized son, even as the unrecognized one films it all.

While I am certain that many of the movie's more subtle and satiric barbs were lost on this American viewer, what remains was still so special, unconventional, surprising and alternately amusing and moving that Guy takes it place for me as one of this year's best films. It's an original -- and then some. (Above, right, is Nicole Calfan, very good as our hero's publicist; below, right, is Pascale Arbillot, playing his current squeeze.)

Without a theatrical release, all the more thanks is due Icarus Home Video and Distrib Films USA for making this gem available to us. Guy hits the street on DVD (digital will eventually arrive) this Tuesday, June 4 -- for purchase and (I hope) rental. Do find a way to see this one.

DALIDA: Lisa Azuelos' beautiful-to-view (and hear) biopic gets L.A. debut prior to VOD

Quite a bit better than the run-of-the-mill, musical celebrity bio-pic, DALIDA, tracking the life and career of one of, if not the most popular European singers of the 20th Century, is a gorgeous movie to both behold and listen to. With the actual Dalida singing many of her most popular songs (along with those of some other greats of that century) and, spanning as it does the 1950s through the 1980s, filled with scrumptious (if sometimes tacky: remember the 70s?) period detail, and filmed with a eye for interesting composition and ace cinematography (Antoine Sanier), the movie is a consistent joy to view.

As written and directed by French screenwriter/ filmmaker Lisa Azuelos (shown at right) and adapted from the book by Orlando (Dalida's brother) and Catherine Rihoit, the movie begins with a look at our heroine, brought to surprisingly nuanced life by Italian actress Sveva Alviti (shown above and below), who looks enough like the singer to more than pass muster, and who also lipsyncs and performs the songs with a physicality that mimics the original's own style and grace (you can compare the two by watching various videos).

TrustMovies admits that some of his great enjoyment of this film may have come because he knew next to nothing about Dalida before sitting down to view the movie. He knew her name and that she was hugely successful in France, but that's it. (His spouse, who follows the music scene more thoroughly, had never heard of her at all.) Consequently, this icon's story was new and held quite a bit of interest for him, though how die-hard fans of the singer reacted to this bio-pic, he can't say.

Ms Azuelos begins her tale in media res, with some quick, sharp moments during which Dalida leaves Paris for somewhere that it is clear her family and friends don't want her to go. It's to meet a lover, and so we spend some time between the sheets, philosophizing and making love. Suddenly, we're confronted with the singer's suicide attempt, which happened mid-career.

As Dalida slowly recovers, Ms Azuelos moves us back and forth in time, picking up bits and pieces of her family history, early career (above), love life and more. One of the cleverest methods of exposition here is done via her post-suicide psychologist's interviews with the various important people in her life, as he and they try to collectively get our girl back on track. This allows us to not only learn about Dalida, but better explore the character of those giving testimony.

Certain critics have complained about the lack of depth of character in Dalida herself, but this strikes me as simply wrong-headed. What Azuelos has given us instead is a portrait of celebrity and the woman who gladly buried herself under that alluring but unwieldy and very heavy mantle. Nearly every important decision we see her make has to do with maintaining that celebrity and career -- from how she handles her lovers to why she has the abortion that will render her sterile. (That's Brenno Placido, above, as the young student by whom she becomes pregnant, and Niels Schneider, below, as a Polish prince with whom she has earlier become involved.)

Occasionally, the woman beneath all that celebrity surfaces and her needs make themselves known. But always career comes first. Interestingly enough, there are no villains here. The movie doesn't need them, since Dalida is pretty much her own worst enemy, even if she herself seems to be a relatively kind and decent person. With an unhappy childhood to deal with, even given her wonderful voice and great physical beauty, the gain did not finally outweigh the pain.

Dalida's choice of lovers would appear a bit suspicious, too. When three of the several men with whom you're involved take their own life (not to mention Dalida's own suicide attempt and then its consummation), there's clearly a problem at hand. (Above, left, is Jean-Paul Rouve, as the man who discovers her, whom she eventually marries, and who later suicides; below left is Nicolas Duvauchelle, as one of her later and most narcissistic lovers who also takes his own life.

While the movie refuses to offer any tidy explanations for any of this, the feeling we're left with, despite the talent and beauty on hand, is one of sadness at the waste of it all. (Below is pictured Alessandro Borghi, as would-be singer Luigi Tenco, the first of Dalida's suicidal amors.)

Our heroine even has something of a movie career, too; at one point, the famous Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine has her star in one of his films (below), and once the disco craze hits, she becomes a gay icon -- in France, if not here in the USA.

Along the way, in addition to the wonderful period detail, we get a raft of good music -- mostly snippets, granted, but they're certainly enjoyable ones -- and enough biographical material to complete yet another sad tale of great musical celebrity gone to disarray.

From Under the Milky Way -- in French, Italian and Arabic with English subtitles -- and running  a long but consistently interesting 127 minutes, Dalida will get a one-night-only theatrical appearance in the Los Angeles area as part of the Laemmle Culture Vulture series, this coming Monday, October 23, at 7:30 pm at four Laemmle theaters: Claremont 5, Playhouse 7,  Royal 3 and Town Center 5. Click here for more information and/or tickets.

In addition the film will also be the opening night, November 3, presentation at the ARPA International Film Festival at the world-famous Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.  And if you aren't located in the L.A. area, despair not: Dalida will be released on all major VOD platforms across the country on Tuesday, December 5.

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.

**************************

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.

Martin Provost tackles his second creative French woman of time past, and Emmanuelle Devos triumphs in the lead role of VIOLETTE

He's back with the broads. That is to say: one of France's very fine filmmakers, Martin Provost, is again doing what it appears he does best -- tackling a tale of an artistic and talented French woman who was not conventionally beautiful or possessing many social skills who nonetheless managed to create a collection of exemplary and important work. He did this first five years ago with his award-winning film Séraphine, about the turn-of-the-century painter Séraphine Louis, which introduced many of us to the amazing actress, Yolande Moreau. Now he is back with VIOLETTE, a movie about the famous/infamous French writer and bastard (literally), Violette Leduc, with the well-known French actress, Emmanuelle Devos, in what is, so far, the performance of her exceptional career.

In between time, Provost, shown at left, gave us another interesting movie starring Ms Moreau as a woman who murders her abusive husband and then goes on the lam. It was quite well done. Still, viewing the results of his two films about creative and unusual historic French women, one must say that this seems to be his "perfect fit." His new film begins with a quote by Leduc regarding women, beauty and mortal sin-- a sad but generally truthful observation, so far as humanity as we know it appears to believe and behave.

I confess to having found Ms Devos (above and below, right), over the years that I've viewed her in film after film, to be an alternately enchanting and glamorous entity, filled with a vast reservoir of emotion, intellect and possibilites. From a small role in La Sentinelle to the deaf girl in love (Read My Lips) to the famous actress who gives Coco Chanel her first design opportunity in Coco Before Chanel to that wonderful interloper in a tight-knit dysfunctional family in A Christmas Tale to the mayor of a town that is the target of a major scam (In the Beginning: click and scroll down) to a very surprised mother overflowing with love in The Other Son, she was generally exotic and beautiful even -- maybe particularly -- when she wasn't trying.

Suddenly, here she is, portraying a lower class woman so needy that she utterly embarrases us -- though not herself -- as she grasps to keep a clearly unworthy man (Olivier Py, above, left) as part of her life.

Devos so absolutely inhabits and defines this woman that it's as though we're seeing the actress for the first time (maybe, indeed, we are). In any case, she has found depth and characteristics here -- not to mention an appearance that removes any trace of glamour -- that I have never seen in her previously.

The film deals in large part with her relationship with the much more famous, intelligent and celebrated woman, Simone de Beauvoir, here played by Sandrine Kiberlain (below, left). I have seen de Beauvoir depicted on film before, but never as well as Kiberlain manages it. This is the Simone to remember.

We watch, entranced, as Violette, under the guidance of de Beauvoir, learns how to free herself in order to simply write and do it honestly. Which she does, and very well. And this begins to free her to live. Along the way, via de Beauvoir, we meet a number of other famous French entities -- from Jean Genet (Jacques Bonnaffé, below, left -- good choice!) and Jacques Guérin (Olivier Gourmet, below, right, giving another fine performance).

The film begins toward the end of WWII, when Violette is dealing on the Black Market, and moves ahead from there, showing a very well-detailed and awfully drab France of the post-war period. (A scene is which Violette scraps maggots off a slab of meat and then washes it and gives it to her not-so-beloved mother to cook is one for the books.)

Provost has divided his film into sections (six or seven of them, I believe) that deal with people or subjects most important to Violette. An intelligent filmmaker, he has really looked into the period and the people, the behavior and culture, in about as encompassing a manner as one can manage within the film's 138-minute running time. Smartly, he has left the heavy-lifting, emotionally-speaking, to Devos, who comes through in spades. She keeps us glued -- embarrassed, hopeful, surprised, devastated, and thrilled from first to last -- bringing the woman, Violette, to grand life and making Violette the movie a must-see experience.

From Adopt Films, Provost's latest opens tomorrow in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. It will expand to the boroughs and elsewhere in New York the following Friday, June 20, and then hit the Los Angeles area on June 27 as it rolls out across the country in a limited release. You can view currently scheduled play-dates by first clicking here then clicking on View Theaters and Showtimes.

FIAF hosts NYC debut of Florent-Emilio Siri's CLOCLO, starring a startling Jérémie Renier

Musical bio-pics tend to run pretty true to form, from Walk the Line and Coal Miner's Daughter (in the country music variety) to those about celebs on the order of Elvis and Garland, often made for TV audiences. Occasionally comes along an unusual biopic (the recent Gainsbourg is one example), but generally they all tend to be obvious in the extreme, too lengthy for anything they might have to say, and adoring, while pretending to show us warts-and-all. However, the audience for the May 9th "sneak preview" screening of the new French film CLOCLO, which took place at Florence Gould Hall, courtesy of the French Institute/Alliance Française (FIAF), got an interesting taste of what a musical biopic looks like when directed by a leading "action" filmmaker.

The man in question is Florent-Emilio Siri, at left, who gave us a The Nest and Hostage (two fine action films) and Intimate Enemies (one of the great modern war films, in which he used his action techniques to excellent effect). Now, he does something similar with Cloclo, the birth-to-death story of Claude François, nick-named Cloclo, a famous French performer of the 60s and 70s (unknown to TrustMovies until now), who appears to have had a similar effect on young ladies as that certain Mr. Presley did on American girls.

I'll have a lot more to say about this striking and consistently interesting movie once it opens here. (Its French distributor, Canal Plus, is said to be currently in negotiations with an American distributor.) For now I will simply tell you that the film sparkles with visual beauty and invention (Cloclo was born in Egypt and, once famous, lived rather high on the hog, so expect some sumptuous settings and fab costumes and decor).

The film also, while covering the standard tropes of the genre, moves surprisingly quickly, as M. Siri bounces from event to event, place to place, carrying us along with him in brisk, frisky fashion. I suspect this has a lot to do with the very fine co-screenwriter and provider of smart dialog, Julien Rappeneau, all of whose work that I've seen, I've loved: Bon Voyage, 36th Precinct, Paris 36 and Largo Winch.

The music is sensational, by the way. Because Cloclo wrote some of his songs but also covered the work of others, you're going to hear some very familiar tunes, done dandily. Other people also covered Cloclo's wortk -- the most spectacular case being Frank Sinatra's My Way, which M. François originally wrote as Comme d'habitude -- a version whose lyrics strike TM as infinitely smarter than the self-serving sentimentality of the Sinatra version (the lyrics of which were written by Paul Anka). They say that no song in history has been recorded as often in as many languages as this one (well, what performer can resist a good ego trip!), and for that reason alone, the movie seems worthy of an American release.

Additionally, the François/Cloclo story is a good one, and it gives the actor Jérémie Renier another great role to savor -- which he does, and then some. He sings (just two songs, he lip-syncs the rest to Cloclo's voice), dances with aplomb and pizzazz, and generally comports himself like a coddled superstar, while capturing plenty of intimate moments from a career that was, on balance and despite a life in the spotlight, a bit darker than bright, sadder than joyous.

M. Renier has impressed audiences ever since the Dardennes brothers used him as the child in The Promise (they've used him again and again, ever since, most recently in The Kid With the Bike). His versatility -- The Brotherhood of the Wolf to Private Property, Potiche to the recent A Heavenly Vintage -- is pretty extraordinary, and if he were not so young, I'd say that Cloclo might be the capper to his career. But, no, he's got a lot more good stuff in store for us, I'll wager.

I hope those negotiations are moving ahead, full-tilt. It would be a shame if American arthouse audiences are deprived of learning about the life of this unusual entertainer -- and seeing what a surprising choice of director can do with a project seemingly far outside of his usual genre.