Open Roads 2013: THE FIRST MAN, Camus' final novel, given great life by Gianni Amelio

Not to dwell on it, but there was a time that any movie from Marco Bellocchio or Gianni Amelio would be given a theatrical release over here. No question. Now, new films from both these masters still languish, awaiting U.S. distribution. Thank god for Open Roads, then -- which came to the close of its seven-day program yesterday evening -- in which the Bellocchio & Amelio films and ten more were screened to great enthusiasm by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Istituto Luce Cinecitta, to give those of us in the tri-state area, at least, the opportunity to see them. The final film for TrustMovies was Amelio's truly extraor-dinary THE FIRST MAN, an adaptation of the last novel by Albert Camus, unfinished at the time of his death in an auto accident.

Signore Amelio, shown at left, has given us a profound experience with this movie, which looks at Algeria and the French who colonized it, during both the teens and 1920s (when our leading character, a successful novelist named Jacques Cormery, was a child) and again at the end of the 1950s, when the French-Algerian War was heating up and Cormery returns to Algeria to visit his aging mother and assess her's and the country's situation. In many ways The First Man  is a French film, about France's history, spoken in French, using mostly French and Algerian actors. Yet is clearly stamped with Amelio's character and preoccupations: his use of stillness and concentration to communicate so well the deepest feelings of the characters. Perhaps the tale needed an outsider -- one with the particular and humane understanding that an Italian like Amelio offers, allowing us to experience Algeria so richly and from several points of view.

The film has been cast extraordinarily well, with the versatile French actor Jacques Gamblin (above) in the lead, as the older Cormery, and a very good young actor, Nino Jouglet (below, and French/Italian, maybe?) as his younger self.

As the mother, clearly of Algerian descent and who never learned to read, Maya Sansa (below) brings a brooding, loving and controlled fierceness to her performance,

while Catherine Sola (below) offers a performance of great solitude and quiet reflection as her older counterpart.

In the role of Jacques' teacher and mentor, Denis Podalydès (below) brings to the tale his gift for making intellect immediate and important.

What the movie captures best, however, is the Algerian experience with the French, via one particular family, the father, a kind of town dog catcher; his son (below, left), who is a school-mate of Jacques; and then that son as an older man, with his own son, who is now in major trouble with the French forces. In this family microcosm, we see the inequality that Jacques, as novelist and public figure now fights against, and which puts the lie to that famous French motto of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, so far as Algeria is concerned.

Amelio never punches his points home. He allows them to sink in via a literate script, quiet moments and the marvelous faces of the actors on view. (That Algerian son of the son, has but a single scene in the film, but he and his face will probably linger in your memory, to surface whenever thoughts of Algeria come 'round.)

The First Man is perhaps the finest film I've yet seen about the French in Algeria -- up there (but in its own quiet manner) with The Battle of Algiers (ah, another Italian filmmaker who tackled this subject!). It's a keeper, and the fact that it was made two years ago and still has no U.S. release is shameful. The movie joins It Was the Son and Dormant Beauty as the three must-sees of this Open Roads festival. Which unfortunately is now over, so I don't know just how these must-sees even can be seen....

By the way, here's a special shout-out to 

FSLC Programmer Marcela Goglio, who programmed 

this year's series. I admit that I was hesitant at the thought 

of Open Roads without Richard Pena, who retired last year, 

but Ms Goglia has done a superb job. Thank you!

Early Tom Hardy in Martin Huberty's real-life, French Foreign Legion film DESERTER

If that versatile and talented actor, Tom Hardy, looks a mite young in the apparently straight-to-DVD release DESERTER (aka Simon: An English Legionnaire), that's because he was young when this movie was made -- a full decade ago. This was only his third outing before a camera, after Band of Brothers and Black Hawk Down, but Hardy, shown below, acquits himself quite well, pretty much stealing the acting thunder from the fellow who has the leading role, Paul Fox.

TrustMovies calls this film a straight-to-DVD release, even though the IMDB says that it had a theatrical opening in the U.S. back in May of 2002, and then played the Palm Springs Film Fest later that year. This must have been a very limited release. In any case, the film has not been heard of on these shores since then and is only getting a rather major DVD and Blu-ray release now -- from Inception Media Group LLC -- due to Hardy's continuing notoriety and abilities.

Though born British, Hardy has played a number of nationalities: British, American, French. He's the latter here, and his accent is quite good most of the time. So's his acting, which maintains the high level of energy, focus and commitment that makes this performer so riveting to watch. As the duplicitous Dupont, who befriends our hero, Simon (played by Mr. Fox, above), Hardy gives a full performance that grows larger (and uglier) as the film moves on, reaching its simultaneous apotheosis and nadir in his final scene.

The story, which is based on several years in the life of Britisher Simon Murray (shown at left), who, during the 1960s, when a love affair went south, impulsively signed a five-year contract to serve in the French Foreign Legion. The film recounts much of that service, which is full of incident, camaraderie, and a little love (the hetero sort: don't expect the barely-buried homo-eroticism of Claire Denis' Beau Travail). Because the French-Algerian war is raging during this time, and the legion's home is in Algiers, we also get a pretty good dose of allegiances formed and betrayed. Our hero tries to see both sides of each situation, and his superiors in the Legion often seem surprisingly understanding.

The climax, along with the film's strongest section, involves the shock that hits not just the Legion, but the pied-noir population in Algeria and much of la belle France herself, when de Gaulle decides to toss in the towel, war-wise. This makes for some surprising behavior, leading to the separation of former friends and the mean-ing of the film's title. From this movie, as well as from other sources I consulted after viewing it, I was surprised to learn how close France came to a right-wing military take-over during this time.

If only the movie-making were of a higher caliber, Deserter might have been quite a film. The direction -- from a fellow better known for producing (this was his first and evidently only foray into directing), Martin Huberty -- is adequate but little more. While nothing here is awful, most of the movie seems a bit amateurish in its direction and screenplay. Though it is not always predictable, many of the incidents, as shown us, seem a little too "standard," particularly in the ways that these incidents are fleshed-out. Still, the film is always watchable, and if it's somewhat sanitized, it is never stupid. I must also say that the Blu-ray transfer is the best I've seen so far from Inception Media Group. This is quality in every way, with rich colors, deep blacks and as images as sharply detailed as you could desire.

Deserter, with a running time of 93 minutes, will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray and hits the streets this Tuesday, July 17, for sale and/or rental. A must-see for any Hardy boys, it might also please French Foreign Legion aficionados and history buffs.