Catherines the great--Deneuve and Frot--in Martin Provost's melodrama, THE MIDWIFE

TrustMovies can only surmise that the fine French writer/director Martin Provost, who has over the past decade given us three wonderful films (Séraphine, The Long Falling and Violette), must have decided by hook or by crook to break through more thoroughly to the French (or maybe international) arthouse/mainstream audience -- his vehicle being a new movie entitled THE MIDWIFE (Sage femme). To that end, if indeed it was this movie's raison d'être, M. Provost, shown below, has corralled two of France's greatest actresses to play the leading roles: that icon perennial, Catherine Deneuve and the perhaps lesser-known but equally talented and multi-award-winning Catherine Frot.

Ms Deneuve guarantees an international audience, while Ms Frot (you can read all my many mentions and reviews of her work by clicking here) should easily bring in the more sophisticated audience that demands top-notch acting above all else. While Frot, shown below (of Marguerite, Haute Cuisine, Chaos), does not disappoint (she's far too professional, alert, alive and honest to ever do that), it's Deneuve who steals the movie from under her co-star by taking on another of those blowsey, full-blown, pull-out-all-the-stops roles (like that of Belle Maman, from 1999, which rather cemented this icon's entry into movie-middle-age) and then running with it to near perfection.

It has been awhile since we've seen Deneuve (shown below) do this, as her recent roles, such as In The Courtyard, On My Way, Standing Tall and In the Name of My Daughter, have demanded more circumspect, tamped down performances. Here she can let loose, while still managing to create a character that's full-bodied, believable and very troubled.

So why, then, does The Midwife end up leaving you feeling as though you've been manipulated by melodrama rather than plunged into actual, organic drama. Despite the fine performances (from the entire cast that includes the likes of Belgian great, Olivier Gourmet, shown below with Frot, and Mylène Demongeot), Provost's screenplay almost always feels overly manipulative and manufactured. The tale has to do with the re-connection, after decades apart, of a woman who works as a midwife (Frot) with an older woman (Deneuve) who was the mistress of the midwife's father.

The connection is made; anger, guilt, pain and all the rest surface expectedly; and...  Yes, you can probably predict the remainder of the film. Oh, the details are specific and may be a bit different here and there, but the basics are mostly standard stuff. Even the political/social points that Provost raises seem awfully typical. The midwife's job is about to disappear, as hospitals grow ever larger and more corporate, while individual worth, together with hands-on caring, become less important. All true, but nothing we have not already seen, properly considered and become depressed over.

So despite the excellent performances and the movie's illustrious provenance, been-there/done-that sets in early and does not unfortunately dissipate. Still, I would not have missed this movie, given how much I've enjoyed Frot, Deneuve and Provost previously -- and neither, mostly likely, will you. But I would suggest you maybe steel yourself for a little disappointment, overall.

From Music Box Films, in French with English subtitles and running 117 minutes, The Midwife opens this Friday, July 21 -- in New York City at The Paris Theatre and the Angelika Film Center, and in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5.  Update: the movie is now available to view via Amazon Prime.

Christian Vincent's HAUTE CUISINE proves both food heaven and Frot heaven (Catherine variety)

Newly available via Netflix streaming, the succulent HAUTE CUISINE (Les saveurs du Palais) is even better than I imagined, while viewing it on a particularly crummy video link provided by The Weinstein Company (its distributor) in which the company logo was plastered over the subtitles, making them difficult to read. Once that was fixed, the movie came across our streaming facility so poorly that everything was blurred almost to non-recognition. One phone call to the tech department resulted in a helpful move of the logo away from the subtitles, but a second call about the blurred images proved no help at all. (This is perhaps not the best manner in which to present your film to critics.) Now, seeing it again in hi-def, with its incredibly delicious-looking cooking in sharp relief, I would call this film a must-see for the foodie audience. For the rest of us, thanks to the reasons detailed below, it's a whole lot more.

As directed and co-written (with Etienne Comar, from the book by the chef herself, Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch) by Christian Vincent (La séparation, La discrète), Haute Cuisine tells us of the woman who served as the first female chef for a French President (in this case, François Mitterrand). Though the names of both Mitterand and Delpeuch have been changed, this is clearly their story, and it's a good one: filled with the kind of feminism that has no ax to grind, save the simple demand that this chef (below) be allowed the right to do her job.

The film is organized as a flashback during the final days of this chef's later job, feeding a large group of workers on a post in the Antarctic, during which we're fed flashbacks of how Hortense, as the film names her, came to be employed at the palace and what then transpired. Running but 90 minutes, Haute Cuisine moves fast, too: M. Vincent is no piker in the pacing department.

The film is mostly about work. We learn almost nothing about the personal life of our chef. But so genuinely interesting is her job cooking for the President -- discovering what he wants and likes and then preparing it, sometimes surmounting sizable obstacles -- that there's no need for more. And thank the lord, this is no piece of food porn, as have been a number of recent films covering famous restaurants and/or chefs. Instead, we see and feel here a genuine love of food and French cooking by both the chef and the President. The movie is also too much fun for food porn, filled as it is with juicy characters and enough drama to easily carry us along.

Vincent and his casting director Aurélie Guichard have brought together an exquisite cast, small roles to stars, then properly stepped aside and let the actors do their work. The real glory of the film, however rests in the performance of its star, Catherine Frot (above), a fine French actress we see far too little of here in the USA. For whatever reason, most of her movies don't make it to the States; the last time we saw her was in The Page Turner (2006) and Angel of Mine (2008). Ms Frot is an immense talent but she's not the showy kind. She does what's needed and makes every moment real. She's particularly gifted at playing intelligent, thoughtful characters; watching her, you always feel a deep interior life below the surface. And she can do everything from comedy -- high and low -- to dark drama equally well.

Frot is the movie, but huge help is provided by a couple of other actors: the charming little fellow who portrays the President, Jean d'Ormesson (above and below), an 88-year-old man making only his second acting appearance here. Short, slight and quite elfin-like but bristling with energy and charm, he and his scenes with Frot are the film's highlights -- along with those mouth-watering food preparations.

The only other actor with a role large enough to register strongly is that gorgeous young performer Arthur Dupont (shown below with Ms Frot), of One to Another (Chacun sa nuit) and Bus Palladium, playing Hortense's assistant and budding pastry chef. It's always fun to see actors run the gamut, and Dupont proves as sweet and cheerful here as he was dark and/or sexually transgressive in those earlier movies.

Haute Cuisine was still playing in theaters as recently as last week; what a nice surprise to find it already available on Netflix streaming.

French Film Lovers, spend your weekend at FIAF, as the IN-FRENCH-WITH-ENGLISH-SUBTITLES fest returns to New York City

Francophiles (of the more mainstream sort than is reached by the FSLC's Rendez-vous With French Cinema), rejoice!  For IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES -- that fast-paced, three-day, nine-movie, one-showing-only festival of new and popular French cinema -- returns to New York City for its second annual series of fun films at FIAF -- in the French Institute/Alliance Française Florence Gould Hall.

So successful was last year's batch that this year's is even bigger, with movies starring the likes of Gérard Depardieu (above, with Gisèle Casadesus), Catherine Frot, Clovis Cornillac, Karin Viard, Fabrice Luchini, Roschdy Zem and Lambert Wilson.  There's even -- get this -- a theme song that's been composed and recorded for the festival -- using its own unique title.  (You can listen to it by clicking here -- and if you like it, you can click here to buy it!)

Last year the combination of a flu and the FSLC's Spanish Cinema Now series prevented me from seeing any of the IFWES films.  This year, I swear, will be different: While I'd like to view all the films being shown, I hope to see at least three of the nine. These will include the opening night movie, Five Brothers (Comme les cinq doigts de la main), a thriller with an all-star cast including Patrick Bruel, Vincent Elbaz, Eric Caracava and Caterina Murino.

One of my absolutely favorite French actresses is the alternately funny and moving, centered and crazy, and always delightful  Catherine Frot (Chaos, The Page Turner plus the VOD hits Les soeurs fâchées and Angel of Mine). She's included this year with a 1960s era, cold war spy spoof called Imogène McCarthery, which sounds like fun. And since I've never seen Frot (below)-- who's as good playing plain as she is going glamorous -- in anything I didn't enjoy (often immensely), I'll gladly take my chances.

And finally, I hope to view M. Depardieu in the new film by Jean Becker, who, back in 1999, gave us one of the most wonderful walks down (French) memory lane with his Children of the Marshlands (Les enfants du Marais), a film that really should have played theatrically in the U.S.  And if the French had had the foresight to nominate it for Best Foreign Language Film, I'd wager it would have been nominated -- if not won.

Becker is back with a film said to be a real heart-tugger: My Afternoons With Marguerite (La tête en friche).  Because this fellow is great director of actors (in roles small to large) with an eye for color, production design and details of all kinds, I think we can expect something quite watchable.

But there are so many movies that look like fun in this fest --  click here for the entire program and here to procure tickets -- I wouldn't want to stop you from checking out a few more titles on your own.  Again, In French With English Subtitles, plays this coming Friday through Sunday, November 19 - 21.  (Note: if you purchase the two-day pass, you can save a bundle of bucks.)

The splendid Catherine Frot in Xavier Giannoli's not-quite bio-pic, MARGUERITE

On the basis of the three films of his I've so far seen -- The Singer, In the Beginning and now MARGUERITE -- Frenchman Xavier Giannoli (shown below) has become one of my favorite filmmakers. This writer/director takes his ostensible subject, quite different from film to film, and then opens up what can seem like the entire world in the process of telling his particular and always absorbing stories.

His films are rich in the most wonderful of ways: They make you stop and consider so many things, and they never smash home their moral. In fact, it's rather difficult to spot villains in his movies, so full are they with folk just trying to make their way along. Yet what Giannoli repeatedly uncovers about us humans and our often odd behavior makes us seem at once amazing and mysterious. This was true of In the Beginning, which, like The Singer, I caught at past Rendez-vous With French Cinema outings (they were never released theatrically here in the USA), and it proves more so, and more subtly, with Marguerite.

If you've heard of the almost-famous Florence Foster Jenkins, she of the miraculously off-key voice, you'll have a good idea of the fictionalized title character -- played by the hugely undersung on these shores, at least, Catherine Frot (shown above and below) -- on whom the film is very loosely based. (That fine director Stephen Frears will have a movie coming out later this year about Ms Jenkins starring Meryl Streep.)

M. Giannoli's movie uses Marguerite -- her character and her voice -- to explore our love: of music, opera, art, life and each other. In the process, we come upon everything from politics and economics to Dadaism and medical science; philosophy and Colonialism to the multitude of ways we humans can use and abuse each other (often simultaneously).

Marguerite is being billed as something of a comedy, over here in the USA, at least, and indeed there is enormous humor in hearing the incredible caterwauling of this voice from hell. Yet the film is so rich in odd incident and strange, provocative and mysterious characters whom we come to care about more than we would expect that, by its very moving finale, it has opened up even greater mysteries.

Giannoli's accomplishment here is immense, but so quietly achieved that I suspect that it will not be fully appreciated -- for awhile, at least. Classics generally take their time to cement. One thing that should register immediately is how amazing Ms Frot is (as always). Last seen as that no-nonsense, hands-on chef for François Mitterrand in Haute Cuisine, the actress here transforms herself into a wealthy woman who wants desperately to sing, as well as have her husband care about her. (The actress won the French César award last week for this performance,)

To this end she is abetted by a host of folk who need things of her -- from her philandering husband (André Marcon, two photos above) and the professional music group she has funded to an on-the-skids opera star (Michel Fau, below) who now must double as Marguerite's teacher, a young journalist with a career to jump-start, and a pretty, upcoming singer with a lovely voice (Christa Théret, above, center left).

Perhaps the most mysterious character is Marguerite's accompanist, chauffeur and jack-of-all-trades (Denis Mpunga, at piano below) who may possibly be the most abusive of all and yet has provided our heroine with much that she has needed for years now.

As I say, this movie is full of mysteries, which you will probably savor and explore for a long time to come. Certainly the film is worth more than one viewing. I can't wait until it's available on Blu-ray, where the (also award-winning) costumes, production design and sound will set your eyes and ears ablaze.

From Cohen Media Group and running 129 minutes, Marguerite opens this Friday, March 11, in New York City at the Paris Theater and Angelika Film Center and in Los Angeles at The Landmark. Over the coming weeks it will open all across the country. Here in Southern Florida look for it on April 1 in Miami at the Tower Theater, in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood, and at the Movies of Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth. Click here to view all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters shown.

On-Demand: Safy Nebbou's ANGEL OF MINE with Frot and Bonnaire

Two expert perfor-
mances from French actresses Catherine Frot and Sandrine Bonnaire anchor ANGEL OF MINE (L'empreinte de l'ange), a film based on real events co-written (with Cyril Gomez-Mathieu) and directed by Safy Nebbou.  Although the title card telling us that this story is "real" does not ap-
pear until film's end, you may, as did TrustMovies, come to the same conclu-
sion earlier on.  This tale is simply too bizarre to be fiction.

Fortunately M. Nebbou (shown at right) has the good sense to let his story tell itself, slow-
ly and quietly building ques-
tions, along with suspense.  The filmmaker provides neither the bells nor the whistles -- overwrought music, copious tears, melodramatic moments -- usually supplied in a tale that, however close to reality it might be, still approaches what we moviegoers of many years used to call a "woman's weepie."  No: Safy elects to turn his movie into more of a mystery -- what's happening, and why? -- and then leave it in the hands of his actors who are good enough to carry it off.

All I'll say about the plot is that it concerns two families, the little girl that brings them together, stalking, possible insanity and a past fraught with a major event. The adult characters we see have clearly gone through a lot (though we viewers don't learn for awhile just what this has entailed), hence their gravity and suspicions.  The younger set, on the other hand, have been protected well by their parents and so are free to laugh, play and enjoy life to the hilt, which they do.  (Safy has drawn lovely performances from all three children: Héloïse Cunin, a newcomer who has the pivotal role, Arthur Vaughan-Whitehead and Zacharie Chasseriaud.)

Ms Bonnaire (from Vagabond through the upcoming Queen to Play), shown above and elsewhere on this post, is capable of just about anything, and that's what she gives us here, fielding it all like a pro. Ms Frot, below and elsewhere (fabulous in Chaos, The Page Turner and Les soeurs fâchées to name but three of her many films) remains clench-jawed and just this side of frightening throughout.  Her eyes are remarkably agile, however, and so we feel her pain.  When she finally relaxes, this arrives like a blessing on the audience.

In the fine supporting case are Wladimir Yordanoff (below, left, with Ms Bonnaire), Antoine Chappey and the wonderful Michel Aumont, filling their roles to its brim -- given the small amount of screen time each is offered.

Angel of Mine is available now On-Demand from IFC Films via most major TV reception providers. You can click here to learn if yours has the film -- and if so, how to get it.

With OVATION! Henry Jaglom's back -- and in that theater/movie milieu he so thrives on

The name Henry Jaglom generally sends movie buffs running in two directions: toward or away. TrustMovies  tends mostly to the toward, having enjoyed, to some extent and often hugely, the work of this iconoclastic filmmaker. His latest movie -- OVATION! -- features much of what we've come to prize in his work: the near-improvisation-like and very real-seeming dialog, the interest in relationships (and how our personal desires often trump our ability to maintain those relationships), and of course that fascination with theater and movies and life and how these connect and interact.

Mr. Jaglom, shown at right, is also interested in philosophy (though of what that philosophy consists I'm never quite sure), and the other-worldly. Both of these are to be seen here, too. As is his usual stock company of performers, which now include (I am guessing) his son Simon and daughter Sabrina (their last names are Jaglom, too, but maybe they're more distantly related...?) In any case, both are put to good use in this new film, playing a devoted brother and sister, and they come through with flying colors. They're quirky, funny, attractive and believable, and we enjoy watching them perform.

His star and maybe muse, as has been true for the past decade, is again Tanna Frederick,(above, with David Lee Garber, and below, with James Denton) who seems to grow more assured and graceful with each new performance. Ms Frederick appears to be losing some of her mannerisms and ditzy quality, and she manages to shine more brightly -- and concretely -- than ever.

The movie takes place mostly backstage during a very fraught production of The Rainmaker, which might close due to lack of funding (along with some other surprises we learn about toward the end). We don't see anything of the production except various curtain calls. Nor do we need to. First off, adults of a certain age will be familiar with the play, its movie version, and even the musical made from it. In any case, what is happening backstage provides plenty of plot machination and fun.

We get love stories, the dangling of fame and fortune, and even maybe accidental death (featuring the wielding of a large two-by-four not seen since Catherine Frot did something similar in Chaos). And we're given quite a set of oddball but interesting characters, too. (That's Benjamin Chamberlain, above, playing an alternately sweet and scarily unhinged lover of Ms Jaglom, who is shown below, with her less interesting but also less unhinged would-be paramour, played by Brandon Kirk.)

Moment to moment, the film is consistently amusing and fun, even if that two-by-four and it consequence threaten to derail things. We have a maybe psychic on board, too (played by famous acting coach Michelle Danner, below),  along with various and sundry Hollywood types -- agent, producer, manager, showrunner -- who add to the fun and games.

And then we have Ms Frederick, who -- if you are the kind of fan I am -- carries the movie along quite beautifully. She is the embodiment of the love of legitimate theater, along with the quest for fame and fortune, about as well as we've seen all this combined into one singular performer.

Ovation!, from Mr. Jaglom's The Rainbow Film Company and running 102 minutes, opens Friday, October 7, in New York City at the Cinema Village. Elsewhere? Eventually, I am sure. But for now, NYC only....

Vincent Lindon gives another great, understated performance in Stéphane Brizé's new film, THE MEASURE OF A MAN

While he's played -- and brilliantly --  everything from politicians (Pater) to husbands, sleazy (Chaos) and caring (Pour elle), Vincent Lindon (above) excels as the "ordinary guy," the "working stiff," the "everyman" of France. Lindon got two of his finest roles a few years back via writer/director Stéphane Brizé (shown below) in the great near-love story Mademoiselle Chabon and the end-of-life drama A Few Hours fo Spring.  Now, this actor's actor is back with Brizé again in a film -- THE MEASURE OF A MAN (La loi du marché) -- in which he won Best Actor both at this year's César awards and at the Cannes Film Festival.

This is a stunning movie, but so quietly does it build that it is over before it has fully sunk in. Don't worry, it won't go away, sticking with you long after the end credits have rolled. As the film unfurls to show us the current life of a fifty-one-year-old Frenchman, Thierry Taugourdaud, unemployed and given very bad suggestions and even worse implementations from his local unemployment office, we see nothing less than the state of western society today -- French style. Most of the specifics here travel easily, however: People are but corporate cogs, and it is up to the individual to assure his place, along with the place of those he loves, in the scheme of things.

The filmmaker uses his usual close-in and near-documentary style, but even more so here than in his other films I've seen. This creates a filmed world that seems remarkably like our real one, and Brizé shoots in relatively lengthy scenes that force us to see what is happening on more than merely a visual level. This allows us to experience the pain, fear, enjoyment, anger, embarrassment and all the rest that exist in these usually quiet but often fraught scenes.

We see that Thierry, the Lindon character, exists as a real person, a genuine one who expresses himself and his needs more honestly and directly than do many of those around him. This happens first at the employment office, where he tries to make the person behind the desk understand how the government has quite literally wasted almost a year of his time. Later, during the classroom session using a filmed would-be employment interview (above), we see even more of the genuineness of this man, who is not so gifted at "playing the game."

At home with his loving wife (Karin de Mirbek, above, right) and handicapped son (Matthieu Schaller, below) to whom he seems a kindly, if not overly demonstrative, dad, Thierry is more relaxed than anywhere else. So we relax, too, basking in the time our hero gets to be with those he loves. There's a dance class (to which he most likely goes to please his wife), during which there's an embarrassing but very real scene in which he must dance with the male teacher. Then later, at home, we see the results of this, and they're quite beautiful.

Brizé does not connect all his dots. We move suddenly from one time or place to another, in which we see that things have drastically changed. Now Thierry has a job, and perhaps a pretty good one, as a security person at the local supermarket chain. We witness a really lovely goodbye party for a long-time employee, in which even the "big boss" seems like a relatively good guy.

As Thierry learn the ropes, however, he also learns that downsizing is the order of the day, and part of his job is not simply to catch customers who shoplift but to catch employees who are maybe doing some underhanded stuff, too.  How all this plays out is done in the same low-key/quiet-burn style in which we see and feel what is happening from a number of perspectives: Thierry's, his bosses', the perps/victims. (That's the store manager, played by Saïd Aïssaoui, below, left.)

The constancy of surveillance is front and center, along with what this does to both the surveilled and surveillers. The movie takes its place alongside other fine workplace films -- Mi piace lavorare (Mobbing) and the recent Two Days, One Night -- as examples of the work world and our place in it. The choice Thierry makes is truthful and understandable, though you may also see some alternatives to it. Rocking the boat with political action is one of these, but as we've been shown via an earlier scene, Thierry is more a loner than a joiner.

Brizé does not offer answers, difficult or easy. He simply lays out the puzzle pieces of one man, his family and his employment history, and lets us fill them all in. The result, once complete, is very real not very pretty, but compelling and -- thanks to M. Lindon -- commanding, as well.

The Measure of a Man-- from Kino Lorber and running just 93 minutes, opens this Friday, April 15, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the new Metrograph. The latter venue, in honor of M. Lindon, will screen four of this actors finer roles this week in the days preceding the film's opening. You can see that Metrograph schedule here.

(I do wish the Metrograph had included Chaos, shown at right, on its schedule, a movie in which Lindon excels, and which also gives us Catherine Frot and Rachida Brakni at their best.) In any case, there are another ten cities on the current film's limited release schedule (as of now). Click here then scroll down to see them all. Here in South Florida, The Measure of a Man will play single screenings at the Movies of Delray (April 17), at the Movies of Lake Worth (April 19) and then a week's run starting May 6 at Miami's Tower Theater.  In Los Angeles. look for it at Laemmle's Royal, come May 20.