UN BEAU MATIN (ONE FINE MORNING)(France 2022) ***1/2
Directed by Mia Hansen-Love
Director Mia Hansen-Love (LE PERE DE MES ENFANTS) tackles once again her favourite genre of nuanced romantic relationships, this time between Sandra (Léa Seydoux) and best friend, but a married one, Clément (Melvil Poupaud), before they turn into best friends with benefits. There are of course complications and baggage. Sandra works as a freelance translator, being an attentive single mother to her eight-year-old daughter (Camille Leban Martins), and caring for her father (Pascal Greggory), a retired philosophy professor slowly losing his sight, memory, and independence due to a neurodegenerative disorder. It is her father that brings Sandra to tears so often. Clement, however, is married with a son. Director Hansen-Love is an expert in creating and developing emotional and realistic characters making UN BEAU MATIN immensely watchable and compelling. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022 and opens this week. A solid alternative for a Valentine’s Day Movie - French style. The film won the Europa Cinemas Label (best European film in Directors’ Fortnight) at Cannes 2022
SAINT OMER (France 2022) **** Directed by Alice Diop
Fresh from winning a top prize and the Venice Film Festival, this is one extraordinary narrative debut by acclaimed documentarian Alice Diop. Her doc roots are evident in the film as there are lots of actors speaking to the camera just as interviewees do, especially in the long takes of the court sessions. The incidents are never shown on screen but unfolds in the words of the actors, and more effectively so. A young novelist, Rama (Kayije Kagame), is working on a contemporary retelling of the ancient Medea myth. In Greek mythology, Madea is a mother who murdered her children. Pregnant herself and increasingly uneasy, Rama’s own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused woman, Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), is gradually revealed. From a stern upbringing in Senegal to gradual isolation from family and society on her arrival in Europe, Coly’s experiences expose the traumas of racism and emotional manipulation that can remain unspoken while insidiously and irrevocably corroding a person’s well-being.
Never has a film with so much dialogue been so exciting and compelling. The courtroom drama played out by director Diop looks so much like a true crime drama. SAINT OMER where the baby was drowned is west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais, and is located in the Artois province. The town is named after Saint Audomar, who brought Christianity to the area.
SAINT OMER has been awarded the Best International Feature by the Toronto Film Critics Association.
(ASTÉRIX AND OBÉLIX: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM) (France 2022) ***1/2
Directed by Guillaume Canet
The French get it right with their latest live action comedy of the Belgium-French favourite cartoon comic books of Asterix and Obelix written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo.This is the only film (there has been more than 15 such films, all animated except two other live-action) not based on the stories of the comic book or comic books and originally written for the film.
The bande dessinée comic book series and film is about a village of Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight the Roman Republic, with the aid of a magic potion created by the druid Panoramix (played by French comedian legend Pierre Richard), during the era of Julius Caesar, in a historical telling of the time after the Gallic Wars.
The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.The Empress of China has just been imprisoned following a coup d'état incited by Deng Tsin Qin, a traitorous prince.Helped by Finatheses, the Phoenician merchant and her faithful bodyguard Mai Wei, the Empress' only daughter Princess Sass-Yi flees to Gaul to ask for help from two valiant warriors Asterix (Canet) and Obelix (Gilles Lellouche), who are endowed with superhuman strength thanks to their magic potion.The two inseparable heroes gladly accept to help the Princess save her mother and free her country. And thus begins a great voyage and adventure on the silk road to China. But Caesar (Vincent Cassel) and his powerful army, thirsty for a new conquest, are also heading toward the Middle Kingdom.
There is much to be entertained in this film adaptation.Firstly, an all star cast of famous French stars like Vincent Cassel, the director Canet himself, Gilles Lellouche, Marion Cotillard as Cleopatra and of course Pierre Richardlend their hand. Adults too, should be entertained with their fond memories of the comic characters that first appeared in 1961.To boot, there are a few adult ‘dick’ jokes that are done in good taste.A few Chinese characters have joke names like Pu Nee (for someone with a little one) or Sil Lee might be too harmless to be racist to offend some.Otherwise, the film pays respect to the Chinese (take the toke line: “Watch the Chinese fight!”) as the two cultures the Gauls and the Chinese blend nicely together.The heroes Asterix and Oblelix both fall in love with two Chines females as well, one the princess and the other the princess’s bodyguard.
The film also tackles issues like female roles and alpha males while criticizing unhealthy meat edibles.Colonization is also looked down upon in the story, too bad there s little too much fun poked at the Chinese.
Almost the perfect family entertainment for the bilingual family, ASTÉRIX ET OBÉLIX: L’EMPIRE DU MILEU opens February 1st.
CONFESSIONS (English title: Confessions of a Hitman)(Canada 2022) ***1/2
Directed by Luc Picard
Starring and directed by Luc Picard, CONFESSION, based on the novel, is the no-nonsense story of Quebec's most notorious hit man Gérald Gallant. It plays like a biopic but the titles at the film's start are quick to emphasize that this is a fiction film based on true characters.
Gallant is one of the most prolific hitmen of our time, a paid assassin who worked for the biker gangs of Quebec from 1978-2003. Yet with twenty- eight murders and 12 attempted murders across 25 years, Gérald Gallant surprised and confused. How did a stuttering “average Joe” with fragile health and a modest IQ, living a conventional lower-middle-class life with a deeply religious wife in a quiet neighborhood, manage to outsmart both the most hardened criminals and the smartest lawmen for decades while continuing to ply his “trade”?
Gallant (Picard) was brought up by a tough and severe mother (there is no other person I hate more in the world, Gallant says of her) who did not hesitate to belittle him in the eyes of everyone. The stuttering man in fragile health suffering from heart disease, now leads a peaceful existence in a quiet neighbourhood with his wife, Pauline. Gallant loves her but carries on a passionate affair with another woman, Yet this uneventful facade hides serious sins. Gallant’s roadmap includes no less than twenty-eight murders and fifteen attacks, mostly bikers and high-ranking mafiosos. Gallant also works in conjunction with the police and doesn't hesitate to sell out those around him. Picard portrays Gallant as a despicable personality with no oils lying about his guilt and everything else.
This is also Quebec’s history where biker gangs terrorized the streets, and society had moved away from the traditional constraints of the Catholic church. The banality of evil has never been more forcefully depicted.CONFESSIONS has the feel of a real gangster movie.
CONFESSIONS OF A HITMAN captured Best Director at the Whistler Film Festival and a trio of Canadian Screen Award nominations.
CONFESSIONS premiered in Toronto at Cinefranco 2022 and premieres on VOD and Digital December the 2nd.
SHE IS CONANN (France/Belgium/Luxembourg 2023) * Directed by Bertrand Mandico
If one can remember the past Bertrand Mandico films AFTER BLUE and THE WILD BOYS, both sexual action...
