Cantet/Campillo's THE WORKSHOP is rich, encompassing cinema -- both broad and deep

TrustMovies often speaks of French cinema (and the French themselves) as perverse. I mean this as a kind of complement because they and their films so often go in a different direction than expected. Whether this is done for humorous, ironic or sometimes, yes, simply transgressive reasons, the result can be bracing, abrasive and thought-provoking. So it is with THE WORKSHOP, a new film directed by Laurent Cantet (Human Resources, Time Out, Heading South and The Class) and his co-writer Robin Campillo (Eastern Boys, They Came Back, and the recent BPM).

Messieurs Cantet (shown at left) and Campillo (below) have worked together often enough now that I suspect their wavelengths must be close enough to nearly run as one. Either that or their strengths and weaknesses so balance each other out that the result is, at this point, just about seamless. 

With The Workshop, the pair addresses a host of themes and ideas, both super-timely and, well, ageless. These would include everything from immigration and terrorism (the home-

grown variety) to the impact and importance of art on the general public. Oh, yes -- and, as my spouse pointed out after viewing the film, it is also, maybe most of all, an unusual coming-of-age tale.

In the film, a young man named Antoine (played by the excellent newcomer Matthieu Lucci, shown below, left) from a local port city in France joins a summer school workshop led by a smart and attractive teacher from the "big city" (the always interesting Marina Fois, below, center).

As the class progresses, it becomes clear that Antoine is both very talented and very problemed. How this is revealed to us demonstrates anew Cantet/Campillo's excellent grasp of storytelling techniques, dialog, and the mysteries of human character and motive.

The filmmakers excel at something I'd call not mis-direction (intentionally bringing you to think or expect the wrong thing) but rather a refusal to satisfy your expectations too easily or simple-mindedly. Cantet and Campillo actually demonstrate Chekov's famous "gun" concept and then stand it on its head by making that second-act usage less (and at the same time more) than a mainstream audience may want or care to wrestle with.

The entire class (above) is peopled by a fine assortment of young characters, each of whom is drawn and acted quite well, and who together represent a smart but not-too-tidy look at today's France. Their reactions to each other, and especially to Antoine, are spot-on and help push the plot, such as it is, onwards. I say "such as it is" because Cantet and Campillo have always been more interested in character and theme than in heavily dramatic plotting.

Things happen and build to a kind of crescendo of dramatic possibilities, and then they simply ebb as naturally as the tide that rises and falls around the port town. This may disappoint those who demand melodrama and major confrontation, but it will surely satisfy others who prefer a more realistic slice-of-life that refuses to solve all problems within the framework of a less-than-two-hour movie. Some change does occur here -- and to all the characters -- though we cannot be sure, I think, in which direction that change is headed or how it will turn out.

It has been enough to confront politics, economics, unemployment, immigration, the making of art and the confusion of youth so very well as do Cantet and Campillo. I can't wait to see what this duo comes up with next. From Strand Releasing, in French with English subtitles and running 108 minutes, The Workshop opens this Friday, March 23, in New York City at the IFC Center and then on April 6 in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt, and here in South Florida at the Tower Theater, in Miami, and the Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale, as well as elsewhere across the country. Click here (then scroll down to click on Screenings on the task bar) to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Robin Campillo's odd, moving and surprising immigrant love story -- EASTERN BOYS

One of the many things I love about the films of Robin Campillo (shown at right) is how interested he is in all his characters. As a writer/director, he's made two fine films: this new one and They Came Back, one of the most unusual zombie movies of all time in which the undead return and instead of feasting on human flesh, simply want their jobs and homes and loved ones back again. As screenwriter-only, Campillo has given us three terrific films: Time Out, Heading South and The Class, all of which, whatever plot is involved, once again help us understand the situation and needs of the various characters we meet -- to the point at which we are no longer so easily able to take sides.

In his new film EASTERN BOYS, he begins with a gay pick-up in and around the Parisian railway station Gare du Nord, below, of a young man (an Eastern European immigrant) by a middle-aged well-off Parisian. Where this initial assignation leads and how it gets there prove anything but the usual scenario of so many of our gay-themed films. The resulting movie is a beautiful, subdued knockout (although its penultimate scene is quite exciting and would not be out of place in a suspense thriller) -- once again, because we come to understand so well the situation and needs of so many of these characters, we find ourselves identifying with both victims and the so-called villains.

M. Campillo is here tackling several themes -- immigration (which is as hot-button a topic in France as it is all over Europe and America), survival, gay life, and the buying and selling of sex and "love." His take on all of these are what you might expect from a filmmaker as attuned to life as he is to art: realistic but aware of the ways in which need and desire can cloud intelligent thinking.

Our protagonists are played by two actors who give indelible performances: Marek (later to be known as Rouslan) is played by Kirill Emenyanov (above, left),  a young actor who has performed a bit in Russian television and film, here making his western debut; as Daniel, Olivier Rabourdin (below, left) is a French actor I've seen numerous times without really noticing him -- something that I doubt will ever happen again.

Both actors come to life about as fully and beautifully as you could want, especially given Campillo's insistence on not offering up much exposition. He allows the two men to fill in their own characters via behavior -- and they absolutely do this. Each man takes an unexpected course and brings it to believable, pulsating life.

We also get to know the group of young men (one of them particularly young) of whom Marek is one, especially the gang's leader, played by Daniil Vorobyov (above, center), a nasty character whom we initially hate -- until we begin to understand him and his odd situation, as well.

As Campillo moves from the study of a group situation into the specifics of a relationship and back again, we begin to understand things more fully. While I might have wanted a bit more explanation by the older man to the younger of why and how their relationship is changing, thanks to the fine performances I am willing to buy into all this and finally go with the filmmaker's desire for less exposition.

As also is usual in the work of this artist, Campillo offers up a look at class and economics via the haves and have-nots. As is also usual, the filmmaker does not indict the entitled Frenchman simply because he has been given what he has. Instead, it's what he does with this that counts.

Eastern Boys -- from First Run Features; 128 minutes; in French, Russian and English, with English subtitles as needed --  which I expect will appear on a few best-of-year lists come the close of 2015, opens theatrically this Friday, February 27, in New York City at the FSLC's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, in New Orleans on March 6 and the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center, and in Vancouver on April 17 at the Vancity Theater. Click here to see any further scheduled updates as they are booked.

THE RETURNED: Learn why these zombies are worth more than all the others put together....

All the others, that is, except for the returned dead in Robin Campillo's ground-breaking 2004 film, Les revenants (called They Came Back in its international English title), and now returning again, under the same French name, Les Revenants, in the often stunning, if eventually flawed French TV series, THE RETURNED, which first appeared on our Sundance Channel and is now available, commercial-free, via Netflix streaming.

Though I can never thank George A. Romero enough for his earlier and equally ground-breaking zombie movie Night of the Living Dead, I must also admit that Romero's film has spawned far, far too many second-, third- and fourth-rate imitations. M. Campillo's zombie film, however, and the series inspired by it (the movie-makers thank Campillo with an upfront credit in each episode), are something else.

Why? Because, ladies and gentlemen, theses zombies don't find it necessary to feast on the flesh of the living. Which -- unless you are a mostly mindless cretin -- is only exciting/fun/funny/appalling the first few times around. No, these "returned" just want to somehow fit back into life as they knew it and as it is still going on. In Campillo's original film, which is much more politically (economically, socially, historically) savvy than the new TV series, the returned dead want their jobs back for starters. Can you imagine what this might to do an already shaky economy?

Note to young zombie fans, particularly those who claim Campillo's movie was not a zombie film: the word zombie means an animated corpse or "walking dead." There is nothing in the original definition that mentions flesh-eating ghoul. Know your film history, kids, for Christ sake: There were/are famous and popular zombie movies that date prior to Romero's gift to the genre (I Walked With a Zombie, is one such). These were much quieter films, with none of the blood and gore our George bestowed on the species, and The Returned  -- despite one of its undead being a serial killer -- harks back to those quieter zombies.

As directed by Fabrice Gobert (at left, above, who wrote a number of the episodes) and Frédéric Mermoud (above, right, who earlier directed and co-wrote the excellent French film, Complices), the series builds on the set-up given us by Campillo. And it does a sterling job of making its zombies utterly human in their needs and appetites, never more so than in their longing for some of that tasty French food.

Some critics have made much of The Returned's "atmosphere," as though this accounted for its success. What I suspect they mean by atmosphere is rather the many striking details that the series builds on: from the butter-fly collection (above), in which one of those winged creatures suddenly reanimates, to the special knock that one sister uses to alert the other that she is there, to the fact that the code to enter a particular building has changed in the time since the "corpse" last used it as a living person.

All this is beautifully imagined with gravity and grace, and it goes a long way toward sucking us into the story of a quiet French mountain town (built beside a damn and a lake that now covers an older village), in which the dead slowly begin to return. The series sports an impeccable sense of place: the cold, crisp air of this ever-so-slightly strange Alpine village.

The cast is first-rate, as well -- from well-known actors such as Anne Consigny, Frédéric Pierrot, Clothilde Hesme (two photos above), Pierre Perrier and Samir Guesmi to some newer faces like Jenna Thiam (above) and Yara Pilartz (of 17 Girls). The first season is made up of eight episodes lasting around seven hours total, which makes it about four times longer than Campillo's original film. (A second season has now been ordered.)

While this gives us much more time to engage in the plot, as well as the whys and hows of the returning, instead of dealing with the whole picture -- economics, psychology, history, sociology -- the series tends to stick to love stories, of the living for the dead, whether it be boyfriend, daughter, wife or whoever.

This focus on love and loss to the exception of all else lessens the series somewhat, making it finally a more standard thing. (The ending, in fact, rests upon one of the most clichéd notions of the sci-fi/fantasy genre.) It does however, and to its credit, deal with religion as a force for faith -- and control.

As ever, the set-up is much more fascinating that the somewhat meager explanation we get for what has happened and why. But there will be more set-up -- along with more explanation -- to come next season, no doubt.

Meanwhile, enjoy the quiet, the atmosphere, and above all those telling details in this gorgeously appointed series -- another gift from Music Box Films -- that you can stream now on Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and perhaps elsewhere, too.