[Carol] Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me. It was like remembering something I’d never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn’t know what. Maybe it was something I’d forgotten or something I’ve been missing all my life. All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive. Yes, alive. That was the moment I fell in love with Paris. And I felt Paris fall in love with me.

Carol in “Paris je t’aime”, by Olivier Assayas and Frédéric Auburtin

I, for one, would gladly watch a movie that entirely consisted of images like this:

From Olivier Assayas’s Boarding Gate (2007).

O filme “Horas de Verão”, do diretor Olivier Assayas, fala das distintas trajetórias de dois irmãos e uma irmã de quarenta e poucos anos se chocam quando sua mãe — que preservava a obra de seu tio, o excepcional pintor do século XIX Paul Berthier —, morre repentinamente. Os filhos são levados ao confronto de suas diferenças. Adrienne, uma bem sucedida designer em Nova York; Frédéric, economista e professor universitário em Paris; e Jérémie, um dinâmico empresário que vive na China, são apresentados às texturas e lembranças do final da infância, às memórias partilhadas, criando uma visão única do futuro. O longa será exibido na 33ª Mostra Internacional de Cinema. No elenco: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier e Edith Scob.

serviço

o quê: Horas de Verão (L`Heure o D`Été – França -2008 – 102 min)
quando: 5 de novembro, às 19h30
onde: Masp – Vão Livre
endereço: Avenida Paulista, 1578
telefone: (11) 3938.0697
entrada: gratuita
informações: www.mostra.org

“Summer Hours” is one of the latest IFC French movies to DVD.  It’s kind of what I’d like to call a rite of passage story.  The plot (briefly) is three siblings leading very different, yet productive lives, decide that it is best to sell their recently deceased mother’s lovely, artful summer house.

“L’heure d’ete” (actual title) has been called writer/director Olivier Assayas’ masterpiece.  He has been writing and directing movies since the late 70’s.  He was featured in “Paris, je t’aime.”  He seems to work primarily though, on indy projects.

I liked this film very much, although honestly I thought it looked a little too aristo when I first looked at the cover of the DVD (the photo I’ve featured is much better, I think).  But in reality, this movie displays compassion, understanding, and French culture.  It’s very unique among most movies I’ve seen recently.  Nice work.

Boarding Gate, 2007 – Direção: Olivier Assayas – Elenco: Asia Argento, Michael Madsen, Kelly Lin.

Meu primeiro Assayas. E não posso negar, é foda!

Pra começar, filmes esteticamente impecáveis me deixam maluco. E esse aqui, é esteticamente lindo e perfeito. Só de ser filmado todo em digital de uma maneira tão perfeita que em quase todos os momentos não se percebe o uso dessa opção visual.

O filme tem Asia Argento. Um dos grandes motivos pra qualquer cueca querer vê-lo. Asia é um caso a parte. Ela não é apenas linda, ou “quente”, mas ela é uma das melhores atrizes da atualidade, e afirmo isso depois de ter visto esse e New Rose Hotel. Ambos imprimem o que a mulher representa para a sétima arte, ela é uma arte em si. Pra ser ator você tem que perceber que seu corpo não é mais seu quando se entra num set, nun palco, etc. Mas você tem que perceber que o corpo é de quem dirige, e o corpo de Asia é de quem dirige e ela não impõe nenhuma dificuldade nisso. Nem preciso citar o que ela faz em Go Go Tales porque já fica até meio batido, mas vou citar o que ela faz aqui. Ela entra com tanto afinco na sua personagem que acaba se tornando ela e agente nem percebe, pois acabamos tendo a impressão de que ela sempre foi assim, daquele jeito. Pra começar ela é uma ex-prostituta drogada, que ajudava seu ex-parceiro a descobrir segredos corporativos dormindo com seus concorrentes, e também é uma mulher confusa que não sabe quem ama direito, ou sabe, mas que não sabe o que faz para seguir com esse seu amor. E cara, ela é essa mulher. Ela não se parece com ela, não chega perto de ser ela, ela é ela.

Michael Madsen que me desculpe, mas ele é um filho da puta! Posso dar vários motivos pra isso, mas vou citar dois: Atua de mais e faz tudo o que pode com a Asia. O cara é um louco de um sádico, mas eu achava que só era assim nos filmes do Tarantino, mas to começando a achar que ele é assim no seu dia-a-dia também. Porra o cara lambe o que consegue da Asia e ri pra caramba quando ela o algema e bate, e grita, e tudo mais que sabemos de carinhos existentes por ai. Ele só aparece na primeira metade, mas essa metade pode ser agradecida justamente por ter sua presença. A personagem de Asia só engata depois de um ocorrido ligado ao “Miles” de Madsen. Seu personagem é tão importante pra trama que desejamos que fique pro resto dela toda, muito, devido ao carisma de Madsen.

A trama é tão realista que nós somos jogados a ela como se fizéssemos parte dela. Sem precisar de introduções auto-explicativas ou epílogos para a entendermos. Basicamente discursa sobre os podres das grandes empresas e o que acontece quando precisam de algo, o que é mais comum do que agente pensa, daí Assayas escolhe nos unir a trama como se estivéssemos envolvidos com as falcatruas, jogos sujos, assassinatos e tudo mais que permeia o filme.

Legal notar também, que o diretor trabalha muito bem seus personagens e sempre os mostra, com sua câmera maravilhosa, de uma maneira única, causando impacto visual em quem vê. Como Michael Mann, Assayas opta pelo digital como forma de unir o espectador à trama para que o seu realismo seja melhor aceito.

Trama arregaçadora e modo de contar histórias geniais, para nossa época, Assayas consegue sim, fazer um dos melhores da década, sem pestanejar. Uni espectador ao que está sendo passado e usa de todos os artifícios que o cinema pode proporcionar. Filme lindo de se ver, impressionante de se pensar, interessante de se debater e excitante em seu todo com cenas de ação e tudo mais que não surgem inutilmente na trama. Se for seu primeiro Assayas também, só tenho a dizer que o que fica, é a vontade louca de ver os outros.

5/5

Chi è davvero Asia Argento? Oggetto del desiderio, personaggio borderline, figlia d’arte, musa, madre, attrice, regista. Cattiva, lunatica. O dolce? È un difetto tipico di noi giornalisti quello di definire, incasellare. Quindi questa volta non commetteremo l’errore. Anche perché, lo dice lei, “dentro di noi ci sono cento personaggi”. In cerca d’autore probabilmente. E gli autori hanno dimostrato di apprezzare molto tutti i personaggi che vivono dentro Asia. Lo ha ricordato proprio Mario Sesti introducendo Asia Argento ieri a un affollato incontro con il pubblico al Festival di Roma: Sofia Coppola, Abel Ferrara, Cristina Comencini, Nanni Moretti, Gus Van Sant, e ovviamente il padre Dario Argento sono alcuni dei grandi autori che l’hanno voluta nei suoi film. Olivier Assayas l’ha definita la più grande attrice con cui abbia lavorato. È anche regista, e qui a Roma ha presentato un suo corto che fa parte del progetto Onedreamrush, in cui 42 registi in 42 secondi sviluppano il tema del sogno. Il suo corto, S/He, mostra un gruppo di transessuali che festeggiano in allegria, ed è girato con una pellicola sgranata, colori accesi e un suono disturbante a fare da sottofondo.

Si definisce timida, Asia, e probabilmente lo è. Lunghi capelli neri con boccoli, pantaloni e camicetta nera molto sobri, Asia Argento ci è sembrata soprattutto simpatica, di una simpatia coinvolgente. Una di quelle persone con cui sarebbe divertente andare a bere una birra. Che sia timida lo si capisce dalla sua riposta alla prima domanda. Che cos’ha di speciale per affascinare tanti autori? “Non mi piaccio un granché, e non so cosa piaccia di me a tutti questi autori che mi scelgono” risponde. “Quando troverò la risposta alla domanda probabilmente la mia carriera sarà alla fine”. La risposta potrebbe essere in quel suo lato selvaggio. “Mi piace ‘selvaggio’” risponde ridendo Asia Argento. “È molto meglio che ‘bad girl’ o ‘dark lady’. È qualcosa che mi riporta alla giovinezza sfrenata: è stato un periodo selvaggio in cui ho imparato il cinema facendo il cinema. Durante l’adolescenza, mi sono cercata facendo i film, e non sempre è stato un percorso facile”.

L’incontro con l’attrice romana diventa così proprio un percorso lungo la sua carriera, a partire dagli inizi. “Il primo incontro importante della mia carriera è stato quello con Cristina Comencini, con cui ho girato il mio primo film (Zoo, ndr): avevo undici anni” ricorda Asia. “Mi ha insegnato a dimenticare la sceneggiatura, e a lavorare in gruppo”. “Poi a sedici anni con Michele Placido (Le amiche del cuore, ndr) ho capito che questo poteva essere il mio lavoro” continua. “A sedici anni, con Le amiche del cuore, andai per la prima volta a Cannes. Mi ricordo che andai a comprarmi un vestito a Via del Corso, un vestitino tipo principessa, una schifezza di nylon”. “Nella vita mi sono divertita a recitare in ruoli strani, malati, al limite, personaggi che non ero io. Abbiamo centinaia di personaggi dentro di noi, sta al regista tirarli fuori”. Non era cattiva, Asia. Era che la disegnavano così. Anzi, si disegnava così. “A venti anni non volevo interpretare la brava ragazza borghese” ci svela. “Sono timida, esco poco di casa, e quando esco lo faccio per fare i film.  E quindi voglio fare qualcosa di divertente. Ho scelto questi ruoli ‘selvaggi’, ‘borderline’, perché mi divertivano”. Tra gli autori dei suoi inizi c’è stato anche Nanni Moretti, che l’ha diretta in Palombella Rossa. “Moretti mi faceva ripetere le scene ottanta volte, e le faceva ripetere anche a se stesso” ricorda divertita. “Cercava la perfezione, che non è possibile. Ma è giusto per un attore avvicinarsi ai desideri del regista”.

Lo sa bene, Asia, perché è regista anche lei: uno sbocco naturale per chi è figlia e nipote d’arte, e ha sempre respirato cinema, divertendosi. “Nel cinema ci sono nata, mio nonno distribuiva film in Brasile, mia mamma e mia sorella sono attrici, e poi c’è papà Dario” racconta. “Da piccola guardavo tutti i film, ero ossessionata: mi piacevano i film di mio padre, e gli horror in genere, perché erano proibiti. Li guardavo nei Betamax, quel formato in cui i film non stavano tutti, e si fermavano prima della fine”. Ma non è stato tanto scontato per lei lavorare con il padre. Anzi, è stata una sorpresa. “Ero sul set di Placido, e sognavo di fare un film con mio padre” ci svela Asia. “Fino a quel momento mi aveva solo fatto doppiare il mostro di Phenomena… Venne sul set, e disse: lei farà il mio prossimo film, lo sto scrivendo per lei”. “Trauma è stato un trauma” racconta tra il divertito e l’imbarazzato. “Era la prima volta che dovevo spogliarmi, ed era proprio davanti a papà…”

“Quando dicevo che volevo fare l’attrice, mi dicevano che avrei dovuto fare la regista, perché gli attori erano persone tremende. Così ho cercato di fare l’attrice senza essere tremenda” svela. E così l’esordio alla regia, con Scarlett Diva, è stato un passaggio naturale. “A un certo punto mi è venuta in mente una storia, ho sentito che dovevo farla.

Avevo ventitre anni, ed era diventata una questione di vita o di morte. Scarlett Diva è un film imperfetto, ma credo che la sua forza siano gli errori. Non riesco a guardarlo perché è come leggere un diario dell’adolescenza. È stato il primo film girato in digitale in Italia. Dentro c’era una rabbia che si liberava. E c’era anche dell’umorismo, che non è stato capito”. Non è facile recitare e dirigere. “Bisogna essere come le mosche, guardarsi in giro a 360 gradi, vedere cosa fa l’elettricista, il direttore della fotografia. Bisogna farsi aiutare da tutti, senza farsi sovrastare. Francois Truffaut diceva che il regista è uno che deve saper dare delle risposte. E le devi dare in fretta”. “Il regista è uno scrittore, se firma le sue sceneggiature, è musicista. Il regista è prigioniero delle proprie ossessioni, è un ossessivo-compulsivo”, confessa Asia.

Una regista come lei, coraggiosa, anticonformista, sarebbe un toccasana per il cinema italiano, che pecca proprio di coraggio e imprevedibilità. Ma quello di Asia Argento con il cinema italiano è un rapporto che sembra essersi interrotto, dopo la prima parte della sua carriera. “In Italia mi sento più a casa” si confida. “I miei mostri sacri sono gli ‘ini”: Rossellini, Fellini, Pasolini. In Italia il set è più caloroso, umano, familiare, c’è la sarta che ti fa l’amatriciana. In Francia il cinema è più snob. In America è una vera industria. Poi c’è chi, come Gus Van Sant, lavora in maniera artigianale: una volta sul set voleva fare una carrellata lunghissima, ma non gli bastavano i binari. Così ci siamo messi a spostarli noi, man mano che il carrello si muoveva. Nei film americani in genere non puoi aiutare un elettricista, rischi che ti accusino di fargli perdere il lavoro”. Ma l’America la diverte comunque. “Girare in America è divertentissimo, è come stare al Luna Park: vestiti, macchine, morti, armi, uzi, spari. Hanno di tutto.” Ma non sarà che per il cinema italiano è un personaggio troppo ingombrante? “Non lo so. Forse non mi chiamano perché pensano che io viva ancora all’estero. O perché non ci sono i ruoli adatti. C’è una persona con cui vorrei lavorare: è Francesca D’Aloja: spero che Il sogno cattivo parta presto, e lo farò io. Non è un caso che lavorerò con una donna: facciamo gruppo. Come dicono in Freaks: l’accettiamo, una di noi!”

A proposito di cinema americano, Asia ricorda con piacere l’esperienza con Sofia Coppola per Marie Antoinette. “Sofia Coppola è il potere gentile” racconta con affetto. “Non ha bisogno di comandare, ma ha sempre in mano il set. È una che lascia andare, così ho improvvisato, e lei non ha tagliato molte cose che ero sicura avrebbe tagliato. Neanche il rutto, che è stato un gioco, e invece è rimasto in scena”. A proposito di donne, la Argento si toglie anche un sassolino dalle scarpe. “Perché per lo stesso mestiere un uomo viene pagato più di una donna? E perché su cento registi c’è solo una donna e gli altri sono uomini? In Italia volevo lavorare con delle donne, soprattutto nel reparto tecnico, ma non le trovavo. Ci sono delle brave montatrici, ma è perché stanno là, non hanno un ruolo di potere”. Ma proprio Asia Argento tornerà presto dietro la macchina da presa per firmare il suo terzo film. “Girerò Fucile da caccia, tratto dal romanzo del giapponese Inoue Yasushi. Senza disturbare Rashomon, è una storia  raccontata in tre modi diversi: ci sono tre lettere. È una storia attualissima, un triangolo amoroso”. A proposito di storie, ce n’è una che ronza nella testa di Asia Argento da quando aveva sedici anni. “Due fratelli vanno in guerra, esplode una bomba, e porta via a tutti e due la faccia” racconta sorridendo. “La moglie di uno dei due li porta entrambi a casa per capire chi è il marito. Un giorno la girerò, e sarà il mio Elephant Man”.

È una donna che sogna, Asia Argento. Il suo sogno ricorrente era quello di nuotare nell’aria. È una donna che crea sogni, perché il cinema in fondo è questo. Ma qual è il suo sogno di attrice? Sogna un ruolo in particolare? “Non ho mai sognato Lady Macbeth, né la Pulzella d’Orleans” confessa candida. “Mi fanno un po’ ridere le cose che dicono gli attori per nobilitarsi. Io cerco di tenere a bada l’egocentrismo di noi attori. Non dico mai: questo lo potrei fare meglio. Dico: ammazza che brava sta attrice! Come quando vedo Bette Davis. Ecco, forse quello di Che fine ha fatto Baby Jane è un ruolo che farei. Un bel ruolo selvaggio”. 

The hiatus at REVISIONS has lasted a bit longer than anticipated, but that’s the way August reclines into September: subtly, almost imperceptibly. I’ve always thought of these two months as a distinct mini-season unto themselves, a season alive with light and a newness in the air itself. (So, apparently, does Olivier Assayas, whose wonderful film Late August, Early September neatly and economically illustrates the life of the mind as it is lived outside the mind – with difficulty, among people – and ought to please anyone who admired Summer Hours as much as I did.)

REVISIONS will return on September 22nd, with a new column. In the meantime, Susan Chi, another New York-based writer, very kindly did an interview with me about CITY OF STRANGERS for the blog at BOMB Magazine’s website. You can read the interview here.

In the meantime, I will mention that, for those in New York, I will be doing a reading at KGB Bar, in the East Village, on October 4th. More information on the Events page to your right. Kate Walbert (the author, most recently, of A Short History of Women) will also be reading.

Finally, CITY OF STRANGERS received some kind words a couple of weeks ago in The Star-Ledger, from Betsy Willeford: ‘Paul [Metzger] trudges through the wintry gray New York City days like one of those Graham Greene innocent Americans who get themselves destroyed for inchoate causes. . . . Ian MacKenzie’s novel is simultaneously lyric and chilling.’

- por Guilherme Bakunin

É bastante claro que Assayas tenha pretendido criar um paralelo relativista com Horas de Verão, filme de 2008. Câmera sóbria, precisa e íntima, a direção do cineasta francês Olivier Assayas vagueia por entre as conversas dos familiares por entre um fundamental final de semana. Poucos minutos são necessários para que se caracterize as personalidades de cada um, para que se crie o conflito que permeará por todo o filme e para que se engatilhe a problemática da narrativa, que é, de uma forma bem superficial mesmo, a história sobre três irmãos que entram em um sutil conflito em decorrência do espólio da mãe recém-falecida.

Feito não com estereótipos, mas com personagens firmes e decididamente originais, o filme assume-se como uma experiência subjetiva, afinal, não é apenas aquela família a ser retratada na tela, é a sua. São todas as famílias, com todas as discrepâncias que cada um de nós provavelmente conhece tão bem. É claro que eu não posso dizer que Horas de Verão é fundamentalmente isso, mas esse é um aspecto que ficou mais claro pra mim e que eu particularmente acredito ser interessante de ser notado. Ainda mais porque não existem personas ultrapassadas no roteiro de Assayas, existem pessoas realmente tridimensionais, que pensam, sentem, falam, discutem, refletem etc. Daí, já se pode notar que a identificação pessoal com o filme não é algo que se cria com assimilações cartunescas e clichês, mas algo bem mais profundo, íntimo, que é justamente o que o filme procura ser.

Outra peculiaridade a ser notada, é como a família é interligada por laços sensíveis, e como esse aspecto de distanciamento abre espaço pra outro assunto moderadamente tratado no filme, o conflito de gerações. Inicialmente, como que se entrássemos de intrusos na reunião familiar, parecemos estar diante de uma família unicamente feliz, talvez não a todo instante, mas feliz ao menos naquele momento. As intrigas e divergências começam a se revelarem de forma cômica, ainda que trágica, pouco a pouco durante a reunião. Com a morte de Hèléne, a mãe (Edith Scob faz um trabalho que merece muitos aplausos), os irmãos se perdem, a família cede. Acredito que a morte de Hèléne seja o momento exato onde a grande família perde de vez espaço para a pequena – mulher/esposo e filhos. É a partir daí que os natais serão em casa, e as reuniões com muita comida e crianças deixarão de existir. Isso, de certa forma, corrobora com uma visão trágica da história, de que tudo que assistimos ali naquele momento, é algo que vai se repetir, inexoravelmente, dentro de algumas décadas, com cada uma das três pequenas famílias ali narradas.

E se tudo que resta da infância no campo e da companhia dos irmãos são meras memórias, inúteis para quem se está de fora (lembro muito de um filme do Woody Allen, A Outra, aqui) e claramente especiais para quem as valoriza, tudo o que o futuro pode reservar é a incerteza, sagaz, anárquica e total. É a incerteza que trás a insegurança (repare que Frédéric reluta a aceitar a passagem do tempo, o desbotamento das memórias, personificados pela casa/venda da casa de campo) e é ela que vai cuspir na sua cara todos os seus defeitos de atitudes.

Horas de Verão é obviamente um dos filmes mais elaborados que eu vi em muito tempo, multi-facetado ao extremo e que exige revisões e muito estudo pra ser devidamente compreendido, mas isso não impede que pouco a pouco, o mosaico da história se revele ao espectador, pedaços individuais de um quadro que jamais será preenchido de maneira absoluta, pois necessita, seja em grande ou pequena parte, da subjetiva de cada espectador pra ser observado em sua plenitude. O momento que isso mais se evidencia, na minha opinião, é a avaliação dos curadores de museus aos pertences da casa de campo. Objetos com um caráter sentimental extremamente grande para a família, e que se torna lixo dentro de um museu. É Olivier Assayas, em mais um trabalho fino e impactante, dando louvores ao deus da subjetividade na narrativa, fazendo algo que nem muitos diretores tem direito de fazer, que é retirar o absoluto da equação de sua obra. Gênio.

5/5

Horas de Verão (L’Heure d’été) – 2008, França. Dir: Olivier Assayas. Elenco: Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche,Jérémie Renier, Edith Scob

Sem qualquer pretensão cult, há algumas semanas, assisti ao filme Horas de Verão, do francês Olivier Assayas. Era dia de promoção na Reserva Cultural e, apesar do coletivo encharcamento de vestidos, meias finas e bolsas, a sala 4 estava lotada. Mas, ninguém se incomodou com o velhinho que não parava de tentar sussurros no ouvido da velhinha dele, duas filas à frente.

Pelo jeito, estavam  impressionados com a frase dita por Hélène, a matriarca de uma família de três filhos , na primeira das duas únicas cenas com pouco sol: “Quando  morrer, não irei sozinha. Levarei segredos, conhecimento, lembranças. O que ficam são os resíduos …”.

Suspirei.

Vinte e três anos após chegar ao mundo, na reta final da (talvez) primeira faculdade e dando as primeiras engatinhadas na vida adulta de verdade, tenho pensado no que farei dos (longos ou curtos) minutos que se estendem do agora até o ponto final do que é terrestre em mim.

Mas, é difícil decidir-se.

Na berlinda estão em jogo as promessas luminosas de um futuro sob o controle de minhas próprias mãos. Lado a lado com a verdade de que minhas certezas são como vento, que meus tão pequenos olhos ainda não sabem enxergar o horizonte inteiro, de que as coisas a que fortemente me agarro são nada mais que resíduos,

de que eu, Eu mesma sou pó …

Helenè

Decididos o destino dos resíduos de Hélène e a maneira como cada personagem se organizou diante de seu fim, as luzes da sala 4 da Reserva Cultural se acenderam. Sorridente, minha amiga perguntou se eu tinha gostado ou morrido de tédio. Muito gracinha, respondi com mais alguns comentários sobre cinema europeu.

Duas filas à frente, o velhinho e a velhinha, de mãos dadas, saíam leves, quase livres. Eram os únicos que não tentavam fugir da ideia dos resíduos.

“mas, quando pensei em todas as coisas que havia feito e no trabalho que tinha tido para conseguir fazê-las, compreendi que tudo aquilo era ilusão, não tinha nenhum proveito. Era como se eu estivesse correndo atrás do vento“. (Ec 2:11)

“Senhor, ensina-me a contar os meus dias para que eu possa ter um coração sábio” (Sl 90:12)

Por Talita Abrantes

Seems criminal somehow that, since opening in New York last May, it’s taken three and a half months for Olivier Assayas’s masterful new film Summer Hours to finally make its way to Madison’s Sundance Cinemas. Worse, the print that’s being screened is inexcusably worn and scuffed. (Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is a lesser film, but I’m planning on catching it a second time this week just to marvel at the saturated color in a pristine print.) Assayas is probably still best known for his stylish cult hit Irma Vep (1996) starring Maggie Cheung in a black latex catsuit and Jean-Pierre Léaud as a dissipated movie director. Summer Hours, while seeming more conventional on the surface than the self-consciously arty and erotic Irma Vep, is no less exhilarating. The film centers around a family-owned country estate in disrepair and the three grown siblings (Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche, and Jérémie Renier, all first-rate) who must decide what’s to be done with the property once their mother has died. The estate, which had belonged to the mother’s uncle, a well-known artist, is filled to bursting with paintings, glassware, and furniture of significant value. From this simple premise, Assayas (who also scripted) touches upon themes of loss, generational conflict, infidelity, and, surprisingly and profoundly, the manner in which art and beauty are woven into our lives and provide continuity and solace. It’s great storytelling, literary in its sensibility—think Chekhov and Henry James—but ravishingly cinematic in the telling.

Herve (Berling) stares longingly at Diane (Nielsen).

I watched Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover about a week ago and after letting it sit in my mind I feel I can finally grasp the film. Basically the plot – at first – revolves around primarily three workers at a French pornography distribution company called the Volf Corporation which is on the brink of an international deal between a Japanese adult animation studio called Mangatronics and a large American distributor called Demonlover: Diane (Connie Nielsen) is a somewhat cold corporate second-in-command who becomes the new head honcho of the company when her boss – Karen – mysteriously is drugged and kidnapped, who turns up only a few days later and takes leave of the compnay to recuperate from her ordeal; Elise (Chloe Sevigny) is the ambitious secretary who resents Diane for replacing Karen and doesn’t hide her frustration with the change; and Herve (Charles Berling) holds a high-up position in the company and has a not-too-secret crush on Diane.

It is eventually revealed that Diane is working with a rival French porn distributor to sabotage Volf Co.’s deal, and what is at first shown as a film depicting the corporate lives of three individuals becomes a film that focuses primarily on Diane’s character. Diane is being given money by the rival to inform on Volf Co.’s deal, and to gather information against both Volf Co. and Demonlover.  In negotiations with Demonlover Diane – based on information provided to her by the rival French company – makes the claim that Demonlover is a front for the illegal torture/sado-masochism pornography site called Hellfire Club. The Americans become outraged and leave the deal. Then that night, Diane sneaks into one of the American representatives’ hotel room to steal information about the American company from the representative’s laptop in order to hand it over to the rival, however Diane is caught in the act and what follows is a good ol’-fashioned catfight that turns ugly and bursts into the hotel hallway and ends up in a small maid’s supply room where the American manages to knock Diane unconscious.

What follows in the narrative is the source of much disagreement among proponents and critics of the film, but I feel the shift to be a necessary step in the film in order to take it to another allegorical level where Assayas reveals that the plot itself was a mere ploy to capture the audience’s attention. The film shifts away from a corporate espionage tale with undertones of social commentary to a film where those undertones of sexual and violent themes are put in the forefront and in effect the film become much more explicit in its stance on technology/relationships/sex/love.

(Will edit post to include thoughts on second half of the film, but I want to re-watch it first and it may take a couple of days for me to have the time to do so.)

So, it looks as though it’s actually possible for one of the year’s best-regarded contemporary European films to play in Madison: Olivier Assayas’s latest, L’heure d’été (Summer Hours) opens today at the Sundance Cinemas on N. Midvale. While I can’t recommend it with any sort of immediacy to those of you who haven’t yet seen the cinematic elephant in the room (begins with an I, ends with a Basterds), I will say that it’s well-composed, extremely agreeable and at times genuinely touching. Summer Hours is by no means a manifestation of the Kino-Fist, nor is it a descendant/zombie of cinematic modernism; its intentions are straightforward and its swagger suggests a cinema before alienation techniques and deconstructive gestures (not that such a cinema ever truly existed, but it’s nice to think so, isn’t it?).

One of my roommates said something about fictional cinema the other day that I found very interesting. I was explaining (poorly) the self-effacing, non-narrative approach to storytelling taken by Alains Resnais and Robbe-Grillet in Last Year at Marienbad (which will be playing at the Cinematheque on December 11th), and he mentioned that he tends to disregard plot for the most part, instead devoting his attention to the way that a film develops its characters. Now, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, strictly speaking, character development and plot development are two faces of the same beast; but his statement made me wonder whether there are films which subordinate narrative progression in favor of constructing a more complete portrait of the characters who endure the chain of events that constitutes the plot.

If ever there were such a film, it’s Summer Hours, whose dramatic ambitions are overly familiar, slightly melodramatic and more than a little bit predictable. Yet, these qualities don’t diminish the film’s effectiveness: instead, I came to know the film’s trio of protagonists all too well, to the point that when the film concluded in the best long take I’ve seen all year, I felt sort of like I’d been forced to part ways with some old friends without being able to say “adios” to them properly. The psychology of Summer Hours isn’t concerned with the perverse, the fetishistic, the neurotic or the hysteric; instead, the film attempts, rather metaphysically, to assemble a precise  image of restrained mourning, of modest disappointment, of losing something that had always been there. The concluding long take expresses it better than I can: You can’t go home again because there’s always a next generation to whom Home truly belongs and everyone else is comfortably lost.

HORAS DE VERÃO (L’heure d’été, 2008) O diretor francês Olivier Assayas monta um interessante painel familiar, envolto com os espólios que uma matriarca deixa a seus três filhos. Fréderic, Adrienne e Jerémie, obviamente, discordam sobre os rumos que a família e os bens terão após a morte da mãe. A grande questão imposta aqui, no entanto, é o modo com que os irmãos se comportam e a ligação que cada um deles tem com as lembranças deixadas, que vão além de cifras e a possibilidade de engordar a conta bancária. Assayas impõe aos personagens certa disparidade de conceitos – cada um deles tem uma vida bastante particular e privada em relação aos outros – mas sem deixar que a diversidade de opiniões reflita em um confronto de vontades, ocasionando cisões. É provável que o perfil da família, de nível cultural bastante elevado e raiz artística muito forte, defina as atitudes de seus membros, mas o que vale aqui, é caminho do enfraquecimento desses mesmos valores ao longo das gerações: aquilo que nutria a vida dos ascendentes, já não importam tanto para a geração dos filhos, que verá seus descendentes pisotearem sobre o lugar sem se importar com o que a história conta. É triste, e se torna ainda mais evidenciado com os muitos fades que o diretor coloca durante o filme, deixando aquele gostinho de que algo escorre entre as mãos e não há muito o que fazer.

Review by Conall Cash (catabloguing.wordpress.com)

Lately it seems like every year a new film shows up that either proclaims itself or is proclaimed by the most audible voices in criticism as an hommage to the films of Yasujiro Ozu. The latest is Still Walking, by Hirokazu Kore-eda, but already in that act of naming its director we notice something that immediately distinguishes this film from the crowd. Ozu adoration takes on many forms, produces very different effects – sublimity in Hou Hsaio-hsien; devastating pathos in Aki Kaurismaki; mysticist mediocrity in Wim Wenders; inert banality in Vincent Gallo – but it is almost never, interestingly, to be seen in the work of a Japanese filmmaker. Ozu’s body of work is so fundamental to the history of Japanese cinema that inevitably it has been ‘internalized’; just as no Hollywood director can entirely evade the influence of John Ford or Howard Hawks, no Japanese filmmaker can make a film that is not ‘after Ozu,’ inflected by his influence upon how cinema is made in Japan. What this typically means is that, unlike foreign directors who respond to particular, individual attributes of Ozu’s cinema – his unmoving, low-to-the-floor camera setups; his expression of the passing of time and of the generations through the visual motif of the changing seasons; or his achievement of meaning through indirection, with complex and painful emotions and ideas conveyed through mundane everyday conversation – a Japanese filmmaker is unlikely to consider these as isolatable, individually definable elements, but rather as constitutive of the very cinematic air he or she naturally breathes. Great Japanese cinema has been made by positively vomiting up this influence, performing a kind of self-asphyxiation rather than permitting this air to enter the lungs, eviscerating its every molecule in the pursuit of new forms – see the films of Shohei Imamura. Kore-eda’s achievement with Still Walking, on the other hand, is effectively to have found a way to breathe the air of Ozu afresh, to reconcile the foundational, inalienably Japanese Ozu with the versions of him found in his foreign disciples; to make a film that is simultaneously a conscious hommage and that takes itself seriously as living, breathing cinema, with responsibilities towards its own identity and those of its characters.

The characters in question are, of course, the members of a family – elderly parents, the father a retired doctor and the mother a lifelong homemaker; their two children (son Royta and daughter Chinami), youngish but approaching middle age, each with a spouse of their own now; and their several children and step-children, all pre-pubescent, with a penchant for toilet humour, but always with far more complex, serious inner lives than we (or their relatives) imagine. The story takes place over a couple of days spent at the old family home (“grandmother’s house,” the kids call it, though the grandfather doesn’t understand why his wife is taken to be its chief possessor and not him), before culminating in a brief, devastating flash forward – one of those “years later” epilogues like in Jean Renoir’s Une Partie de Campagne. It’s not immediately clear what has occasioned this family get-together – it’s not a birthday, or a new year’s celebration, and this is not the kind of family that just spontaneously decides to hang out for a weekend. Gradually, through Kore-eda’s extremely sensitive writing and direction of actors, that reason becomes clear, and with it comes a whole new understanding of how these people relate to each other, in terms of the resentment and the competing hierarchies and the inexpressible love that are common to all families.

An Ozu-esque story told in Ozu-esque fashion, then; but Kore-eda takes seriously what it means to make this kind of film today, in an extremely different Japan and an extremely different cinematic landscape from Ozu’s time. For every aspect of his film that plays like a specific, even parodic reference to a moment in Ozu – as in the scene where the family stands in an ordered group to have their photo taken, recalling the ending of Early Summer, only here instead of hiring a professional photographer for the occasion they can simply get one of the kids to use his digital camera – there is an addition, an introduction of something totally outside Ozu’s world that helps us to make sense of this 21st-century family. The most important and brilliant of these is the character of Ryota’s stepson Atsushi, whose widowed mother has now married into the family, and through whose foreign eyes we see much of what goes on amongst these people. While Ozu always had a fondness for these awkwardly poised outsider-insider characters (Setsuko Hara’s Noriko in Tokyo Story being the most famous example), a child like Atsushi, born of a world where remarriage and the restless movement of young families from city to city are rapidly losing their taboo quality, would be an impossibility in the universe of the old master. Perhaps because of this, Kore-eda places a great deal of emotional and narrative weight upon this boy and the young actor (Shohei Tanaka) who plays him, and it pays off beautifully. Atsushi offers not just an outsider’s look into the life of this family, but a vision of a life beyond such patriarchal groupings, beyond Ozu’s family, and the possibility that this is not something purely to be mourned, but also, more humbly, to be recognized as a continuation of the never-ceasing processes of social change. In this sense Atsushi plays something of a similar role to the kids in Olivier Assayas’ recent Summer Hours, and indeed there is a whole range of French influence upon Kore-eda’s achievement here, from Renoir to Eric Rohmer to Assayas, to go along with and further enrich the Ozu hommage. Still Walking is a wonder, a revelation, a joy to behold – maybe even a Tokyo Story for our time.

Director: Olivier Assayas

Olivier Assayas’ bittersweet story of family treasures, “Summer Hours”, is about as minimal as one can get. It’s a procession, but not in the way we criticize familiar books and films. Instead, however, it has an almost compulsive obsession with observation. Our action sequences here are routine activities we have or will one day confront on our own – questions of estate tax and the responsibilities of retaining a family’s legacy. All that happens in the film is a mother dying and her children trying to figure out what to do with her belongings. But, by stripping down the action so bare, the audience is better suited to hone in on what Assayas is telling us.

Shortly after her 75th birthday, Hélène (Edith Scob), a wealthy woman residing in a mansion, passes away. The house has been a staple in the family for several generations, and it’s interior is decorated with highly valuable artwork from the likes of Degas and Daums. Her three children – Frédéric (Charles Berling), an economics professor; Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), a designer residing in New York with her boyfriend; and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), an executive at Puma footwear in China – must decide what becomes of the house and the valuables inside.

Frédéric is the most sentimental of the three, and his wish is that his children and grandchildren will be able to share his memories by spending summers at the estate. He lacks the funds to keep it, however, and Adrienne and Jérémie are simply unable to look after it because of their own responsibilities. Frédéric, against his will, must accept the house’s fate.

The film is very much about the importance of heritage in an age of globalization, but at the same time it isn’t quite as sentimental as Frédéric’s character is written to be. In the coda, Frédéric’s daughter and her friends abuse the house with a behavior that would appall him. But this isn’t a sad ending about a failure of translation between generations, it’s simply a representation of the fact that memories aren’t passed down, but made. Frédéric’s heritage doesn’t mean much to her, but rather these new memories she’s forging are the ones she’ll one day hope to share. While Assayas is fascinated with antiques and family treasures, he’s illustrating to Frédéric that memories don’t reside in furniture.

The film is slow, but it’s only occasionally a bit dull in the later half. The characters are completely authentic, and they therefore illustrate familiarities we can see in our own lives. There are good films that are confined to their ninety minute runtime, and then there are great movies like “Summer Hours” that become the catalyst for endless hours of reflection.

A constant source of fascination and inspiration, our understanding of the “Jackal” was perhaps better served not in the trio of fiction films made about him (with Bruce Willis as the most recent impersonation) but in Barbet Schroeder’s Terror’s Advocate a couple of years back. Carlos the Jackal is both the subject, and title for Oliver Assayas’ latest project. The five month shoot took place in France, Germany and Lebanon with Che Part 1: The Argentine’s Edgar Ramirez plays the infamous Ramirez Sanchez. The TV drama made of three 90-minute episodes will also be released theatrically as a two-hour feature.

Co-written by Assayas and Dan Franck, this traces the life of Carlos (currently serving a life sentence in a French prison) from 1973-1994. Full of violence and secret-service manipulation, the story includes the 1974 bomb attack on the Publicis Drugstore in Paris, the 1975 hostage-taking of 11 OPEC ministers in Vienna and several planned assassinations. All this unfolds against a geopolitical backdrop encompassing the PLO, Japanese Red Army, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the USSR, East German Stasi, Hungary, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and, finally, Sudan where Carlos was arrested. For the full timeline on this fellow, check out the wiki page for him – he has quite the record.

I might be mistaken, I’ve seen every single one of Assayas film’s since Irma Vep including the encounter he had with Hou Hsiao-Hsien for HHH – Un portrait de Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1997), but this would be the first time the French filmmaker goes the biopic route. Assayas is coming off the critically adored Summer Hours and is set to direct the brilliant and beautiful Juliette Binoche once again in Les temps de venir.

Source:ioncinema

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Here, from the French writer-director Olivier Assayas, is a wistful Chekhovian drama of historical and familial inheritance. An aging widow (Edith Scob) assembles her family at the country estate she inherited from a famous-artist uncle, and prods her adult children (Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche and Jérémie Renier) to plan what to do with its treasures when she herself is gone. Tensely, but tenderly, the siblings take inventory of their sentimental attachments, ruminating on the value of heirlooms and intangible family bonds. By turns procedural and meandering, Assayas’ tale has an irregular pace, and occasionally it drags. But the performers all shine, especially with Eric Gautier’s nimble cinematography so alertly noticing them. It is, uniformly, a gracious and deeply felt movie. That you’ll probably be less inclined to like it if you’re less than 30 years old is part of what it’s about.

So far, Cinematic Vocabulary has focused upon isolated cinematic scenes.  The reason for this is that, while matters of style and technique impact upon entire films, it is frequently easier to isolate these aspects of a film by filtering out issues of narrative and characterisation that tend to function more on the level of entire films than on that of individual scenes.  However, as with atoms and tables, there is a point where the small things come together to form something recognisably large.  This column is about how a series of scenes can link up in order to form a part of a wider thematic arc.

A few months back, I wrote about Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover (2002).  Intrigued by the cerebral and somewhat extreme piece of French film-making, I tracked down the best known of Assayas’ works, Irma Vep (1996).  Set behind the scenes of a fictional remake of Louis Feuillade’s silent era crime pulp Les Vampires (1915), Irma Vep casts Hong Kong martial arts veteran Maggie Cheung as herself playing the titular Irma Vep character.  Much like Truffaut’s Day for Night (1974), Irma Vep uses its film-within-a-film structure to comment upon the nature of film production in general and the health of the French film industry in particular.  The result is a hugely rewarding film filled both with touchingly funny moments of human frailty and insightful critiques of what French film has lost and where it should be heading.

Film Poster

The first scene I want to draw your attention to takes place about half-way through the film.  Production has begun and the over-the-hill and close-to-the-edge director has stormed off the set disgusted with the day’s rushes.  Shooting having run late, the crew all make their own way home leaving the film’s star all alone in a parking lot in a strange town that speaks a language she is unfamiliar with.  However, seeing her alone, the costume designer takes pity on her and takes her to a dinner with some friends.  Having had too much to drink, the costume designer blabs to her friend about how much she fancies Cheung only for the friend to then set about seducing Maggie on the costume designer’s behalf :

Much like the later Demonlover, Irma Vep is a film that is not only bilingual but which takes an active interest in the effects that different language capacities have upon social groups.  Here, Maggie (a fluent but non-native English speaker) finds herself being chatted to by a woman whose English is clearly limited.  Assayas rightly notices that in these types of situation, people make allowances for the linguistic short-comings of others.  They are more charitable, less literal and more forgiving of social faux-pas.  These allowances are ruthlessly exploited by the costume designer’s friend who begins by making small talk before asking more and more probing personal questions.  Cheung’s performance here is stunning (she would later win a best actress award for her part in another of Assayas’ films) as she tries to laugh off the questions or to deflect them without causing offence to the woman whose house she is standing in.  The hand is brought up to her mouth in an attempt to protect herself from the onslaught and she squirms and twists refusing to deny her possible sexual interest in women or in Zoe.

The scene is all about protocols of non-verbal communication but it is also about culture clash.  Traditionally, one of the biggest differences between French and Anglo-Saxon film has been the French openness not only in depicting sex but also depicting grey areas between relationships.  Yes there is love and there is loss in French film but there is also illicit sex, ill-considered affairs, unhealthy desire and sexuality transcending lust.  As Gerard Depardieu said in Menage (1986) “Never joke about these sorts of things, I’m going to bugger you and you’re going to get off…”

Maggie Cheung has suddenly found herself not just in France but actually inside French film,  a world she admits that she is not particularly familiar with (“We don’t get the big French films in Hong Kong”).  Cheung radiates with warmth in this scene.  Assayas left nothing up to chance, right down to the warm lighting and the horrible cuddly cardigan she is wearing.  The film wants us to fall for Maggie because she represents a future for French film.  A future that combines the clashing cultures of an internationalist outlook with the best of French traditions.  These theme is carried through to a second scene set later in the same evening.

There are two interesting elements here (aside from the lovely travelling shot at the beginning) and that is the music and the fact that it is set at a table.  The table full of friends is an icon of French cinema.  Like a cowboy riding off into the sunset.  From Tacchella’s sexually charged family gatherings in Cousin Cousine (1975), to the more sinister social functions of Chabrol’s Pleasure Party (1975) and This Man Must Die (1969), the communal experience of food, wine and high-minded chat appears again and again in French film and Assayas’ seems more than happy to recast it featuring a veteran of Hong Kong action cinema.  Musically, we also see a commentary upon French culture as it is a cover version by the band Luna of an old song originally recorded by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot.  Again, we have the traditionally French combined with the cosmopolitan and the internationalist.  Because Bonnie and Clyde need not only be about a guy and a girl.  In fact, Bardot seems to be ahead of the curve by singing about a couple named “Bernie and Clyde” :

The final scene takes place after Zoe has deposited Maggie back at her hotel.  The pair separated on amicable terms with the evening’s discussion never having been touched upon.  Maggie returns to her room and decides to don the Irma Vep cat-suit (by the way, this scene is not safe for work after the first couple of minutes) :

Assayas’ perfectly captures Maggie’s restlessness.  She’s not only wired after a good evening out, she’s also wired because of being given the third degree over not only her sexuality but also her fetishes.  Her appetite has been whet and now she cannot rest.  She paces back and forth throughout the room like a tiger, accompanied by the opening to Sonic Youth’s song about Karen Carpenter “Tunic (Song for Karen)” with its dazzlingly conflicting feelings of being stuck somewhere unable to move and kind of liking where you are whilst also thinking about where you’ve been.  In fact, Assayas even seems to have inspired himself from some of the shots from the song’s video :

The scene addresses one of the film’s early speeches.  When Zoe and Maggie first meet, Zoe candidly says that it’s a stupid idea to remake Les Vampires and that the director should have stuck to more personal films grounded in real people and real experiences.  Assayas then presents us with Maggie, a real person in a real – if somewhat postmodern – situation and then shows us how she might be drawn into a life of crime… a life of sneaking into people’s rooms dressed in a rubber cat-suit and relieving them of their prized possessions.  The film brilliantly conveys the thrill to be had by living the life of Irma Vep.  The heady sense of power from sneaking past people’s outer defences and into their most private moments and places.  Again, Assayas shows us a possible future for French film.  A future that does not seek to plunder the past and give it a make-over featuring hot chicks in rubber, but which instead touches upon new subjects.  Subjects that might very well be informed by genre sensibilities but which remain rooted firmly in the realities of life and the constraints of the human condition.

I’ve not tried to discuss 18 movies in one blog post before; so luckily there was a single movie made that contained 18 smaller ones and they’re all even about the same subject matter. The place is Paris, and  the movie is PARIS, JE T’AIME. The concept behind having a groups of writers/directors come together to tell stories – in what was originally supposed be each district (or, in francais, arrondissement) – was conceived by Tristan Carne and Emmanuel Benbihy. From there we get some fantastic, international filmmakers from The Coen Brothers to Alfonso Cuaron, Gurinder Chadha to Gerard Depardieu and of course, Wes Craven to Walter Salles.

The first part is titles “Montrmartre” by writer/director Bruno Podalydes (who also acts as the lead actor in this part), and the story features a man driving around trying to find a parking spot. When he does, he questions himself in the mirror on why he’s not with someone. He’s funny and can laugh at himself. Then he notices a woman walking past the car, but when he sees that she doesn’t continue past the car – him looking through the side-view mirror. He gets out and sees that she has passed out on the sidewalk beside his car. From there, it seems to be a love connection and off we go to the next segment.

“Montmartre” is pretty funny and is a great kick-off to the movie in its entirety. There’s a little bit of the universal real life in this movie – the search for a parking spot – and the fantastical – where the girl that catches your eye, almost literally falls into your lap. Of course, as this movie goes to length in showing, this is not a promise of a happy ending; but at least a happy and sweet beginning to a relationship.

The second section is “Quais de Seine” by writer/director team (and married couple) Paul Mayeda Berges and Gurinder Chadha, and involves a trio of boys who each take their turn trying to score with the mademoiselles. The only one that kind of has a clue is the one who gets up to help a muslim girl that trips in front of them. The boy, Francois, helps the girl put the hair cover back on, with silly results and then later meets her – and her grandfather – outside of their mosque.

The segment is funny, for the many and varied ways that the young boys keep addressing the girls that walk by. There’s never any sign that they have a chance, and Francois sees the muslim girl smirking at their hijinks. It’s sweet and unlike the previous – or other segments – doesn’t offer up the promise of a “true love” moment, as much as just two people meeting and striking up a friendship. With, ok, the possibility of other things.

Next is “Le Marais”, by Gus Van Sant. It takes place in a print shop, where one boy sees another and instantly feels a kindred spirit. He goes on and on about how he just feels like he has to keep talking to this guy, only problem is, the other – American - kid doesn’t really speak french. It’s only after the printshop owner tells him that he ought to call the other guy, that the American kid takes off down the street trying to find the other.

You almost know the twist to this story, before it’s revealed – although, I initially thought that it was going to that the non-speaking kid was going to be deaf, but then he was responding a little. The only part that kind of seemed off – was the ending where it seemed like all of sudden the American kid felt like he so desperately he needed to find the other.

“Tuileries” takes place in a subway station, and features Steve Buscemi – written and directed by The Coen Brothers – and it’s our first straight-up slapstick segment of the movie. Granted it features the Coen’s trademark dark-humor, and Buscemi’s character doesn’t say a word in the entire segment. Even when he’s being attacked by a guy who he caught Buscemi’s tourist looking at his girlfriend.

The next segment is titled, “Loin du 16e” and features a young spanish woman dropping off her infant at a daycare so she can head to work. Before leaving and to soothe her child, she sings a lovely lullaby and then we get a fairly long segment showing the commute the girl has to go through to get to her job. Where we learn, is to take care of another infant – by a rich white woman – and this time when she tries to soothe the infant with the same song, it doesn’t seem to really work. So, she seems to spend her day looking out the window.

This segment is by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, and they do a good job of showing us the variety of denizens of Paris. If I did read the story correctly – with the differing responses of the two babies, then it’s an interesting story of love over your own family over “strangers”. But, the young Spanish girl is well played by Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Next we have “Port de Choisy” by Christopher Doyle, where we are introduced to a man who is trying to get directions to a salon. Whereupon once he arrives, he is attacked through a glass door and then the whole story kind of gets confusing in an array of sort of a music number and surrealistic hair-styling with a group of Asian women who take on the hairstyles of famous actresses – like Audrey Tautou in AMELIE.

I found this one to be one of my least favorite segments. It’s well made and I like the beginning part with the man trying to find his way to the salon, but then I guess I didn’t really “get” what it was trying to do.

“Bastille” is the next part and is made by Isabel Coixet and features a man who is meeting his wife at the same cafe where he first realized that he no longer loves her, to call off their marriage. The wife is played by Miranda Richardson, and she drops in with some news of her own. Which leads to him staying with her after all, and still winding up alone at the end; whereas he had had a mistress initially that he was looking forward to being with after his divorce.

The story, like many of these, is done without much dialogue and is narrated by revealing things about the wife, which he started off thinking were wonderful traits, but now drive him crazy. Like her red trenchcoat, or the song she sings when she makes dumplings. I liked this segment a lot, and it brought the movie back up to the level of the first few segments.

“Place des Victoires” is by Japanese writer-director Nobuhiro Suwa, and stars Juliette Binoche as a mother mourning the loss of her son. She then dreams that she can get him back, via following an American cowboy, played by Willem Dafoe. It’s a sad and yet kind of fun segment.

Next we get the story of young Jean-Claude, and how his parents met. The segment “Tour Eiffel” is by Sylvain Chomet. The boys parents, of course wind up being mimes, and we get a day in the life of the father and he eventually winds up in jail, only to be placed next to another mime – a female one – and they fall in love.

I know that there’s the stigma against mimes, but I found this segment endearing and pretty funny. Especially the male mime, who we see the most of. The most hilarious part is the fact that he uses his feet as his car – as all good mimes would – but he is able to still move at incredible speed and moves his feet almost like the Road Runner. And the giant book that young Jean-Claude wears on his back is pretty funny too.

“Parc Monceau” by Alfonso Cuaron, is done all in one long, continuous take and features Ludivine Sagnier and Nick Nolte walking and talking. We see Nolte’s character meet up with the young woman and we think that the conversation is heading one direction – and by the end, the story reveals itself to be about something else entirely. It’s all very well done – and carrying on the long takes Cuaron used in (one of my favorite movies) CHILDREN OF MEN – and it was good to Nick Nolte acting.

The next section called “Quartier des Enfants Rouges” by Olivier Assayas, features a guy riding up to a building on his scooter, only to reveal that he’s a drug dealer, and he’s there to sell his wares to an American actress – played by Maggie Gyllenhaal – who seems to develop a crush on the guy and calls him up for another hit, but is really just wanting to see the guy again.

There are some good bits in this segment, mostly having to do with the movie set that Maggie’s character is shooting on. And then there’s the unfortunate ending, that sends us into the next segment. But, for the most part, I wasn’t too thrilled with this one either. The beginning is cute, where Maggie has to go to an ATM to get cash, and then to a bar to break her bills into something smaller. This is where she possibly makes the mistake/misinterpretation of the drug dealer asking for her number.

“Place de Fetes” by Oliver Schmitz is about a man who is face to face with a woman he’s seemingly remembered her from a chance encounter where he was cleaning a parking garage. She’s currently attending to him, after he says he must have gotten stung by a bee and asks her to have a cup of coffee with him. It’s revealed that she’s actually a paramedic and he’s wounded. We then see some flashbacks to what this man’s life has been. Getting fired from a number of jobs, taking up playing a guitar and singing. We then see how the man wound up in the position that he’s in.

It’s a heart-breaking segment and the final shot of the woman holding two cups of coffee, is especially profound.

“Pigalle” starts with us seeing Bob Hoskins going into a bar, and getting a drink. He looks at and is spoken to by a woman who asks for a song to be played that was played the first and only time she fell in love. Then Hoskins walks back into a what is essentially a peepshow booth, where the woman from the bar then bursts in and tries to seduce Hoskin’s character.

It’s then revealed that they’re doing some kind of role-playing and actually are a couple. They leave the bar argue as they seem to be heading home. The writer/director Richard LaGrevanese, gives us a short view into a long relationship that has seemed to have gone through their ups and downs, and by the end we know that they’re used to performing.

“Quartier de la Madeleine” by Vincenzo Natali is about a young backpacker (Elijah Wood) who encounters a vampiress who is chewing on her latest victim – both a lucky and unfortunate Wes Craven. She then jumps at Wood, but sniffs him and then decides to leave him alive. It’s only when Wood’s character cuts himself, and then slips and falls down a flight of stairs that the vampire (played by Olga Kurylengo), with her white eyes and flowing hair and clothes, decides to save him by turning him into a vampire.

This was another segment that I didn’t really care for. I understand the history involved with things like vampires and grand guignol. But, this segment is kind of ridiculous with how Olga’s character’s hair and clothes seems to be running in reverse. The stylization of the blood and how the vampire looks is great though.

Continuing on with the macabre, sort of, we move on to “Pere-Lachaise” which has us following an engaged, British couple who are walking through the cemetery, and come upon Oscar Wilde’s tombstone. The story is really about the couple still kind of getting to know each other, while on their pre-marriage honeymoon (it’s the only time they could fit it into their schedules) and realizing that one’s too serious and doesn’t enjoy the fun things in life (as portrayed by the always fun Rufus Sewell) and well, the other joins the multitudes who have visited Wilde’s grave and left their mark by covering it with kisses (Emily Mortimer).

The fun part of this segment, which despite Sewell’s repeating saying that he’s never made anyone laugh, is when he falls down; bumps his head and sees a vision of Oscar Wilde, himself (as portrayed by Alexander Payne), who tells him to go after that girl. The fact that this segment is by previous vampire victim, Wes Craven, is a fresh outing from a director whose last real good movie was probably SCREAM and this is probably one of my favorite parts of the movie.

“Faubourg Saint-Denis” is about a young blind kid who while out walking one day hears a girl screaming that she’s locked in someplace and needs help. Of course, this is revealed that she’s just an actress practicing for a part. The girl played by Natalie Portman, is then shown a shortcut to the place of her audition, by the blind kid running through the streets. (amazingly he seemed to know a shortcut, that made the hall where she needed to go, right around the corner. This segment by Tom Tykwer, then follows these two as they seem to go through the motions of an entire relationship – which might actually have mostly all occurred through one phone call.

It’s a fun segment, that harkens back to Tykwer’s movie RUN LOLA RUN. And the revelation at the end could have a few meanings.

“Quartier Latin” was a magical portion of this movie, written and directed by Gerard Depardieu and Frederic Auburtin and features the onscreen reteaming of Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara. The couple used to work on movies with Rowlands’ husband – John Cassavetes – and was great to see them together playing a couple who are both in the twilight years of their lives, but starting over with younger partners, so they need to finalize their divorce.

There’s some wonderful and witty banter between the two, and really the saddest part to me was seeing these two aged so. Gazzarra apparently had a stroke a couple of years ago, and therefore his characteristic strong growl of a voice is muffled and weaker here. Also, Depardieu as Maitre’d was a nice touch.

The final part of the movie, is called “14e Arrondissement” and is by Alexander Payne – or Oscar Wilde – is about a mail-carrier from Denver who is in Paris alone and seeing the sights on her own. The story is told seemingly from a report that Carol (Margo Martidale) has written for some kind of (I’d assume French speaking) class. The narration is told in a choppy, not well, mannered french (as opposed to the other American performers in the movie, who all do pretty well with their speech) and winds up ruminating on her own life. How miserable she is being alone, how she thinks that her last boyfriend would enjoy this trip – except they last talked 11 years ago.

It’s a great and touching segment and Margo does a fantastic job in playing this part, and in her final moments, while looking around the park and finally falling in love with Paris, and knowing that it loves her.

The movie’s finale are short bursts of seeing how some of these characters have mild interactions. But, it’s not forced or anything. The whole package comes together to form a uniform vision of this city, that outsiders to the city might not see. There’s an idealized version of what Paris is, and none of that is really shown in this movie, other than as transitions between segments.

The interesting thing to me is that this is a concept that is seemingly going to be expanded to other cities, including Tokyo, New York and Rio.

La muerte de la madre une a tres hermanos: una diseñadora exitosa que trabaja en Nueva York, un hombre de negocios y un profesor universitario y economista. Orígenes, memorias compartidas y un futuro juntos y separados.

Una blonda Juliette Binoche es dirigida por Olivier Assayas. Tenemos cine francés en la capital a partir del próximo jueves.

Part of my reluctance to continue writing about movies on this page is because this is the time of season when my interest in movies generally wanes. (Another reason is a recent unwholesome obsession with my PS3’s functions other than Blu-ray player, but that’s enough about that.)

Now, at least in local theaters, the focus is on the summer blockbuster and weekend box office numbers. While this is not always a bad thing, it serves to be more distracting than rewarding. Last summer’s barrage of comic book divertissements—“Iron Man” (liked), “The Incredible Hulk” (meh), “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (liked a lot some reason, more so in retrospect), “The Dark Knight” (very much liked)—has been replaced by a basket full of Hasbro advertisements.

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Michael Bay, perennially in competition with Uwe Boll for Worst Director, will be bringing to the world the next chapter in the arduous nationalization process of Earth’s (relatively) recent immigrant population: the Autobots. In a few trailer viewings of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” there appears to again be a focus on slo-mo CGI battle scenes and Megan Fox, which would’ve made me pee my pants if I were 10 (okay, I guess Megan Fox is easy to look at, as long as she doesn’t talk). I think I will prefer to play with my Transformer toys currently collecting dust in a box somewhere for two and a half hours than sit through this one in theaters. But I do try (kinda) not to pass judgment without having sampled what potentially hazardous cinematic victuals the world has to offer. After all, I did sit through the first one (not in theaters, mind you), but it took me about four beers to get all the way to the end. (Maybe I’ll need to institute an alternative “beer rating” for movies.) I find movies fascinating because, even if the movie is lame, I feel each film serves to at least give a cursory glimpse at a certain demographic and its interests and expectations, even if it does have an unhealthy toy fetish.

Stephen Summers, the genius behind “The Mummy” series and other gems like “Van Helsing,” will be the other helmer for the toy industry with “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” (Why is the format of this title the exact same as the other toy movie?) Now, I also saw a trailer for this one, and I am disappointed to say it is not at all tied in with the 1986 classic “Cobra” (check out that tagline!). I was hoping it would be a zombie movie with Lieutenant Marion ‘Cobra’ Cobretti, originally played with regular aplomb by Sylvester Stallone (who also took a writing credit for that film), coming back from the dead to fight some more neo-fascist mass murderers. Or perhaps the neo-fascist mass murderers Sly killed in the first film are the ones coming back from the dead and Cobra actually didn’t die of a steroid overdose as he did in the extended edition, alternative ending fashioned together in my head. After all, in the original film Sly’s police division was known as “The Zombie Squad,” so my mind of course followed the logical deduction process to arrive at both plausible scenarios for a sequel. Alas. Also, I was sad to see it bared little resemblance to these revamps of the original cartoon, so my disappointment was two-fold.

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This being the “off season,” movies worth pursuing still exist. So far this year, the movies I’ve most enjoyed include: “Adventureland,” a coming of age story of a post-grad in need of summer employment, minus the usual sophomoric tendencies of the genre or the unrealistic fascinations of Judd Apatow; “Coraline,” the 3D stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s story of a girl who discovers an ideal alternative world, or almost ideal; “Summer Hours,” Olivier Assayas’s vision of globalization and art on the familial scale; and “Drag Me to Hell,” Sam Raimi’s return to his nonpareil “Evil Dead” roots after an overlong stay in the Hollywood factory (“Spider-Man 3” sure lacked the pizazz of the first two; hopefully this film gives him a jump-start on the interesting front for the announced next “Spider-Man” installment).

A couple of movies slated for wide release in the next few weeks I’m most excited about include “Public Enemies,” directed by Michael Mann who seems to have a godly touch with the crime genre (“Heat,” “Collateral”), and “The Hurt Locker,” about a bomb squad unit in Iraq and the many joys involved. And “Bruno.” Can’t forget Bruno.

While at times it may seem like there is a dearth of quality on the screens, it pays to look a little farther away from home and one may be pleasantly surprised. Hopefully.