IN THE HOUSE: Education, creation & family inhabit Ozon's finest and most mature work

All right: I admit it. I have a special love for films that tackle the creative process: How creativity happens and art -- or, unfortunately, sometimes fart -- comes into being. I also (usually) love the films of François Ozon, and this one, I'll wager, is his best yet. His masterpiece. IN THE HOUSE is the finest movie of any kind I've seen so far this year (or last, actually). I cannot recommend it more ferociously.

Based on the play (unseen by me), The Guy in the Last Row, from Spanish writer Juan Mayorga, the material would seem to have everything we've come to expect from M. Ozon (the filmmaker is shown at right) -- and more.

What's new here is, at the very heart of things, a kindness and empathy for every character that is rare for movies and even more so in the work of this particular filmmaker. At this point in time, Ozon has gone from the enfant terrible of his early years to a man fully in command of his art who wants to explore how that art comes into being, together with the joy it brings and, yes, the toll it takes.

What makes the movie especially wonderful is that it isn't simply about something (which is already more than many movies can manage). It's about just about everything: life and art and why things happen and what they mean and how they matter. It's playful. It's dead serious (but always fun). It's romantic, sexy, naughty, nasty and finally life-affirming without out a trace of feel-good drivel.

By the end of this strange and joyful lamentation, you'll have been jerked around so brilliantly and so often (but without ever losing your way through this mine-field of desire and need) that you'll breathe, rather than a sigh of relief, one of understanding and gratitude. Unless, of course, you don't care much about art and creativity, reality and fiction -- in which case, go see G.I. Joe.

The plot begins with a tired teacher in high school (the great actor/comedian Fabrice Luchini, above, right), his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas, above, left) who runs an art gallery, and his most talented student Claude (Ernst Unhauer, below) whose "creative writing" comes from a rather tricky place: the goings-on in the lives of the family of a classmate. Compared to that of any of the other students, Claude's writing is good. Very good. But should it be encouraged?

Further, what are the motivations here, from both the young writer and his adult teacher? We enter the teacher's life and that of his wife, but the student/writer's not so much -- except in how he interacts with that family, a wonderful group made up of mom (the still gorgeous and ever more alluring and maturing Emmanuelle Seigner, (shown on couch, below, center) dad (a wonderfully likable lunk played by Denis Ménochet, on couch at left) and their son Rafa, the classmate of Claude (Bastien Ughetto, at right on the couch, below).

This plot spins in different directions, depending upon Claude's whim/desires and the directions given by his teacher. But then the teacher becomes involved in a way that changes everything, and the tale begins to whirl, it seems, out of anyone's control.

Along the way, you may be reminded of everything from Pirandello to the play/film Five Finger Exercise to the more recent Adaptation. But the result is purely Ozon's -- along with playwright Mayorga's -- own. Storytelling has seldom seemed so full of possibi-lity, or of traps, nor humanity so poignant, vulnerable and alive.

After viewing this marvel, one may wonder how the actors managed to account for their motivations, so many and varied are these by the time the film has wrapped. Yet each performance is so full and real at every moment along the way, that this cast deserves some sort of ensemble award for versatility and pliability.

By the final scene, for me one of the most beautiful in movie memory, both the characters on-screen and us in the audience seem to float suspended in a near-miraculous state of grace. This is movie magic of the highest order. I cannot wait to see the film again.

In the House, from Cohen Media Group and running 105 minutes, opens this Friday, April 19, in New York City at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and in Los Angeles at The Landmark. The movie will be playing elsewhere around the county, so come Friday, go to your favorite online ticket purveyor and plug in your zip code to find out where it'll screen near you. Update March 2014: this movie is now available via Netflix streaming, so grab it!

All the photos above are from the film itself, 

except that of M. Ozon, which is by Jim Spellman 

and comes courtesy of GettyImages.com

Netflix streaming tip: Paul King's uber-creative, delightful BUNNY & THE BULL

Who'd have imagined that the sad tale of an agorophobic young man and his memories of "outside" could be brought to the screen with enough charm, humor, style and originality to fill a dozen more movies yet without ever once going over the top? Paul King, below left, that's who. And if you haven't heard the name before, you certainly will, once word of his little diamond-in-the-not-so-rough, BUNNY AND THE BULL, reaches the movie-going public. Over two years ago, when TrustMovies first covered  this film, the only way to view it was via the IFC Midnight series, where it began screen-ing in July 2010. At that time, TM found it one of the most inventive movie experiences he'd had in a long time. It remains so today.

IFC's on-demand program also remains one of the best to be found  -- for my money, at least. What with one fine film after another -- the thrilling sci-fi/mystery Exam, for instance, or John Landis' Burke & Hare (currently on DVD only) -- now heating up Netflix audiences, it's a can't-miss time for viewers of IFC, the company that is currently presenting about many good foreign and independent films as can be found under one roof anywhere in these United States.

What makes Bunny and the Bull (hereafter to be referred to as B&TB) so special, is its drop-dead different "look."

While it appears that nearly everything here was acted against a green screen, instead of getting some of that deadly "stylish" and inert appearance we remember from Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, we're treated to a full-out barrage of inventive effects: backdrops that are drawn, modeled (of clay, metal, glass, fabric and who knows what else) and otherwise created from what I'd call "real imagination." Scene after scene is delightfully different.

BATB offers up its own little world, and it's like little else you've experienced. Its story, not bad at all, concerns our hero Stephen (played with a lot of fear and loathing, by Edward Hogg, shown near right) and his best friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby, far right and below, who's done mostly Brit TV).  The latter, a blond doofus -- think a sexier Will Ferrell -- complete with endless tips on horse racing, tries everything to get his friend out of the house.  Once there, the adventures begin in earnest.

The pair connect early on with a cute and spunky Spaniard (Verónica Echegui, below, who was so wonderful in My Prison Yard, part of the 2008 FSLC Spanish Cinema Now series), and various combinations of love, lust and friendship bloom. All this is edited with panache (by Mark Everson) and kept on a lickety-split time-frame by Mr King's storytelling skills. You'll know that something bad happened to poor Stephen, but you'll also have so much fun on this oddball journey that you won't spend much time worrying about it.  The puzzle pieces begin to come together eventually, with the final ones appearing only at the end -- just in time to goose the film into the stratosphere with some genuine emotion and maybe even a tear of two.

Along the way we get some nice surprises -- Sylvia Syms! Dog milk! Full-frontal! The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade (below)!-- plus some fancy stories-within-stories and a scene set in an amusement park that is so creative and lovely that I'll remember it for all time.

The film's humor is often sexual, sometimes crass but always funny. Which is all quite appropriate, given the characters here and what is really going on in the film.  And if I haven't convinced you by now to fork over an hour-and-a-half of your time, I give up. Available on Netflix via streaming or DVD, click here for more info.