The Band’s Visit (2007) by Eran Kolirin.
“It’s about an Egyptian band that comes to Israel to give a concert but the musicians can not find the place and they meet some Israelians. I loved the movie, I loved the story and I loved the two main actors (Sasson Gabai et Saleh Bakri). Their acting impressed me, I never saw them before but I’ll look at their work from now on. I had heard about the film before and I was very surprised and pleased to be able to watch it on a plane while I was flying to Australia. Of course I prefer big screens and I was disappointed to discover it on such a small one -I probably would have had different impressions in a theatre- but at the end even if the plane was full and the screen so small I got caught into the film so I think that if the film is good, it remains good wherever you watch it.”
The Band’s Visit will be released on DVD in France on October 7.
Arta Dobroshi was born in Kossovo where she studied dramatical arts. While looking for their lead actress for Lorna’s Silence, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne noticed her in a couple of Albanian films and immediately felt like meeting her and eventually work with her! In Lorna’s Silence, Arta Dobroshi leaves a strong impression and confirms the Dardennes’ talent to discover pure gems. A career to follow.
The Big Lebowski (1998) by Joel and Ethan Coen
“I’ve seen this film more than six times. And each time it makes me laugh like the very first time. The plot is crazy and delirious as often with the Coen brothers. What’s particulary outstanding in this movie though is the characters. “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges), Walter (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi) embody three attaching and realistic characters while being incredibly dumb! The absolute loser, the nevrotic and the punching bag -three characters we all met in a school yard! Basing their storyline on this trio, the Coen brothers created a unique mix they’re the only ones to know about: realism, surrealism and absurd. Dialogues are fabulous, the dream sequences taken from the musicals of the 70s are perfect ; the direction is simple, consistent and always under control. It’s a very American movie but also very universal, sexy, made up like a good song with a very strong visual aspect. Also, the directors dare everything, like that amazing end when the wind blows Donny’s ashes on the Dude’s face. The punching-bag takes a revenge on Walter, his torturer, but the three still stick together! This is also eventually a film about friendship.”
Synopsis: Jeff Lebowski, a.k.a. “The Dude”, is a lazy man, who spends most of his time drinking shots and playing bowling with his buddy Walter. One day, two burglars hit him down. It seems like someone called Jackie Treehorn wants to recover a pile of money to a guy named Lebowski. But the burglars made a mix-up: the Lebowski they were looking for is a millionaire from Pasadena. The Dude decides to meet this wealthy man to obtain a refund for his damaged carpet…
About director Hany Tamba: Hany Tamba was awarded a Cesar (French Academy Award) in 2006 for his short film named After Shave. On August 13, his first feature film is released in France: Melodrama Habibi. The movie relates the story of Bruno Patrice (Patrick Chesnais), a star singer of the 70s, invited in Lebanon for the birthday of the wife of a rich billionaire, who didn’t forget about his past hit… In a gentle, funny and nostalgic way, the director keeps on with his exploration of the Lebanese society, its wounds, vitality and memory blanks…
Freaks (1932) by Tod Browning
“It could have been a commercial film, a sensationalist one, it is absolutely not, it is a very moving film. You can feel Tod Browning loves his characters, he has a kind of complicity and love for his “monsters”. You can feel it in the way he directs his film, in the way he films them, everywhere. And this last scene when the monsters crawl under the wagons, in the storm, is absolutely unforgettable. This really is great cinema.”
Synopsis : Hans is a suave midget who belongs to the sideshow of a seedy circus and who makes the mistake of falling in love with the beautiful Cleopatra, one of the “normal” circus performers. Learning that Hans is about to inherit a fortune, Cleopatra agrees to marry Hans even though she abhors him, planning to steal his money and get rid of him.
More informations about Freaks.
Jean Rollin is a cult French director of low budget B movies. For more than forty years he has managed to keep directing and he his now a cult figure for young filmmakers and cinema addicts who grew up watching his films on VHS.
Hardcore (1979) by Paul Schrader.
“In Hardcore, like in American Gigolo, Schrader ends his film - ike the Dardennes did in The Child- the same way Robert Bresson did in Pickpocket, “It took me a long time to reach you”. It is a great film, which always moved me, with this character facing his own demons, facing the choice he made, his faith being questioned by earthly pleasures, this character in quest for redemption, I think it’s a very powerful and beautiful film. Schrader is often compared to Scorsese, they are like brothers, and even if there’s not Scorsese’s brilliance in Schrader’s work, there is some kind of sickness that always moved me. And this complete obsession for redemption is fascinating, always fighting morale and taboos. The quest of this father in this 80s California is really a journey to hell, a search for himself in fact. The ending is often discussed but he really quotes Bresson and as far as I’m concerned I find that ending very consistent.”
More information about Hardcore
Fabrice Du Welz directed the very disturbing The Ordeal in 2004. His new film Vinyan, starring Emmanuelle Beart and Rufus Sewell will be released in France in October 2008.
Since Otar left (2003) by Julie Bertuccelli.
“It is about the destinies of three women, described in a very sensitive way by Julie Bertuccelli, who was directing her first film. This is a film that also made me discover, in a certain way, Georgia -its history, its past, its present. It’s about three generations of women -a woman, her mother and her niece. They live in Georgia and the only son of the family went to work in Paris, France. Their lives are paced by the letters of this son. One day the woman and her niece discover the accidental death of the man. They decide to hide the terrible news from the grandmother. Through this lie, feelings will emerge, desires too, the dream of the young girl to travel, to go to Paris, her dreams of literature. The director treats her characters with a great sensitivity, through looks and silences. This is a very beautiful film”.
Sandrine Pillon is a French short films producer, she founded Les Fees Productions, her own company. Her first short film, Les Volets by Lyèce Boukhitine, was nominated for the Best Short Film Cesar (French “Academy Award”).
Army of Shadows (1969) by Jean Pierre Melville
“I saw again the film recently and it surprised me a lot. I had in mind a much more official film about the “resistance”, released in 1969, that praised and even worshipped the heroes but it was a false memory. The truth of the film, which plays a lot with false impressions, like Hitchcock films, is a very dark look upon the Resistance, not in the soothing way we often see, which makes every French a resistant. Melville’s film shows very well that all these guys were really few, threatened, outlaws -and being an outlaw was to be ready to do everything, even the worst. We often remember the scene of the killing of the “traitor” -traitor seems to be a far too strong word considering what the guy did- in an apartment, which requires to do it in the most silent way, without any noise, any cries, even if the situation is absolutely terrible. But there is this other scene: when Lino Ventura is captured and is waiting to be questioned. Hours pass by, he is with another prisoner, he finally waves at him -they don’t communicate verbally at all- saying this way to him it’s time to try something if they both want to escape this. The young men understand it and goes through what he believes to be an opening and he is killed immediately. But this is how it is brilliant, this was the very way the film’s positive hero Ventura was planning his own escaping. I find this scene, so violent, so realistic, absolutely astonishing.”
More information about Army of Shadows.
Also a writer, Jerome Prieur co-directed with Gerard Mordillat Corpus Christi and The Origins of Christianity. They are finishing The Apocalypse.
The Last Laugh (1924) by F.W.Murnau.
“Emil Jannings is an incredible actor. It is the story of this man, doorman in a Grand Hotel, with this suit that means so much for him, this suit that makes him a respected man when he goes back home. Very early in the movie, as he falls with the suitcase, he is put to the surveillance of the toilets. He descends deep stairs, that don’t seem to end, in which he disappears, until he does not exist anymore. Since he is marrying his daughter, he wants to hide his fall. It is a film about appearances, about how this man, even if he knows it’s vain, hangs to this costume. How he wants to sacrifice for his daughter, because he doesn’t want her to be ashamed. It simply is human, and each shot is there to make the story progress and tell something. When we see him go down to the toilets, we really see him go down in darkness, in hell. This is not a dark movie, even if it is not a love story it’s full of love, because the character is generous. He doesn’t rebel, he accepts scary things because he has no other choice, it’s also a movie about social status linked to appearance, to all that this uniform stands for. It’s a really moving film I often recommend.”
More informations about The Last Laugh.
Good Girl (2005) by Sophie Fillières.
“This is a movie in which the directing work is amazing. The actors have many things to say, to act too, and the director manages to get all the accurate lines. It is very difficult because it is very written, kind of litterary, but the directing work makes it become magic, easy, pleasant to ear, and we are carried away by this work she managed to do with the actors about the text and the acting. At a point it all gets together to serve a very funny and inventive film.”
More informations about Good Girl.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Stanley Kubrick, picked by Pip Chodorov
A piece of sky (2002) by Bénédicte Liénard, picked by Jacques Bidou
Apocalypto (2006) by Mel Gibson, picked by Alain Guiraudie
Chronicle of Anna-Magdalena Bach (1968) by Jean Marie Straub, picked by Bruno Dumont
City Lights (1931) by Charles Chaplin, picked by Adelaïde Leroux
Climates (2006) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, picked by Harry Gruyaert
Come and See (1985) by Elem Klimov, picked by Jean Pierre Limosin
Golden Eighties (1986) by Chantal Akerman, picked by Martine Marignac
Good Girl (2005) by Sophie Fillières, picked by Yann Coridian
Graduate First (Passe ton bac d’abord) (1979) by Maurice Pialat, picked by Jaques Maillot
Hangmen Also Die (1943) by Fritz Lang, picked by Nuno Sena
I Love You I Love You (1968) by Alain Resnais, picked by Lisa Heredia
Moi, Pierre Rivière… (1976) by René Allio, picked by Gérard Mordillat
Sunrise (1927) by F.W. Murnau, picked by Jean-Max Causse
The Birds (1963) by Alfred Hitchcock, picked by Jean-Claude Brisseau
The Invisible Man (1933) by James Whale, picked by Alain Cavalier
The Night of the hunter (1955) by Charles Laughton, picked by Joseph Morder
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) by Carl Th. Dreyer, picked by Fernando Solanas
The Pianist (2002) by Roman Polanski, picked by François Marquis
The Thin Red Line (1998) by Terrence Malick, picked by Erick Zonca
The Thing From Another World (1951) by Howard Hawks, picked by Luc Moullet
There Was a Father (1942) by Yasujiro Ozu, picked by Kiju Yoshida
Tropical Malady (2004) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, picked by Garin Nugroho
Viridiana (1961) by Luis Buñuel, picked by Andre S.Labarthe
Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) by François Ozon, picked by Juliane Lorenz
City Lights (1931) by Charles Chaplin.
“It comes from my childhood, my parents liked very much Charlie Chaplin’s films. His films came along with me and they still do. It’s extraordinary. This little man was a great man. The story of City Lights moves me, particularly the end of the film. She sees him and it is the first time she sees him in all his sincerity -there is something very moving here, very strong. I think that Chaplin’s films still resonate nowadays, they travel perfectly through time.”
Adelaide Leroux was seen for the time in the film Flanders by Bruno Dumont, which received the Grand Prize of the Jury in the 59th Cannes Film Festival in 2006. She is back on the “croisette” this year for Home by Ursula Meier, in which she co-stars with Isabelle Huppert and Olivier Gourmet. The film was presented in an exceptional screening at the International Critics’ Week.
More information about City Lights.