Posts Tagged ‘Juliette Binoche’

Paris

Land of a Thousand Dances

November 6th, 2009

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I can be forgiven for anticipating that the latest film from Cédric Klapisch – simply titled “Paris” — would be just a picturesque postcard to the French capital with little to say. Previously, in “The Spanish Apartment,” he told the trifling story of a graduate student’s amorous exchange year in Spain. (When the soundtrack and editing are the two most overpowering artistic impressions, it generally does not bode well for the narrative, and the conclusion to the 2002 release was more foisted than justified.) It was a slideshow of a pretty picture that could have been called “Barcelona.” But with this new movie, Klapisch proficiently juggles a captivating multi-arced story with the contemplative viewpoint of an ailing central character as the jumping off spot. The subplots of numerous city dwellers — some who are very close to the protagonist, most only tangentially connected, at best – are told chiefly with depth, grace and illumination. This time, in “Paris,” the camera is more than a view finder scanning a beautiful, bustling city.

Pierre (Klapisch regular Romain Duris) is a professional dancer in his early 30s who learns he has a serious heart condition and is confined to his modest bachelor pad by the illness as he waits for a transplant. He rests his arms on the balcony railing of his Montmartre apartment, no less than five stories high, and gazes plaintively and admiringly upon the streets fanning out like spokes on a wheel. His older sister, Élise (Juliette Binoche), moves into his small space with her three pre-teen children, to care for Pierre. Élise visits the local outdoor market on a daily basis, getting to know the vendors of the fruit and vegetable stalls, incrementally. (In compelling scenes taking place without Élise, Klapisch, who also wrote the script, keenly reveals the hearty and sometimes thorny after-hours social interaction of these four men and the saucy, beguiling ex-wife of one of the merchants. An early-morning sequence later in the film set in a massive wholesalers’ warehouse is flirtatious and bittersweet.)

Earlier this year, Binoche appeared as the transatlantic travelling sister in Olivier Assayas’ “Summer Hours,” a drama which hinted at more than truly explored the dynamics of mortality weighing upon an affluent family. With Élise, Binoche is provided with a more complete, understandable character as she deals with a myriad of recognizable challenges: caring for the brother she dearly loves; striving for honesty with her children; coping with her job as a social worker; and facing her own romantic vulnerability caused by an ex’s betrayal. It’s a refined, robust performance from Binoche.

From his perch, Pierre sees a radiant young woman, Laetitia (Mélanie Laurent from “Inglourious Basterds”), who lives in a building cater-cornered from his, walking along the street with a carefree, sensuous gait which denotes the freedom he is denied. (Duris is a striking actor and he perceptively captures Pierre’s regularly simultaneous feelings of wonder and wistfulness). Laetitia is a student in a Parisian history class taught by a middle-aged professor named Roland Verneuil (Fabrice Luchini, “Intimate Strangers”). Priggish and bitter, Roland bristles about irksome colleagues and initially derides a TV producer’s overtures to host a program. However, money and vanity sway him. He becomes a television academician appearing in “It was here”-style documentaries, where he recites lectures as he strolls through palatial landmarks while live, costumed historical figures loll about in the background.

Back in his classroom, during a student’s dull presentation, Roland is fixated by Laetitia, and she stirs a dormant poetic fancy, first expressed, cheekily, through text. A fling commences. The curmudgeon vanquished, Roland is rejuvenated; he has the giddy air of Michael Caine’s Elliot in “Hannah and Her Sisters” when he burst “I’m walking on air.” In an uproarious scene at his home, an unrestrained Roland dances in front of Laetitia to a thumping Wilson Pickett tune; he’s in rhythm but out of control. Roland bops with complex, unselfconscious gyrations like an intoxicated Charlie Brown cartoon kid. The invigorated teacher becomes unrecognizable to his younger, architect brother (François Cluzet, “Tell No One”). Luchini handles Roland’s transition wonderfully, his impish eyes twinkling with delight. Laetitia, who has a leather jacketed boyfriend with the sexy ugly allure of Javier Bardem’s younger brother, is merely bemused.

Dancing features in a lovely, sensual and poignant sequence for Pierre. At a crowded, lively party thrown together at his place by Élise, he is joined on the makeshift dance floor by two fellow dance company members performing sultry, precisely choreographed moves to a hypnotic beat. Duris exhibits a sinewy flow to his body, and his face simmers with joy in a clearly ecstatic moment. Intimately photographed by Christophe Beaucame, the camera discovers Pierre gingerly sitting at the end of a couch catching his breath; the hips of others still sway to the music as again, Pierre, sadly, is demoted to the role of spectator.

The film builds upon these scenes, so that the characters’ actions, attitudes and decisions – whether the journey to peace of mind, or the courage to trust in a relationship, or the acceptance that an affair has ended — seem grounded in genuine development. (The least fleshed out episode is the cursory and, ironically, the most attractively shot story which follows the quest of a Cameroonian relative of one of Élise’s clients to reach Paris through perilous travel from Africa.) Unlike “The Spanish Apartment,” this movie earns an affinity for the characters. When the film ends, it’s not a conclusion. “Paris” feels like a terminus a quo.

Posted in Paris | Tagged Cédric Klapisch, Christophe Beaucame, Fabrice Luchini, Francois Cluzet, Hannah and Her Sisters, Inglourious Basterds, Intimate Strangers, Juliette Binoche, Mélanie Laurent, Michael Caine, Olivier Assayas, Paris, Romain Duris, Summer Hours, Tell No One, The Spanish Apartment | Comments (0)

September 11th, 2009

Inspired by his young daughter’s question, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” Chris Rock in November travels the globe in the Roadside Attractions documentary “Good Hair” to contemplate the roots of her query.

Juliette Binoche “Talks Paris and Dancing” with The Village Voice.

A hellaciously impressive cast — including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey and J.K. Simmons — cavorts in a too-crazy-not-to-be-true tale about military psychics in Grant Heslov’s “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” Based on Jon Ronson’s 2005 book detailing stupefying U.S. Army supernatural intel techniques, “Goats” opens in November.

In an absorbing interview about “Crude,” Marshall Fine discovers how, after initial reluctance, for the director of the seminal documentaries “Brother’s Keeper” and “Paradise Lost,” the legal battle waged against the nefarious decades-long assault by Texaco on Ecuador’s Amazonian rainforest became “the movie Joe Berlinger had to make.” “Crude” opens today, with a steadily widening release in North America through the rest of the year.

One Film Wonder: For the first 20 films of her Hollywood career, Dorothy Comingore was known professionally as Linda Winters, if she was known at all (nine of the roles were “uncredited.”). In 1941, at the age of 28, she appeared in her 21st movie for the first time under her given name. It was a significant role as the mistress who becomes the second wife of the film’s megalomaniacal protagonist; the film was “Citizen Kane,” the movie critically regarded as the greatest American motion picture of all time. Orson Welles cast Comingore as the unrefined Susan Alexander Kane, the reluctant singer for whom Charles Foster Kane built an opera house. In a notable performance, Comingore inhabited the role with a palpable pathos and a memorably shrill, henpecking delivery; she is particularly effective in the somber scenes at the “El Rancho” nightclub after Kane’s death. Comingore made only three more films until she was blacklisted in 1951 following her appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Posted in Beyond the Reel | Tagged Brother's Keeper, Chris Rock, Citizen Kane, Crude, Dorothy Comingore, Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Good Hair, Grant Heslov, J.K. Simmons, Jeff Bridges, Joe Berlinger, Jon Ronson, Juliette Binoche, Kevin Spacey, Linda Winters, Marshall Fine, One Film Wonder, Orson Welles, Paradise Lost, Roadside Attractions, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Village Voice | Comments (0)

Summer Hours

Closing Time

July 3rd, 2009

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“Summer Hours” begins promisingly. Three adult children, cast to different points of the globe, return to their mother’s serene country estate outside of Paris to celebrate her 75th birthday. Grandchildren flit about the lush grounds as the trio lounge, wine glasses fixed to their hands, and chitchat with genial tweaking banter. Their mother, Hélène (Edith Scob), with undertones of cynicism, begrudgingly accepts presents.

Hélène is not obsessed with her own mortality but the fate of her home and, just as importantly to her, the artistic possessions within. She takes aside her eldest son, Frederic (Charles Berling), an economist who lives in Paris with his wife and two kids, and lists an inventory of the home’s most valuable (in both senses) belongings; it’s a bevy of prestigious paintings, including those by her artist uncle with whom she shared the home for many years, and museum-coveted furniture and bric-a-brac. Frederic is unsettled by his mother’s straightforward approach and reacts understandably — he knows it’s necessary but there’s never a good time for this sort of discussion.

Just a few months later, when Hélène returns from San Francisco after hosting a retrospective of her uncle’s work which was attended by the whole family, she passes away suddenly. (The San Francisco sojourn, her death and the funeral service are all unfilmed events.) After the unseen funeral service, the three children sit and drink and begin to recollect. They are each aghast at the anecdotes Hélène shared with the exhibition’s audience, stories hinting at a more intimate life with her uncle. She “never spoke so freely in front of us,” one posits.

And here “Summer Hours” seems on the verge of an intriguing examination of the mourning process. It’s a film which seems to be bracing for an exploration into a multitude of questions: how well do we really know someone, even our immediate family? How do we react and deal with the strain on family bonds when brothers and sisters form new families with distinct responsibilities? What can a will bequeath that memory hasn’t already left? What is the worth of an antique painting compared to the recollection of how your mother’s skin feels against your cheek? Essentially, what is the value of a person? Deflatingly, though, “Summer Hours” shirks any desire to truly delve.

The middle child, Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), a high-end flatware designer, lives in New York and is engaged to an American. The States, she admits, will become her permanent residence. Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), the younger brother, an executive for a sneaker company, already resides in Asia with his wife and three kids. A forthcoming promotion will extend his stay for years. The country home is of no benefit to either; the property and the considerable collection is a useful and timely inheritance to cash in. Frederic, who would like to retain the home, is outvoted. The decision is pragmatic and logical yet detached. They don’t talk about their mother as a person but more as a curator; she’s not the object of affection or even derision but more akin to an objet d’art. And after the decision to sell is made, the movie becomes too interested in estate issues, and how to reduce tax penalties, and the machinations of massaging the sale of the heirlooms to the Musée d’Orsay.

Frederick, a good hearted man, is still an undeveloped presence, even though the last third of the film is spent exclusively following his story, because too much time is spent on these business affairs. (The other two have returned to their foreign locales and are, at best, peripheral characters.) Even when a reflective moment is introduced, such as when Frederic and his wife go the museum to view their family’s assembled works on display, it’s undercut by a lack of urgency; the scene ends with a strange fit of laughter in the museum’s coffee shop.

The most poignant moments in the film are derived from two scenes focusing on the secondary character of Éloïse (Isabelle Sadoyan), their mother’s long-serving housekeeper. In the first, she arrives at the home while appraisers are busy boarding up the catalogued artwork and, as she roams the house, her face is a genuine expression of subtle melancholy. Then, in an even tenderer scene, she returns when the house is locked up for sale, and she can only slowly walk the perimeter, peering through the windows into the empty rooms.

But when the story comes back to Frederic, “Summer Hours” incorporates an unnecessary tangential plot of his teenaged daughter snared in a minor entanglement with the police. (Snagged for shoplifting and possessing a trace of weed, she’s let off with a warning.) But the film hasn’t nurtured the relationship between father and daughter so it feels clichéd. (Strangely, very quickly afterwards she is allowed to host, unsupervised, a massive party at the home with a few dozen of her friends.)

The inner lives haven’t been properly examined. And this is true of the adult children as well. There’s very little interest in grief or loss. Earlier this year, the evocative “Cherry Blossoms” addressed these issues with more authenticity and clarity than director and writer Olivier Assayas seems inclined to invest in “Summer Hours.” As the siblings open an umpteenth bottle of wine one wonders if what they’re really thinking is how much the corkscrew can fetch at auction.

Posted in Summer Hours | Tagged Charles Berling, Cherry Blossoms, Edith Scob, Isabelle Sadoyan, Jérémie Renier, Juliette Binoche, Olivier Assayas, Summer Hours | Comments (0)

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