Anne Fontaine tweaks social conventions yet again in her most entertaining ADORE

Golly, that French gal's doin' it again! Yes, Anne Fontaine, she who has given us those movies that shove conventional bourgeois attitudes against the wall and then push just a bit more until -- whoops! -- the wall falls (I'm talking Dry Cleaning, Natalie, The Girl From Monaco) is back with a new movie that perhaps most aggressively of all her films flouts conventional society and conventional wisdom. (Even her Coco Before Chanel did this via -- not so much the movie itself but -- the character of Coco, who was nothing if not a woman who challenged convention.)

In ADORE (formerly titled, and for the better, I think, Two Mothers), Fontaine (pictured at left) and her writing collaborator Christopher Hampton take on Doris Lessing's novella, The Grandmothers. In the film two women, best friends who have grown up together since early childhood and have now seen each other through the death of one's husband and the upcoming separation from the other's, begin affairs with each other's adult son. This happens fairly early in the film and you cannot discuss the movie intelligently, I think, without also giving away at least this spoiler. How and why each couple's affair begins, however, is quite different, and that difference is what makes the film work--and very well indeed.

The cast could not, I think, be better, down to the smallest roles, though it is that front-and-center quartet -- plus one -- that nails the movie. The two women, Roz and Lil, are played respectively by Robin Wright (above, left) and Naomi Watts (above, right), both of whom are at the top of their game these days. They are partnered surprisingly well by two young hunks who can also act -- Xavier Samuel (below, right, as Lil's son, Ian) and James Frecheville, (below, left, as Roz's son, Tom) -- both of whom prove adept at double duty, playing at once sons and lovers. We expect this sort of skill from actors as seasoned as Wright and Watts, but Samuel and Frecheville, though called upon to feel and understand less, due to their callow youth, match the women in precisely the right way.

What makes the movie work so well (and what will probably drive the more bourgeois moviegoers crazy) is the matter-of-fact quality the film imparts, when dealing with this unusual four-way. After the press screening TrustMovies attended, one of his compatriots noted that, although the premise here is "melodramatically subversive, the actors are at times tasked with uttering lines better suited to a toss-off on whether to fix eggs sunnyside up or down." Exactly.

Once the affairs take hold, rather than give in to the expected melodrama, this crew treats it -- among themselves only: They realize they must keep this sort of thing "in the families" -- as expected behavior, which it quickly becomes. I found this smart, liberating and actually quite believable, given both the history of the two families and the location in which the film is set: a vastly beautiful and underpopulated Australian seaside town where no one locks a door and neighbors are few and even further between.

The fifth wheel here is Roz's husband, Harold, played by the fine Ben Mendelsohn (above, right), who acted opposite Mr. Frecheville in 2010's Animal Kingdom. Harold's acceptance of a better job in Sydney gives the foursome the space and freedom they need to further bond. Only when son Tom is also offered the opportunity to do some theater in Sydney do cracks begin to form in the quartet's little slice of perfection. (That's Jessica Tovey -- below, right -- playing a late-comer to our little group, and it's a mark of how extreme the situation and provocation of Ms Fontaine's film that it is an actress who begins an affair with her theater director who acts as our stand-in for conventional society.)

How things change and what these four do to keep somehow "on track" makes up the remainder of the film, which grows more intense and interesting as it moves along. Aging and age difference rear their heads, as does the need for procreation among the younger generation. At heart, though, the film is about passion and how to handle it when its strength trumps all convention.

I don't see how the performance of either Ms Watts or Ms Wright could be bettered. Mr. Samuel (shown three photos below), who starred in one of the best shark movies of the new millennium, Bait, and had a nice supporting role in Anonymous, registers here as strongly as I've yet seen. As for Mr. Frecheville, right, you'll hardly recognize him from either Animal Kingdom or his odd-but-effective turn in the under-seen The First Time. I suspect this young actor is a lot more versatile than we first imagined.

You can expect huge discord from the major critics a propos this film, which should have an effect on our more conventional male critics -- and some females, too -- in a similar manner as that ground-breaking film The Ledge had on those who must insistently believe in the existence of a god.

Ms Fontaine's films often end badly for those who go up against societal norms. The woman is a realist, after all; unconventionality has a price to pay. This time, however, we may have a kind of tie, or maybe stalemate. In the final moment, as the camera draws up and up, we see that our friends are exactly where they want to be. But at the same time, they are utterly cut off from the world.

What Ms Fontaine has given us here is above all else an "entertainment" (as Graham Greene might have called it): a movie that is sensual, sexual and surprising, featuring beautiful people in a setting gorgeous enough to take one's breath away. For this alone, it's must viewing. And all those thoughtful provocations? Think of Adore as a lovely, fresh-fruit cocktail laced with Aquavit.

The movie -- via Exclusive Media -- opens across the country this Friday, September 6, in theaters and on VOD. Click here, then scroll down, to locate the theater nearest you.

Shôhei Imamura docu retrospective plays AFA; A MAN VANISHES gets one-week run

Is/was there a more interesting Japanese filmmaker with a more varied and ambitious output than Shôhei Imamura (1926-2006)? And TrustMovies is talking about only the man's narrative films -- which comprise all he had seen of his work until now, as -- thanks to Icarus Films, The Japan Foundation and Anthology Film Archives (AFA) -- the half dozen documen-taries made by Imamura (shown above) will have the chance to be seen and savored beginning this Thursday, November 15, including his first, A MAN VANISHES (Ningen jôhatsu) from 1967, which is receiving its U.S. premiere via a full week's run at AFA.

Imamura made only 24 films, including the six documentaries to be shown here, but what an output! At least two great films: Vengeance is Mine and The Ballad of Narayama, plus several more near-top-tier movies like The Eel, Dr. Akagi and my particular favorite, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge.

And now we get the opportunity to view his documentaries. The entire schedule is shown below, but I'll concentrate here on A Man Vanishes -- a film made some 45 years ago that yet seems both as current and as stylishly au courant as any of the many hybrid docs we've seen over the past few years.

Each year in Japan, as elsewhere, many people disappear. Imamura investigates the disappearance of one of these, a relatively young salesman named Tadaski Oshima, who one day goes missing. The filmmaker tracks the disappearance via everything from police reports to friends, relatives, employers, co-workers and love interest(s).

As it goes along, the movie takes the shape of police procedural, psychological profile (and not just of the missing man), and portrait of the social culture of the time via the workplace, family, bars and other places of "relaxation." Imamura -- whose films exist as much to challenge us as to entertain us -- also does something in his documentary that I don't think had ever been tried prior to this (though it's been done countless times in recent years): staging certain scenes using the actual people involved to get closer to the truth of the matter.

The filmmaker even goes so far as to hire a kind of assistant (above, right, who in some ways resembles the missing man), and have him work closely with the man's girlfriend. Sure enough, "love" starts to blossom, though what love, memory, motive or truth -- to name a few of the usual suspects -- actually mean here is up for grabs. In turns out, for instance, that our missing guy had more than just this one girlfriend, and that he had also earlier embezzled from his company -- and may have done it again. His boss (below) seems happy to forgive him, however: Well, business is different in Japan -- at least, it was back in the good old days.

In one of the most striking scenes, a vital conversation about truth and lies is taking place between real people, and suddenly the camera moves up and back to reveal a movie set, and the director none too subtly reminds us of where we are and what we can expect from this "truth." Imamura also -- whether for reasons of protection from lawsuits or the simple gesture of decency toward individuals who do not want to be recognized -- masks certain faces with that oft-used (in the old days) black rectangle, below. (These days, the general populace, both here and abroad, seems so desirous of being seen and recognized, it is difficult to imagine anyone not going for his/her "money" shot.")

Pretty soon everything and everyone in the film, including some deep familial ties, are called into question, and we get the pièce de résistance: A highly charged conversation/argument in the street, below, about whether or not the girlfriend's sister was seen with the missing man.  At the end of this remarkable scene, one of the participants notes, "This 'truth' is beyond me." Amen.

I suspect you will hardly believe that a film such as this could have existed as far back as 1967, so contemporary does it seem in style, if not in the specifics of time and place. See it, if you have any interest in where the documentary form has been -- and where it is going. A Man Vanishes plays at AFA from this Thursday, November 15, through Sunday, November 18, at 6:30 nightly, and Monday, November 19, through Wednesday, November 21, at 8:45 nightly.

Below are the AFA descriptions of the other films 

in this series, all as yet unseen by me: 

IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS IN MALAYSIA / MIKAHEI O OTTE 1971, 50 mins, digital video.
An Icarus Films release
&
 IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS IN THAILAND / MIKAHEI O OTTE N°2 1971, 50 mins, digital video.
An Icarus Films release
In these two remarkable films, Imamura travels first to Malaysia and then to Thailand, to investigate the lives and experiences of those Japanese soldiers who, during World War II, chose to desert from the Japanese Army and remain in Southeast Asia.
 –Thursday, November 15 at 9:00, Saturday, November 17 at 9:00, and Monday, November 19 at 6:30.

KARAYUKI-SAN, THE MAKING OF A PROSTITUTE / KARAYUKI SAN 1975, 70 mins, 16mm. Print courtesy of the Japan Foundation. An Icarus Films release
A film about another kind of “unreturned soldier”, KARAYUKI-SAN finds Imamura traveling to Malaysia to interview Kikuyo Zendo, one of the countless Japanese women who were kidnapped or otherwise sold into sexual slavery in order to service the Japanese military in Southeast Asia. 74 years old at the time of filming, she offers a frank andharrowing testimony into her horrific wartime experiences, and the factors that have led her to choose exile over repatriation. “Perhaps the most brilliant and feeling of Imamura’s fine documentaries.” –Joan Mellen, The Waves at Genji's Door
 –Friday, November 16 at 9:00, Sunday, November 18 at 5:00, and Wednesday, November 21 at 7:00.

THE PIRATES OF BUBUAN / BUBUAN NO KAIZOKU 1972, 46 mins, digital video. An Icarus Films release
Remoteand impoverished islands in the Philippines are revealed to be the home of rival factions of pirates in this absorbing investigation into a little-known way of life.
 &
OUTLAW-MATSU RETURNS HOME / MUHOMATSU KOKYO E KAERU 1973, 47 mins, digital video. An Icarus Films release
"In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers was about former soldiers of the Japanese army who chose not to return to Japanafter the war. … Two years later, I invited one of them to make his first return visit to Japan and documented it in OUTLAW-MATSU RETURNS HOME. During the filming, my subject Fujita asked me to buy him a cleaver so that he could kill his ‘vicious brother.’ I was shocked, and asked him to wait a day so that I could plan how to film the scene. By the next morning, to my relief, Fujita had calmed down and changed his mind about killing his brother. But I couldn’t have had a sharper insight into the ethical questions provoked by this kind of documentary film-making.” –Shôhei Imamura
 –Saturday, November 17 at 4:15, Sunday, November 18 at 9:00, and Tuesday, November 20 at 6:30.

Find out more about Anthology Film Archives by clicking here; for directions on how to reach AFA, click here.