Philippe Faucon's FATIMA: France's Best Picture winner opens in U.S. theaters

The French, in my humble opinion, have long been perverse -- culturally, socially, politically, sexually, you-name-it-ly -- and this is, to a large extent, part of the country's charm and appeal, especially to some of us Americans who might like to be a bit more sophisticated but may lack the wherewithal. That country's choice this year of FATIMA as its César-winning Best Picture award would seem to bear this out. I can't think of a Best Picture choice from a European nation as unusual and oddly challenging since perhaps Spain's Goya Award to Solitary Fragments (La soledad) back in 2008.

There is little beyond the Best Picture selection that the two films share -- except their superior quality and the fact that they were such a surprise choice. Jaime Rosales' Spanish masterpiece about (among other things) society, family, caring and terrorism runs two hours and fifteen minutes, while Philippe Faucon's (the filmmaker is shown at right) look at the immigrant experience in France lasts all of a mere 75 minutes. Yet in terms of reach and grasp coalescing, the film is near perfect.

If TrustMovies had been voting for this particular award, his choice would have been Marguerite over Fatima for reasons of ambition, challenge and execution, though he loves both movies very much. And god knows, immigration (particularly from Arab countries) remains the hot-button issue worldwide and especially in France where, since (and probably long prior to) The Battle of Algiers, movies have been responding to life and political situations.

M. Faucon's film is simplicity itself, using a quiet documentary style to depict the life of an immigrant family in which the mother, the eponymous Fatima (played, in her acting debut, with self-effacing gravity and style by Soria Zeroual, shown above and further above), is a cleaning lady who works long hours to support her two daughters. Her husband (Chawki Amari, below, right) has left her for another woman, though he does make occasional appearances, gifting his daughters with merchandise like a new pair of sneakers.

One daughter, a pretty teen played with haughty, angry rebellion by newcomer Kenza Noah Aïche (above, left), can't seem to stifle that anger and so makes her mother's life more hellish than it needs to be, Fatima's older daughter, Nessrine (played by Zita Hanrot, below, left, of Eden and The New Girlfriend) is about to enter medical school and desperately needs more money, not to mention more confidence, to manage this. It is a testament to the filmmaker's skill that he handles all three actresses, as well as the rest of his diverse cast -- fledglings and pros -- so well that they appear a most believable family, within the fuller society at large.

Not all that much "event" takes place throughout the movie, but what there is proves enough -- along with the utter truthfulness of how Faucon dramatizes what we see -- to capture our mind and heart. I don't remember ever experiencing such enormous and unadulterated joy at a character's success as I felt at the close of this film. (I believe that is Zakaria Ali-Mehidi, above, right, who plays Nessrine's new friend Sélim.) How M. Faucon introduces us to cultural habits involving dating and sexuality, as well as how important image and reputation are to the older generation, is handled particularly well -- with an understanding of both the positive and negative aspects involved.

Faucon, as director and co-writer, shows us how especially difficult life can be for immigrants like our heroine, who do not learn to speak and write French. Late in the film, writing in her own language, Fatima demonstrates a keen intelligence, as well as poetic gift, as she describes a generic, all-purpose Fatima, without whose help and care, the French-speaking "white" populace could barely exist.

The blessings and rewards of a film like this one may be diminutive and quiet, but they are all the more impressive for the way their small size turns into vast scope. From Kino-Lorber, Fatima opens this Friday, August 26, in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and then on September 16 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere? Let's hope that, once word-of-mouth grows a bit, the film will find further venues. Click here and then click on PLAYDATES to keep up with future bookings.

On-Demand: Daniel Monzón's CELL 211, one of 2009's top films

Prison movie aficionados, lovers of fast-paced thrillers, folk who appreciate films that explore society top-down (and bottom-up) -- rejoice. The film that won most of last year's Goya awards (Spain's "Oscars") and the hit of December 2009's FSLC Spanish Cinema Now series is about to debut from IFC On-Demand this coming Wednesday, June 2, as part of its continuing IFC Midnight series.

CELL 211, co-adapted (with Jorge Guerricaechevarría, from the novel by Francisco Pérez Gandul) and directed by Daniel Monzón, is so rich in excitement and surprise -- without sacrificing an ounce of believability -- that the less you know about it going in, the more you'll enjoy it. (My original review from last December appears here, in which I don't think there are any spoilers afoot.)  If you are looking for a movie that offers both mainstream appeal and quality in everything from writing to direction, acting to theme, you've got one here.

Winning those prized Goyas for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, Monzón (shown above, center, with his award-winning co-stars, Luis Tosar, left and Alberto Ammann), is able to involve us immediately in the situation (a whoppingly exciting and original one), maintaining the tension, while adding incident after incident that brings Spanish society -- politics, economics and even terrorism -- to the fore until, without seeming to push any agenda, black has become white and evil good.

Seeing the film a second time, after a delay of several months, TrustMovies found it an even richer experience, so he thinks you should try it at least once. If you're a newcomer to IFC On-Demand, click here to learn the ropes.

WELCOME opens via Film Movement; interview with star Vincent Lindon

It's not just America that's experiencing some trouble with immigration.  Throughout Western Europe, immigrants act as ready-made Rorschach tests on the populace of the country to which they come. WELCOME, a what-to-do-with-
'em saga that was nominated for ten César awards this past year (while winning eight international festival awards), is a smart heart-tugger that does not draw tears as much as make you look at the situation from all angles: that of foreigners and natives, as well as that of those who police the immigrants and others who protect them.  

Vincent Lindon, shown at right, who also stars in the upcoming Mademoiselle Chambon (to be released next month) and on whom could be bestowed the mantel of Jean Gabin, is wonderful in the lead role, as a swimming coach who gets involved with one of the foreigners and -- for reasons nicely textured between altruistic and self-serving -- finds himself ensnared in events and feelings he would neither have expected nor chosen.  

Lindon does the "working man" about as well as anyone in memory (hence the Gabin reference), and Welcome proves no exception to this rule.  The actor brings an odd kind of grace to his heavy hand and heart; his character is in the middle of a break-up with his sweetheart (well payed by Audrey Dana, of Lelouche's Roman de Gare, who is shown above, with Lindon), and so is probably more vulnerable than usual.  The third wheel is newcomer Firat Ayverdi, below, who plays Bilat, the 17-year-old Iraqi Kurd who is bent on reaching London to reunite with his sweetheart.

These three, and all of their co-workers, friends and city dwellers from police to social workers, collude, intentionally or not, to help and hinder Bilat's quest.  Breathing and swimming enter the picture in surprising ways, pushing the plot along and providing reasons for its taking the direction it does.  Director and co-writer Philippe Lioret (shown below), uses his fine eye to show us the beauty of the everyday and he has the sense not to push too hard in any direction.  Consequently a genuine feeling of surprise runs through the film, rather than the coerced inevitability that so many of these immigrant movies, happy or sad, seem to possess.

You can't call Welcome -- ironic title, that -- a feel-good movie, except in the sense that a movie done well can't help but make you feel good on some level of artistic appreciation.  What I call a mainstream/arthouse film, it should be perfectly accessible to any viewer who can read subtitles (or understand French). Film Move-
ment, who rarely offers anything less than a very good film, seems the proper venue for its distribution, and so is opening this Friday, May 7, in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.  Film Movement members, in fact, have already received it as their February film (an inducement to join); the DVD will be available for sale or rent later this year.

***********

TrustMovies met with Vincent Lindon during the Rendez-vous With French Cinema series from the FSLC last March, on an afternoon when industry, press and guests had a delicious lunch in one of the grand rooms of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue Services Culturels - Ambassade de France.  Lindon, like any good "working man," seemed fit, full of spirit and even eager to talk -- which given the number of interviews these stars juggle, cannot be particularly easy.  Below, TrustMovies' questions are in bold, while Lindon's answers are in standard type.


I’ve seen about 15 of your films over the years -- I know you’ve made a lot more, but I don’t think we’ve been able to see them over here – and one thing that has impressed me is how little dialog you sometimes have. So much is expressed via face and hands and movement. And even though you often play a working man, you have amazing delicacy.

Yes! But have you noticed how, in real life, when you are in love, or when you are very angry with someone, there are no words. I expect it is the same for me and you and a lot of the people on the planet. After the first kiss, it happens that you feel like you are going to fall in love. Afterward, we want to put our head on the shoulder of each other. We can sit like that a long time because we...  we really don’t know what to say. It is as if we do not know the words, so we just want to stay close like that. And until we know what to say, the longer we are like this, the better it is.

When we are angry, it is the same. We may shout, but we also can sit very still, and angry, or we stand up and walk and we pick something up from the desk and (Lindon begins giving me a visual demonstration) and we just do this, all without words. In movies, sometimes -- say a movie is 1 hour and 45 minutes – well, we cannot stretch the time to make it real, because if we do, that small scene is going to take 45 minutes.

And bore the audience to death.

Yes! So very often we don’t speak. Sometimes, in a restaurant, two persons don’t say anything for even two or three minutes.

But you are also very good when you have to use words. I’ve seen you in several movies where you do talk a lot.

But I prefer now, getting older and older, I prefer not to speak. Just to be. I don’t know the word in English: In France, we say Incarner. 

As to “incarnate” the role?  Embody?

Maybe, yes!

I am probably not the first to say this, actually the NY Times said it, too. -- but I said it first on my blog! -- (Lindon laughs) You seem to me to be the one actor who can take on the kind of roles that Jean Gabin used to play. Do they say that in France?

Yes.

So I am not the first.

But in the United States, you are the first!

OK -- good!

And I am very proud. I love Jean Gabin. I love him. I love Robert Mitchum, too. There are very few that I am crazy about. (He thinks a moment) James Cagney! I love him

Oh, yes, you remind me of him, too! I wonder, do you also sing and dance like he did?

No. But I do love James Cagney. And I hate Humphrey Bogart.

Really?

I hate him. I know his work, and I do not like his movies. The real one for me is James Cagney, then Edward G. Robinson. But Humphrey Bogart is very far away from them. I also love Cary Grant. …. There is not so many actors that I dream to be like.

That’s plenty – you’ve named a lot of good actors. 

When you read a script and then you actually film the movie, are you often surprised at the result on the screen?

No. It is very often exactly that, with a little bit plus or less. But it is what I expect.

I am probably guessing here, but is this because the French film industry is more closely knit, with a little bit better communication between actors, and between actors and directors?

Yes, Oh yes. We speak a lot. We get lunch and dinner together and speak on the phone and go with the children on Sunday for a walk -- for three, four five months before shooting. And the director is on the set and not in some van with 25 screens. No, it is very human. We don’t even have the money to have a big van with 25 screens. Sometimes we go in the same car to go back in the house. Sometimes we even drive each other. Or I say, can you drop me at my house? It’s very…

...close?

Yes, and when I go back to my house, and if I want to call the director at night at 10pm, then I call the director. It’s not like here in American: "We only have 12 hours to play and if you want to tell me something, you have to call my manager." I am not saying that it’s better or not better. But it is more… French.

For example, I met Ridley Scott in Cannes, when he was about to do a new movie: A Year in Provence with Russell Crowe.

I think they called it A Good Year, with Marion Cotillard, right?

Yes.  I did not want to do this movie, but after we spoke for half an hour, I really liked Ridley Scott. So I went up to the office, where the casting director said to me, “Oh, Vincent, can you read the script quite rapidly, and then you call me back and tell me if you like it, or if you have some things you don’t feel good with, and then I will say this to Ridley. I will give him a report."  And I said, "What? You will speak to Ridley for me. I cannot talk to him myself?" So she tell me, "No. But before the shooting in Provence we will make a big reading, and then after, Ridley can see each actor for 15 minutes, in which to talk." I thought, you are fucking crazy: I get 15 minutes with my director? No, no: If I do a movie with Ridley Scott, I want to speak with my director when I need to do this. I want to speak with him, I want to know about his wife and children. I want to know if he prefer red wine or white. If not, I don’t do that job. I prefer to be baker or lawyer. I don’t care. And Russell Crowe: I will see him for just ten second before action, and five seconds after the cut. Russell Crowe in the US is not more than I am in France.

Now, I love American movies, but what I think is that it is too difficult for me -- a European guy -- to work in the U.S.

Maybe this is why most European stars do not translate to American films that well?

To make an American film, you are obliged to speak English very well. Even then, the most you can hope for is to get a part where you play the lead and must play a Frenchman. You do this once, and then you go back. I would like to be able to speak English like an American guy because there are a lot – a lot – of American directors I would like to work with: Scorsese, Woody Allen.

In looking through all the movies of yours I have seen, one that impressed me a lot was Chaos.

Yes.

In that one you play a kind of villain role, but you never really play a villain role because you always make the man better than that. And when you play a hero, he’s is never quite a hero, because you always make him less, and more real. (Lindon nods, yes) Also, La moustache. Was that a difficult film to make? Did you know what was going on in that movie?

No. Nobody did.

Good, because we didn’t either. But we enjoyed it.

I loved the script, but I am not able to tell you something about that script. Just... just that I know I like it. It is like when you are standing in front of a painting, and you like it, but maybe you don’t know why.

You have worked with Emmanuelle Devos several times, too.

Ahhhh. Yes, and I go back to Paris tomorrow night, and I start shooting another movie with Emmanuelle! My third one. I love her!

Those Who Remain, the film you did with her, was another really, deeply-felt movie. But let’s talk about Welcome, which Film Movement will release soon. We need films like this in America because we have a similar immigrant problem that you have in France.

Yes, with Mexico.

And also many of the Central and South American countries. But it seems as though Americans don’t like movies about immigration. Or about Iraq, either. We don’t want to see them.

Do you feel that, with the change in electing Obama, that there is a big change in the minds of people?

(TM sighs, and shakes his head, no)

Are you proud of your President?

No. Not so much. I voted for him, and I had hope. But he is a politician. Just like they all are. Aren’t they? Aren’t they all basically just politicians?

Shit.

Are you proud of Sarkozy?

No. I hate him! But I was proud of Chirac. I am proud of a President that says, We are not going to do the war.

I was proud of him, too. I wish Blair in England had said that -- and that America had said that. It seems that now -- we don’t know what is going to happen, of course, but Obama seems to suddenly have been goosed into action of late.

Everybody had said that to me. In the last two, three weeks, it seems. But he is still better than Bush, right?

Yes, anyone -- anything -- is better than Bush and his group.

You know the one I really like? Bill Clinton! He made a good image for your country.

We nod in agreement (about the image, if not the reality), 
and while I don’t know what is going through 
M. Lindon’s mind right now, mine is suddenly filled 
with the memory of better times -- in France and in America.

We’ll have more of this interview, and where it takes us in terms of his next film -- Mademoiselle Chambon -- when that movie opens next month.

All photos above are from Welcome, courtesy of Film Movement.

SCN hosts another winner: José Luis Garci's fabulous history lesson SANGRE DE MAYO

And the hits just keep on coming. The FSLC's Spanish Cinema Now, usually a good bet, has this year outdone itself. With four of the new films left to see (I missed Rec 2), only one of the eighteen has been a miss. The rest, good to wonderful, are reason enough to attend this sterling series. Yesterday's movie BLOODY MAY (Sangre de Mayo) co-written (with Horacio Valcárcel) and directed by José Luis Garci (shown below) is one of the series' best -- working simultaneously as history, drama, pageant and art.

Beginning with a charming, slightly ironic narration full of fascinating facts from Spain's history, the accompanying visuals move from historical artwork into "reality" -- where the sets, costumes and cinematography will pop your eyes. We meet our hero, Gabriel, played by Quim Gutiérrez -- shown, center, below -- slightly gap-toothed and dimple-chinned (another of Spain's young actors bolstering that country's reputation for possessing the world' most beautiful men). Gabriel works as a "helper" to a local theater company, where he's particularly good at keeping his ear to the ground for rumors of things political, military, romantic, whatever. Enamored with a lovely young woman (shown two photos below), he still jumps at the chance to go into the service of a lady of the aristocracy, where, she makes clear from the beginning, he will act as her servant, spy and lover.

Though all this, he (and we) learn bits and pieces of what's going on behind the scenes. The time is the early 1800's when Spain is controlled by France, via a kind of puppet government that cedes decision-making to Napoleon and his eldest brother Joseph Bonaparte, even as the Spanish people -- sick of being under the thumb of soldiers who cannot even speak their language -- are preparing for revolt. Concurrently, we learn how other forces, such as the Church and the theater, fit into this mix.

It's a rich and heady kind of stew that Garci and Valcárcel have concocted, and yet it seems prepared to be digested by, say, intelligent teenagers, so simple and understandable have the filmmakers chosen to make it. I do not mean this as derogatory, for the potent mix of politics, amorous adventure, military information and -- finally -- armed resistance is therefore easier to comprehend. By giving us a dose here, a dose there, they lead us along, usually in the shoes of the Gabriel, his lover and her cleric uncle.

Bloody May is an unusually warm movie -- from its photography (by the award-winning Félix Monti), bathed in hues of yellow, to its cast of characters, each brought to life by an accomplished actor (the cast is huge and made up of a number of Spain's finest). Interestingly, the filmmakers find no real villains here, not even in the avaricious relatives (below) of Gabriel's young lady, nor in the aristocracy. Garci and Valcárcel take a larger view so that the alliances and betrayals -- whether in politics, economics or love -- seem simply a part of the greater life. The relationship between servant Gabriel and his aristocratic mistress is one of genuine caring. Despite how things turn out, these two want to best for each other, and we want the same for them.

Where the filmmaker's sympathies lie, however -- it becomes increasingly clear -- is with the common people. The single, prolonged scene of war (shown below) -- the uprising of the townspeople against the French -- is stupendous, not because of its specials effects or its huge cast, but due to the filmmaker's ability to capture so many individual moments that bring home war's destruction as well as I have ever seen it done. Garci acted as his own film editor here, and the man knows what's it's all about: not a matter of CGI effects and gargantuan bloodshed but of a mother protecting her son, of men and women rising up in anger with whatever weapons they can find. Gabriel, though more of a lover than a fighter, has finally to pick up a weapon, too just as common folk everywhere seem eventually to do.

The finale is a memorable wonder. The filmmakers find a way -- in but two short moments -- to link history to art and give a world-famous painting its own back-story. An instant later, in another sudden and astonishing twist, "then" becomes "now" and, as the credits roll, we're left to ponder all that has happened in the two centuries between. (This was one of the rare times I've been in a theater in which almost no one in the audience walked out during the final credit roll.)

In this past year's Goya Awards, Sangre de mayo appears to have been the biggest competitor of Camino, which won all the major prizes. It's not difficult to understand why, as the latter movie is "modern," ground-breaking and deals with a more apparently controversial subject. If I'd had to choose between them, the choice would have been difficult. In the end, I think I'd have gone with Garci's warm and intimate historical epic, for Sangre de Mayo makes Spaniards of us all.

Bloody May screens one more time only at the Walter Reade Theater, closing this year's Spanish Cinema Now, on Sunday evening, December 20, at 7:50.