Paris of the 1960s comes to oddball life in Ulrike Ottinger's PARIS CALLIGRAMES

 

A calligram, according to Wikipedia, is text arranged in such a way that it forms a thematically related image.  TrustMovies is not sure he actually saw a calligram in any of the many works of artist/filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger on display in her new documentary, PARIS CALLIGRAMMES. 

But perhaps she means her film itself to be a kind of calligram, with her voiced text acting in coordination with the often quite wonderful visuals she presents of the city of Paris that existed when Ottinger first came to live there during the transitional/tumultuous 1960s. 

Upon finishing this over-two-hour-long film, I was initially struck by the fact that I'd very much enjoyed the whole experience, even though I didn't much care for the snippets of her own films that Ottinger -- shown above on the poster as a young woman and at left in current times (yes, she likes sunglasses) -- includes throughout. 

Her colorful, humorous visual art itself is often fun, usually interesting and sometimes provocative. And one would have to have seen her films in their entirety to make any truly informed judgment. 

Yet the beauty, charm and intelligence of this documentary comes through via Ottinger's unusual combination of nostalgia for a lost time and place, and her adamant stance regarding art, artists and in particular those famous student demonstrations of the late 1960s (she seems wisely anti the violent police behavior, as well as some of the students' stupid and sleazy shenanigans).

Ottinger seems particularly taken with (as so many of us were) the work and career of wife/husband acting/producing team of Madeleine Renaud and Jean-Louis Barrault  (Remorques, Les enfants du paradis, etc. ), as well as by so many of the artists of that day (and much earlier, too). The filmmaker has a keen sense of history, particularly regarding French colonialism, and the documentary is simultaneously a love letter to the enchantments of Paris and a hard, repeated slap in the face to France itself.

The filmmaker's interests are wide-ranging, even if, of course, they come back again and again to art and cinema. Yet we spend as much time at the gorgeous, horrific Colonial Museum, as at the Cinémathèque Française, and we move from Algeria as the topic of both art and conversation to Vietnam.

Particularly interesting is how Ottinger weaves modern-day views with footage of Paris in the 60s; there's a wonderful scene in and around a hair salon for blacks that seems to span three generations. Another section details Fritz Picard and an antiquarian bookstore. In her views on how to convert experience into art, Ottinger is both generous and buoyant.

Among the examples of her art, my favorite is one of Allen Ginsberg cut into puzzle pieces. Ottinger tells us that, at its debut, she disassembled all the pieces, tossed them into air, and let the audience put them together again. Ballsy chick!

Even if you've never been to Paris but only seen and heard of its wonders secondhand, I suspect Paris Calligrammes will interest, amuse and bemuse you in equal measure. From Icarus Films, running 131 minutes, and featuring a very fine English narration from the beautifully husky-voiced Jenny Agutter, the documentary opens this Friday, April 23, in New York City at Film Forum on virtual cinema and then, April 30, will have a limited engagement at theaters nationwide. To view all scheduled theater screenings, click here and then scroll down to the "P" section.

THE TRUTH opens -- and a super-starry French film directed by Kore-Eda Hirokazu arrives

Kore-Eda Hirokazu's first film not in his own Japanese language (so far as I know), THE TRUTH -- not to be confused with the old Henri-Georges Clouzot film with Brigitte Bardot -- is spoken in mostly French with some English by actors as diverse as Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke, all of whom are fine and dandy -- as is this lovely film itself.

One of the "family reunion" variety, as have been a number of Kore-Eda's movies -- granted, sometimes in rather unusual ways -- The Truth involves a grand dame of French cinema named Fabienne (Ms Deneuve), now at what may be the end of her career, and a visit from her daughter Lumir (Ms Binoche) who is a screenwriter working in the USA, from whom she has long been at least slightly estranged; her son-in-law Hank, a somewhat successful Hollywood actor played by Mr. Hawke; and her delightful little granddaughter, Charlotte (the young actress Clémentine Grenier, making her film debut, whom I hope we'll be seeing soon again).

While many of the family-inspired themes here are familiar from Kore-Eda's other work (the filmmaker is shown at left, with his young co-star, Ms Grenier) as well as from other "family" pix, his main theme most likely is that age-old question, "What is the truth?", particularly where families are concerned. His answer, which takes several twists and turns during the course of the movie, is a cautious, malleable and not particularly easy one. And this -- along with a group of performances that could hardly be bettered in terms of each one finding the "truth" at the heart of his or her character -- makes for the kind of movie-going experience that charms and entertains, even as it raises questions about family (and extended family) that are always worth considering.

There are a couple of delicious sub-plots here, too: One involves a movie currently being shot that stars Fabienne, along with a young actress who looks and acts remarkably like another long-dead actress from Fabienne's past; the other is the publication of Fabienne's memoirs, a book chock full of what daughter Lumir sees as either outright lies or those occasioned simply via omission. All this is gracefully woven together with the filmmaker's expected consummate skill. Look for some very special actors -- Ludivine Sagnier and Roger Van Hool among them -- popping up in nice supporting roles, too.
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What seems especially impressive is how well Kore-Eda adjusts to both French culture and the (sort-of) intrusion of America -- via Hawke and Hollywood -- into his mix. You will probably leave The Truth feeling pleasantly sufficed without any sense of having been over-awed or knocked for a loop. Yet the ideas and characters here may linger awhile, as you think about your own family -- blood and extended -- along with the notion of what movies (even the sad, possibly quite moving little sci-fi flick within this movie) are capable of achieving. Kore-Eda's usual lesson-- consider every viewpoint --  is brought home beautifully once again.

From IFC Films, in French with English subtitles and running 106 minutes, the film opens in select theaters and via digital streaming and cable VOD this Friday, July 3. Click here for more information on how and where to find (and see) The Truth.

4th annual AMERICAN FRINGE FESTIVAL opens in Paris, November 15-17, with nine new films

We don't normally cover openings in Paris, but in this case it's a festival of new American movies, "on and of the margins of the U.S.," as the press release explains, and featuring the international premieres of nine independent films. Another reason for coverage is that the curators of this fest are two people that TrustMovies has very much enjoyed knowing and working with over the past years: Richard Peña, former program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Livia Bloom Ingram of Icarus Films, both of whose film knowledge and personal taste we've found to be very much worth our attention.

Notes Mr. Peña, à-propos this fest, “Much of what is acclaimed as ‘indie production’ in the U.S. today differs little from Hollywood commercial product in anything except budget. American Fringe reveals that the defiant and irreverent spirit that drove independent cinema pioneers is still very much alive if not often enough seen or celebrated. Moreover, in addition to exploring new cinematic ideas and forms, these films often focus on the margins of American society⁠—regionally, sexually, politically.” Bloom Ingram adds, “Each year, as we view the latest new American films in search of our annual selection for American Fringe, I’m inspired anew. Though these nine artists may still be ‘under the radar,’ each film is a singular display of talent, craft, vision and commitment to fierce independence.”

From what I can gather, the films will be shown at Paris' prestigious La Cinémathèque française  You can learn all about this year's program (in English) at this site, and in French at this one. While I had big plans to see several of this year's movies, I ended up having time to view only two -- though both were very much worth my time.

GREEN HOUSE -- directed by Armando Lamberti and written by Lamberti and the film's star, Brian May (shown above and above) -- proves a deadpan hoot boasting maybe the most gorgeous color palette I've seen in ages. I could watch it again just to drown in that uber-saturated cinematography (by Matthew Cherchio). It also offers perhaps the most all-out annoying character to be seen in cinema this past decade. As played by Mr. May, this is a guy you'll want to grace with a fat lip about every 60 seconds. This has got to be some sort of record-setting asshole, and Mr. May gives him an all-stops-out nastiness coupled to a certain reticent quality that helps render the character bizarrely special.

The movie's ending, as well as its end credits sequence, delights in a fuck-you-all insouciance that you'll either revel in or hate. Either way, Green House is something else indeed.

At the other end of the spectrum is the remarkably moving, thought-provoking and utterly serious documentary entitled SEADRIFT -- about the eponymously titled seaside community in Texas where, back in 1979, a Vietnamese refugee made national news by shooting and killing a local crabber. How and why this happened is explored in hindsight by filmmaker Tim Tsai by looking at historical records and interviewing the surviving folk from both the original local (and very white) Seadrift shellfishing community, and that of the immigrant Vietnamese who were "rescued" and moved to the USA, once we Americans pulled out of Vietnam after wreaking havoc there for more than a decade.

Mr. Tsai is even-handed in his exploration of now and then, of the locals and the Vietnamese, and what he shows us are people on both sides who were buffeted about by circumstance in some cases beyond their control. How the Vietnamese were summarily dumped into locations like Seadrift without any preparation for either them or the communities into which they were thrust could hardly help but stir up bad feelings. It was, as one participant notes, "a fast culture shock."

From early annoyance through eventual anger and finally violence, the documentary progresses. Of course we see nationalism and racism front and center (hello, KKK!) but we also see, eventually, some coming to terms with past sins and present feelings so that growth is made. One of the major moments comes as the daughter of the victim of the shooting talks about how one of the most famous wartime photos from Vietnam, together with the subject of that photo, has changed the way she looks at things.

Seadrift ends with an historical/political idea so on-the-mark it ought to be heard worldwide -- and certainly by those who still feel, after all that has transpired over there, that the USA had a good reason to be in Vietnam.

In addition to these two worthwhile films, there are seven more (including one short subject) on the American Fringe schedule. You can view all the programs by clicking here (for English) or here (for French). And if you happen to be in Paris this week, well, lucky you!

Note to filmmakers: 

There is no fee to submit your film 

to the next edition of American Fringe. 

Simply go to this site, enter your name, email, film title, 

logline, and screener link; your film will be considered.

Volker Schlöndorff's smooth-as-silk DIPLOMACY opens at NYC's Film Forum

A feast for folk who appreciate fine acting, writing and directing rolled into one smart art/mainstream movie, DIPLOMACY (Diplomatie) -- adapted by director Volker Schlöndorff and co-writer Cyril Gely (from the latter's stage play) -- gives us a fictionalized answer to why, toward the end of WWII in August of 1944, Paris wasn't burning. Adolf Hitler had planned the entire destruction of this glorious city if it appeared that Germany, whose troops still controlled Paris, was not after all going to win the war. (Back in 1966 French director René Clément gave us an all-star cast, both French and American, in a so-so documentary-style rendition of this famous non-event entitled Is Paris Burning?, but Schlöndorff's nifty, smaller-scale endeavor turns out to be the much better film.)

Schlöndorff's career as a long-active writer/director (he's pictured at left) goes back 54 years, during which he has made various kinds of movies (though not any rom-coms that I recall) -- from Young Torless through The Tin Drum to his marvelous documentary Billy Wilder Speaks -- most of them quite serious and more than a few of them damned good. Diplomacy is no exception, though to my mind it is one of his most simple, accessible and moving films -- one that is almost certain to appeal hugely to seniors and film buffs, as well as anyone who loves Paris and/or those more-or-less true tales that have come out of World War II.

While it is true that the Wehrmacht commander of Greater Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz (above), and Swedish Consul General Raoul Nordling (below) did indeed meet, what we get here in a completely fictionalized account of what might have happened between them. That said, what Gely and Schlöndorff have come up with is delectable indeed.

From the manner in which Nordling arrives in von Choltitz's hotel suite (how this figures into French history, as well as the modern-day goings-on, is appropriately pointed and juicy) to the wonderful conversation that ensues between these two very smart and driven men keep the movie on point for its swift, 88-minute running time.

Both actors -- André Dussollier as the Consul and Niels Arestrup as the General -- could hardly be better (both performed the play on-stage, as well) and they light into the dialog with relish and aplomb, capturing the smallest nuances beautifully. Some of this dialog, as the Consul pleads with the General to think of what he will be destroying, is simply so glorious, so beautiful, that it will have you close to, even not in, tears for the love for the Paris that so many of us hold dear.

All this is intercut with scenes taking place at the site of what will be the destructive explosions to come as, first, the French resistance sabotages the plan, and then the Nazis rush to reset the charges and carry out the destruction. Of course, we know what happens (or does not), yet the suspense is surprisingly tight. Just hearing demolitions expert Jacques Lanvin (a very fine Jean Marc Roulot. shown center, above) explain what is going to happen and how Paris will be utterly destroyed is so convincing that we're shaken up simply by the verbal description.  Also grandly staged are the beginning scenes at the hotel in which the German General is housed, and what happens when word of its evacuation runs rampant.

Just about everything, in fact, works well in this exemplary movie that takes you from fear and loathing to sadness and joy, with stops for a few surprises along the way. This is classy filmmaking in all regards; Diplomacy is highly recommended. (That's Robert Stadlober, above, who plays a younger German Lieutenant.)

The movie, from Zeitgeist Films, opens this coming Wednesday, October 15, in New York City exclusively at Film Forum, an in the Los Angele area on November 7 at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. Over the weeks and months to come, the film will play cities across the country. To see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters, click here, and then scroll down to WHERE TO SEE DIPLOMACY, and then use the right-hand scroll bar to view all showings, organized by state.

Note: Volker Schlöndorff will appear in person 

at Film Forum at the 7 pm screenings on 

Wednesday and Thursday, October 15 and 16.

Israel Horovitz's MY OLD LADY gives plum roles to three great actors in one sweet film

Say what you will about Israel Horovitz's feel-good rom-com-dramedy MY OLD LADY -- and I suspect that when the film opens this Friday, there will some very vociferous nay-sayers: The early ads for the film have taken to quoting critics such as yours truly, so clearly, they didn't have any famous "print" names to bandy about -- in this film, Mr. Horovitz's first major work as a director (he's best known as a playwright), he has brought together a well-nigh perfect cast and given it three plum roles to act in a tale that is almost sure to delight no end the forty-year-old-and beyond audience. The trials and tribulations going on here -- real estate and wills, parenting and parentage -- will be of no account to youngsters but prove catnip to most adults, particularly, I think, the senior crowd.

Horovitz, pictured at right, began this project using one of his plays, but as a movie director he has opened the play out so thoroughly and so well that anyone not knowing this guy's métier would never imagine that the tale began as a stage play. Horovitz has also set his contraption in Paris and made pretty good use of that fabulous place so that, visually, the movie is a constant treat. Even without the City of Light, with a cast this sterling -- which is used here spectacularly well -- you won't want to take your eyes off these marvelous performers for even a moment.

Of course, we're used to Maggie Smith (above), Kevin Kline (below) and Kristin Scott Thomas (further below), each offering first-class performances, but seldom are they given roles this plumb and then used in a manner both this obvious and this well. Watching the three play off each other is an absolute delight.

The story involves Mr. Kline as an American in Paris who has inherited from his estranged and now-dead father a rather large Parisian estate. What he finds when he arrives constitutes surprise after surprise after surprise.

Yet the plot is really rather simple, once the set-up is in place. But again, the performances breathe life and art into all they touch. The situation here is not an uncommon one where real estate in concerned. In fact, a good friend of mine found herself with a similar "cross to bear" some years back. But that was here in New York City. The French evidently have even more encompassing laws that protect the rights of those who find themselves in the situation occupied by the character played by Ms Smith.

In addition to this storied threesome, Horovitz (did he use a French casting director? I can find none credited on the IMDB) has cast some terrific French and Belgian actors -- including Dominique Pinon (below, left) as a local real estate agent, Noémie Lvovsky as the family doctor, and Stéphane De Groodt as the initial (and incorrect) love interest for Ms Scott Thomas -- all of whom shine.

As a film director Horovitz shows surprising promise late in his career. Scene after scene bubbles with enthusiasm and smarts, as he places his performers at precisely the right spot and then films them at their best. He is also subtler than I would have expected, and this is never better expressed than in his final scene. Here, in the far background, we catch sight of someone who remains in the far background and yet is so very present that we can rejoice in how beautifully and quietly the filmmaker has made perfect use of her, first to last.

OK: This film is a fairy tale of sorts. But fairy tales done well are among the very legitimate reasons so many of us still flock to cinema. These days, in particular (ISIS, anyone?).

From Cohen Media Group and running 104 lovely minutes, My Old Lady opens this Wednesday in New York (at the AMC Lincoln Square, Angelika, Bowtie Chelsea and Cinema 123) and  in Los Angeles (at The Landmark and the Arclight, Hollywood). Over the coming weeks it will open in cities across the country. You can find all currently scheduled playdates by clicking here and scrolling down a bit.

Broadbent and Duncan in LE WEEK-END: It's another fine Michell and Kureishi collaboration

The decade-long collaboration between director Roger Michell (shown below, right) and writer Hanif Kureishi (further below, left) now includes three remarkable films: The Mother (from 2003, in which Daniel Craig showed us capabilities far in excess of anything his 007 has managed), Venus (2006 and one of Peter O'Toole's latter-day wonders) and now LE WEEK-END, in which Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan play a long-married Brit couple taking a quickie vacation in Paris. For my money the Michell/Kureishi oeuvre is every bit as interesting and fine as Kureishi's earlier collaboration with Stephen Frears that resulted in only two films (but good ones!): My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.

Le Week-End proves quite a surprise for both its on-screen participants and those of us in the audience because, though it goes places we might expect concerning a long-married couple, because this "terrible twosome" is in a foreign country, and particularly in "the city of light," some kind of sea change occurs that allows the pair to, yes, bicker, fight and hurt each other but somehow manage to burn right through to the other side of it all. This is due, I think, to some very

fine writing by Kureishi that probes history and need in a natural, non-expositionary manner, and to three simply marvelous performances (the third is from the amazing, funny and quite wonderful Jeff Goldblum, who plays an old friend and compatriot of the husband, whom the pair encounters by chance one Parisian evening). How our couple steers its course around the Scyllas & Charybdises (did I get those plurals correct?) of the senior years, marriage, mentor-ing and professional jealousy makes for a most thoughtful, moving, funny and entertaining 93 minutes.

Mr. Goldblum, above, continues to amaze via his later work -- from Adam Resurrected onwards (he's out now in two movies: this one and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I've yet to see). Here he tamps down the pomposity (it's still there but used so charmingly and well) and offers a performance alive with the quiet fear of a successful man who realizes that he is something of a fake, while enjoying what that fakery can bestow. And, ah, how he still loves his old friend.

Mr. Broadbent and Ms Duncan, above and below, as always, are stunningly real and immensely enjoyable to watch as they show us the ins and out of a couple for whom life together and life apart seem equally unbearable. Every moment here is real -- and entertaining, too, in the manner that fine acting always is.

Paris, too, has seldom seemed so special. And not in the charming and funny manner that Woody Allen presented it at "Midnight." Just walking down the street seems some kind of blessing, and  the meals -- ah, well! The British, as well as us Americans, may make fun of the French (and vice versa) but there is no denying the special place Paris hold in the hearts of so many of us. This movie brings that home.

The film's climax takes place at a dinner party at which our couple goes their own separate ways for a time: she into the sphere of an attractive younger gentleman (above), he into the room of the Goldblum character's son. These are lovely, poignant, genuine scenes, and the result -- taking place over the communal dinner table -- is one for the books.

Le Week-End, released by Music Box Films, opens tomorrow, Friday, March 14, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and in Los Angeles at The Landmark. The following week it will hit theaters in another dozen cities and then continue spreading out in the weeks to come. To see all currently scheduled playdates with cities and theaters listed, click here, and then click THEATERS on the menu bar midway down your screen.

Streaming: Luc Besson is back with something different and delightful: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADÈLE BLANC-SEC

We've been hearing about THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADÈLE BLANC-SEC -- the 2010 film directed, written and associate-produced by Luc Besson -- for several years now, always wondering: Will it ever be released over here? I think it was shown at FIAF in New York City some time back, and of course distributed in most of the rest of the countries around the world. But not here -- until it finally hit DVD in the USA last fall and is now available via Netflix streaming. It's an odd bird of a film, especially for someone known so well for his action movies as is Besson. Yet it has been received rather well throughout the world, and now that we have the chance to finally view "Blanc-Sec," it is easy to understand why.

What this famous French movie-maestro, shown at right, has done is to take the very earliest reason that so many of us folk grew up loving film -- the sense of wide-eyed, childlike spectacle and adventure that movies can provide -- and hand it back to us as adults. This works surprisingly well and so we lap it up all over again.

Set in the early 1900s, the film is lavish in its use of sets and costumes that beautifully whisk us back 150 years.

If the basic story is pretty paint-by-numbers -- intelligent adventuress gets involved in Egyptian tomb robbing, romance (rather one-sided) and a pterodactyl (this is the film's pièce de résistance), the execution of that story is done with such sprightliness and charm (not what you would call M. Besson's calling cards up until now) that we are easily carried along.

Truthfully, this movie is such a very odd compilation of story, style, events and special effects that it resembles little else (certainly little in Besson's catalog). The film it most calls to mind is Belpheghor: Phantom of the Louvre, though  Adèle is better than Belpheghor in every way. Its oddness is actually what keeps us amazed and amused. From the outset, as we watch an event of phaux physics taking place that results in the hatching of said pterodactyl, then take a trip to the Folies Bergère (above), go off for some Egyptian mumbo-jumbo that may bring to mind a female Indiana Jones, events are so fast, furious and far afield that we can only watch, open-mouthed and chuckling.

In the lead role, Besson has cast an upcoming actress, Louise Bourgoin (above, from The Girl from Monaco and Black Heaven) and then surrounded her with some current icons of French cinema -- from an unrecognizable Mathieu Amalric (below) to a nearly unrecognizable Gilles Lellouche (center, further below), among others. Everyone gets into the correct spirit of foolish fun and delivers the right kind of performance to keep the movie's tone on track.

The film boasts two expert pieces of special effect cinema played for all they are worth. One is that pterodactyl, a remarkable piece of work that will keep you glued to the screen, breathless and laughing at the same time. This big bird is a marvel that will scare, charm and finally even move you a bit. (I could find not a single photo of him, either, so you'll just have to watch the movie to see him in action!)

The second "wonder" is a unwrapped mummy -- eventually, an entire horde of them -- who come to life and prove quite the intelligent tourists in the Paris of two centuries past. The mummies are played as much for charm and humor as for any fright factor, and this decision was quite the smart one. I think that the late Ray Harryhausen, bless his special-effect soul, would have loved both these wonderful creations.

What Besson has done is to pretty much re-imagine family entertainment, giving the kids plenty to gape at and laugh at, while their parents get spectacles of another sort: costumes, sets, wittier humor and irony. And all this is live-action, remember.

Even if much of the film does resemble a cartoon, the style, tone and movie-making skills on display render it all into this very odd mixture of goofiness, charm, beauty and child-like delight.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec is available to view now via Netflix streaming & via Amazon Instant Video or DVD/Blu-ray.