The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
Message
Author
User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#76 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:30 pm

Été 85: This was a massive disappointment from Ozon, with some promising moments of youthful highs built in only too briefly, never materializing as anything profound or moving. It's working on the opposite wavelength of Call Me By Your Name in many ways- a film this will inevitably be compared to- starting with a courting process laid on extra thick to contrast Guadagnino's deliberately paced, enigmatic and aloof, yet intensely perceptive process approaching a curious culmination of attraction. There's also a mystery shadowing the narrative, but the reveal becomes so obvious as soon as a Chekhov's gun is uttered in an early scene that we get the saccharine message loud and clear, and any power this bond held is lost before the last act of drawn-out, unearned nostalgia-tripping. This time the themes of the impermanence of attraction and the fears of an inability to know another are too thinly depicted yet paradoxically emphasized to irritating degrees (Is the lead obsessed with death because it's permanent, reliable, and tangible? Is there enough of a connective tissue or stimulating material to make us even care?) This is exactly the kind of film that should be strong and affecting, but avoids every opportunity to wear the clothes of that movie while also failing to be original. There's also an arsenal of reminiscent talk of the extreme effects of this Great Love, in ill-fitting sincere narrations like "my father knew he was more than a friend," or confounding scenes laying out the rushed seduction of friendship perpetuated by the mother's insanely inappropriate behavior, but no information proposed that leaves room to believe this to be true, let alone give a damn. Ozon sprints through the relationship like lightning and then coats the narrative in sappy sentiment that begs us to ruminate on what's been skipped over and rejected as important by the very filmmaker himself. This is an erotic/romantic coming-of-age drama where we couldn't care less about the characters or the romance or glean anything of their personal growth. So yeah, it's a big swing and a miss, and all the more embarrassing because Ozon undoubtedly believes his story's heart is justifiably meaningful.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#77 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Mar 30, 2021 1:25 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:54 pm
Tenia, can you shed some light on the Dupontel film’s situation? My understanding is that it only played for one week before the govt shut theatres down— has it been streaming on VOD or anything in France?
tenia wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:43 pm
AFAIK, it toured a ton during the summer before having an opening on October 21st and theaters closing on Oct 30th. Gaumont still hoped to basically open it again in January but since theaters didnt open, they obviously didnt and are still expecting to be able to have it have a truer theatrical run. In any case, it isn't on video anywhere yet, being physical or VOD and there are no dates for any of those.
I was doing some digging and came upon this director's statement from March 8th on Dupontel's website, which essentially says that the film won't be released on demand or on physical media for four months after its theatrical run, which has no immediate plans of being reinstated, so it appears we'll be waiting to see Adieu les cons for quite a while barring its inclusion in any virtual festivals (it's playing at Australia's current fest, that's in-person only)

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#78 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Apr 06, 2021 10:40 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 1:25 pm
domino harvey wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:54 pm
Tenia, can you shed some light on the Dupontel film’s situation? My understanding is that it only played for one week before the govt shut theatres down— has it been streaming on VOD or anything in France?
tenia wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:43 pm
AFAIK, it toured a ton during the summer before having an opening on October 21st and theaters closing on Oct 30th. Gaumont still hoped to basically open it again in January but since theaters didnt open, they obviously didnt and are still expecting to be able to have it have a truer theatrical run. In any case, it isn't on video anywhere yet, being physical or VOD and there are no dates for any of those.
I was doing some digging and came upon this director's statement from March 8th on Dupontel's website, which essentially says that the film won't be released on demand or on physical media for four months after its theatrical run, which has no immediate plans of being reinstated, so it appears we'll be waiting to see Adieu les cons for quite a while barring its inclusion in any virtual festivals (it's playing at Australia's current fest, that's in-person only)
Nevermind, it's up on back channels (albeit without subs)

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#79 Post by domino harvey » Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:40 am

I had a dream last night that I watched it and it was a masterpiece. Premonition?

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#80 Post by tenia » Wed Apr 07, 2021 4:54 pm

Seems unlikely, even more so considering your reactions to other Dupontel movies so far.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#81 Post by domino harvey » Wed Apr 07, 2021 8:05 pm

Two of his last three films I ranked among the best of the year, though it’s true I dislike or hate an equal number of his films

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#82 Post by tenia » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:03 am

Oh my bad, I seemed to recall you vastly disliking a bigger chunk of his movies.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#83 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Apr 11, 2021 2:57 am

Adieu les cons sadly isn't a masterpiece, but an uneven conflation of moods that don’t quite gel while managing to hit some strides. The somber parts of the tragicomedy often fail outside of their soft attempts at satirical commentary, especially early on when stalling with unearned sincerity (that zoom-out overhead crane shot feels to be out of a different movie). However, as the film fills in its skeleton the meditations on loss form an eccentric rhythm that’s understandably messy, reflecting both the diversity and universality of suffering, physically and existentially losing out to the impermanence of connection with various disease serving as the primary symbols. The irreverent comedy rarely strays far enough from the core's halfhearted postures at Almodóvar-aping melodramatics (which I'm not convinced are intentionally reflexive) to be funny or flaunt its creative potential with confidence. Still it’s an occasionally amusing, madcap-lite on-the-run flick that dares to be different, defying expectations and successfully doing so some of the time.

I never bought into the serious side, which is unfortunately where I believe Dupontel is aiming his concern, but I was able to cope with it for the bulk of the narrative. The last act, as well as the literal last corporeal act of the movie, is pretty dumb though. My impression is that the idea for this film was born from the inspired accidental act of violence that kicks off the narrative, in what is easily the film’s best and funniest scene. Yet nothing outside of that vacuumed witty and successful blending of tones is found elsewhere, while Dupontel transparently tries very, very hard to hit that mark again.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#84 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:20 pm

Grâce à Dieu is a purgative yet unsentimental drama that meditates with precision on the consequences of Catholic Church sex abuse on one subset of people. Ozon conscientiously pivots his narrative form to include and then re-center on different characters as the film progresses. A more structurally conservative film would have introduced supporting players to orbit around the established core of one person's story, but here Ozon shifts to give each survivor equal attention to identify and process this trauma as leads in their own narratives. Swann Arlaud deserves his César award, and gives one of the more realistic depictions of a person living with trauma I’ve seen on film- not flashy, but honest.

I’ve mentioned this before but I love how even mainstream French films defy Hollywood expectations at subtle turns. I’m conditioned to be skeptical by a Chekhov’s gun like a desperate mother stating that the letters are the “only copies” as the police shoo her away with these invaluable documents in hand, thinking that the evidence will be destroyed of course; or that a character’s dispositionally unsupportive wife will be a clearcut foe who impedes his progress with selfish motives. But no, these papers are not destroyed and this woman is left as a complex person who cares and is also imperfectly broken herself, for reasons left divorced from the plot, and then takes a backseat to exist in her own story in another movie without intruding on this one. I love how in French cinema, often times these details are there because they’re honest and can be left as such.. of course we’d become anxious about someone taking the only copies of our precious evidence, but 99% of the time those kinds of raised concerns will be unsubstantiated. They will be verbalized though, and so leaving that anxious exclamation in is key to affirm the advocacy and passion of the characters and then leave it at that.

This is a film that could be accused of crowdpleasing in its mobilized ease of affinity and momentum in gaining traction, but I think what this highlights is how groups function as support systems, and that resistance- although it certainly exists and is explored here- isn’t necessarily the predominant force amongst group members, as most cinematic 'dramas' demand. What this film conveys, perhaps more than anything- what it’s about, is the power of community (the French are exceptionally attentive to this concept too, and a very different film, Le Grand Bain, comes to mind at executing the same earnest feeling in a much lighter tale). Ozon takes his time to show so many silent voices only gain the ability to speak out once someone else with a commonality in experience does so, and emphasizes the very real need for directed and committed social support to unleash someone from the shackles of self-imposed isolation caused by traumatic distress. And of course Melvil Poupaud, who starts it all, only has the strength because his wife (unbeknownst to him, someone who understands more than he thinks) encourages and listens to him unreservedly, demonstrating further that we all have the power to influence our loved ones towards unlocking their strength through simply being unconditionally present and compassionate. To quote a fictional priest, “Oh miracle of these empty hands.”

I believe I’ve mentioned before on this forum that I have a complicated and personal relationship with the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal following the Boston Globe Spotlight story (I've never been involved with the Church as a child and was not personally abused, worth noting as it could be read that way). The events and aftermath are permanently laced into my views on institutions, trauma, my professional ethos and ambitions, and has made it very challenging to engage with spiritual ideas until recently, even divorced from religion. This film explores the complexities of separating faith from institutions, or even the dark and light parts from within an institution from one another. Trauma is a disease that clouds this process for everyone individually, and this is a film that refuses to come down on any side of this debate, but stands with every participant equitably, validating their experiences and beliefs. It’s a film that celebrates humanity and reserves its sole yet unequivocal condemnation for paedophilia. The idea that resentment, here by stunting Christian forgiveness, is a burden on the resenter rather than the resented is a welcome perspective change that keeps the focus on a humanistic internalization of the survivors rather than a predominantly externalized justice that would be psychologically-avoidant on its own.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#85 Post by knives » Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:01 pm

Why should French cinema be defined by a foreign culture’s expectations? What a French person might find as normative narrative development should be different given the different cultural place signifiers mean. God and religion in largely secular France will mean something very different for an America where even non-religious people have a religious feeling, to get a bit Hegelian about it. To get a little less heady someone like Joan of Arc who might as well as be a fairy tale for Americans is a genuine real life national hero for the French.

That’s a long winded way of setting up the question I already asked, so sorry, of why should one culture’s understanding of a concept such as Chekhov’s Gun being different from another by praiseworthy (compared to noteworthy which is an approach I can more easily make sense of)?

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#86 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:19 pm

Which is interesting because from my French perspective, while Grâce à dieu and some other films might not indulge in the usual Chekhov's gun trope, plenty of others certainly do, so it definitely isn't a specificity of our cinema.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#87 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:43 pm

knives wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:01 pm
Why should French cinema be defined by a foreign culture’s expectations? What a French person might find as normative narrative development should be different given the different cultural place signifiers mean. God and religion in largely secular France will mean something very different for an America where even non-religious people have a religious feeling, to get a bit Hegelian about it. To get a little less heady someone like Joan of Arc who might as well as be a fairy tale for Americans is a genuine real life national hero for the French.

That’s a long winded way of setting up the question I already asked, so sorry, of why should one culture’s understanding of a concept such as Chekhov’s Gun being different from another by praiseworthy (compared to noteworthy which is an approach I can more easily make sense of)?
What are you even talking about? I never said French cinema should be defined objectively in any such way. I said that I've noticed trends that defy tired Hollywood cliches, and that... I like seeing this.. Is me liking that not okay? I said "I love how even mainstream French films defy Hollywood expectations at subtle turns." I listed a few examples (and I recall saying something similar in writeups of two Justine Triet films about rom-coms). So yes, of course French cinema should not be defined by my view, or be objectively praiseworthy from a foreign lens. But I think I made very clear why I thought the film was worthy of praise- by exploring narrative and groups in a manner that is less individualistic or manipulative in a forced dramatic way compared to many Hollywood films about grave subjects. I did not mean to speak on behalf of America towards all art from France. Also, if the French critics didn't assess American films from a different lens, we wouldn't have certain genres that you enjoy, significant thematic frameworks to work with, and celebrations of ignored auteurs who were approached from novel angles to reveal buried excellence, so apologies for seeing the value in comparing cultural differences from my own lens with admiration for that dissonance.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#88 Post by knives » Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:58 pm

I think my tone must not have been clearly communicated as I’m not saying you shouldn’t like a movie for whatever reasons might appeal to you.

I was intending to ask, as a general concept you were bringing out, if there should be an assumption of differences indicating defying, whether intentionally or accidentally, rather than the difference being indicative of the culture it was made in. It might be the weird thing to follow the Hollywood method?

I was asking this with the forum’s discussions of the cultural inscrutability of Rivette’s use of music for those that outside his specific cultural milieu. For all I know, and thanks Tenia for your input, France doesn’t have or has a subtly different understanding of Chekhov’s Gun than America which would make it unlikely for the American version of the concept unlikely to appear in France.

For example, I was reading some time ago a book on Vygotsky in pedagogy and the Russian expat author was explaining how the American understanding of Vygotsky was different from the Russian one to the point of even being opposed at certain points so that they were more like two different concepts that happened to share an origin.

I hope this makes my original question more clear. Sorry for being unclear in the first post.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#89 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:21 pm

Sure, I can see how the verb "defy" assumes that this was in response to Hollywood movies, and I didn't mean to contextualize it that way. What I meant was that it defied my expectations from Hollywood movies. You're obviously correct that every culture has its own context, though I think that comparing differences is still noteworthy, and even praiseworthy, since countries borrow ideas and styles from one another constantly, and part of what's great about studying other cultures is that you can learn from others through reflections. Plenty of filmmakers (I'm sure outside of America too) for instance have talked about how every action and line included in the film carries meaning and is placed there for a reason. When someone in a movie nervously exclaims "Those are my only copies!" I'm trained to assume that the police will be corrupt and lose the only copies. I think many American films get lazy about this as the clearest line to drama and in tunnel vision see such a massive consequence as the only rationale for that line.

But what I noticed here, through comparing it with my context, is that perhaps/most likely Ozon included this on purpose as well, only to show advocacy and passion and worry, and allow that to exist significantly without a punchline of dread down the road. What seems important about using my context to praise, not just note, that difference, is that it opens my eyes to new possibilities and opportunities to express them that are just as relevant and true in a stateside western civilization as a French one. If I were a filmmaker seeing this film I might implement that meditation on a "feeling without a necessitated conjoined crisis" into my art and open my peripheries- and perhaps help set a standard for audiences to alter theirs- to recontextualize expectations around a line like that. Maybe through the absence of an intense consequence we can appreciate that fear for its trigger in love rather than tangible destiny in action.

Either way, I did not mean to indicate that the French were collectively defying Hollywood as a standard practice, but comparing how similar-minded dramas operate differently under similar principles of assuming that every action has intent. And by assuming that significance and looking outside the box, here by comparing across cultures, I've felt some powerful results that are accessible and relatable for us here too (hence the comment I made about how 99+% of the time someone in that situation- in both the U.S. and France- would actually make an exclamation out of fear and the cops wouldn't actually lose the copies- but that feeling of anxiety due to affection also still matters to, and is an honest experience for, folks in both the U.S. and France). I find a lot of value in that realization, and wouldn't have found that value without the comparison.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#90 Post by knives » Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:44 pm

Thanks for that response and you are right that I mistook the word defy to by acting on Hollywood rather than you. Beyond that I agree it is useful to compare different cultural modes of only to get a better understanding of the culture the art is coming from, I think I’ve mentioned before that I only appreciated Spike Lee’s use of tone and size of narrative after exploring more fully black theater, but would like to add that it helps me to speak the artistic language the art is attempting to communicate under. Running with your police example, for someone who might not get the signifier of that statement because their culture lacks it they would need to find a translation system to first appreciate it from which as translation systems do would change the meaning slightly, let’s say their equivalent is baker’s talking about weights, and so the nuance of understanding is going to be missing.

What I am personally workin toward and likely will never achieve is some lack of dependence on my cultural translation system so that I can mimic the native artistic language of the art. Total pipe dream though.

Tangent aside I do think it is important for us humans to achieve a genuine understanding of other cultural perspectives as different, which I guess puts me opposed to those wacky Turks at Caheirs.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#91 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 23, 2021 6:52 pm

Well I think we agree there, no surprise given our fields are pretty adamant about changing the language around "cultural competence" and accepting with humility that we cannot access another perspective completely. Though I do think that what I'm doing here is vying for a similar aim as your 'lack of dependence' goal, because while I was comparing to what I have been conditioned to expect, removing that and looking at both allows for deviance from that skewed perspective into a detached examination of different cultures. I may have been predominantly conditioned by one but the ability to step back and compare two points of reference- rather than plant my feet in the sand using mine as the dominant focal point- is what I meant to do, though I appreciate that's not how it came across. I think we've both proven by now on this forum that we think similarly in this vein so I also understand why my comments may have stumped you- just as I'm sure there are examples of the reverse happening that caused me to prompt an explanation.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#92 Post by domino harvey » Mon Aug 09, 2021 3:18 pm

I thought Adieu les cons was a big step backwards for Dupontel into 9 mois ferme territory. The problem is the same problem with all Dupontel comedies with the exception of Le vilain: Dupontel just isn't funny. And, the serious notes of this film are all over the place tonally, and completely unearned. The idea of Marie's character could be really funny, but it fell flat for me here as well, though I like that Dupontel made up for not casting Marie in his biggest film by giving him a juicy role here and it's hard to be mad about his Cesar win for Supporting Actor. I will say that the bizarre third act swivel has a certain weirdo charm, but the laptop of Dupontel's character is basically a wizard's wand that can do anything and that makes everything just boring. I'm assuming this film won the top Cesar award for a combination of support for the producers refusing to release it onto streaming in the midst of the pandemic and the fashionable and frankly incessant "ACAB" messaging, because it's absurd for this to go the distance when Au revoir la-huit couldn't

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#93 Post by tenia » Tue Aug 10, 2021 6:26 am

It won that many awards because Dupontel has a huge positive halo within French critics and the French Cesar Academy. Au-revoir là haut didn't get that many awards in 2018 because it faced 120 BPM, another sure winner that year but which had for it its topic (I'm not saying that negtively, I quite liked 120 BPM, but it did feel like a Cesar bait movie and ended up winning like one).

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#94 Post by domino harvey » Fri Jan 07, 2022 3:11 pm

Aunt Peg wrote:
Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:34 am
Hors normes is the only real weak link in the lineup for me. It is also available on DVD in Australia under the title The Extraordinary.
I watched Hors normes last night and it far exceeded my expectations. I certainly don't think it's a great movie, but I appreciated that it wasn't particularly sentimental or "uplifting" in showing the chaotic existence of Vincent Cassel and Reda Kateb as they barely hold together a million moving parts around them. Why? Because they know no one else will. I was surprised at how little interior life was shown for each, though of course Cassel at least got the running gag of being set up with every eligible Jewish woman in his network's periphery for perpetually failing dates. There's no big speech about how they got into the life, or why it's Important. They just do it. And I, personally, can not possibly imagine living a life like this, and appreciate the look at the day to day operations. All of the loose ends and narrative threads that don't pay off into anything because it's a constant struggle reminded me of another film nominated in this category a few years back, the (far superior, granted) Patients. Also, I had no idea it was based on real life social workers until the end credits, which does explain what I took to be fairly authentic (save the melodramatic hotel escape footchase in the climax) specific details present throughout the film.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#95 Post by tenia » Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:46 pm

I quite liked Hors normes when I saw it, it felt like a neat comeback from Toledano and Nakache after the mediocre Le sens de la fête and the asinine Samba and Intouchables. I liked a lot J'espère qu'on reste amis and even more so Nos jours heureux and wasn't convinced by these movies that yet ended up being their bigger hits. Hors normes felt like a more nuanced and indeed less overly sentimental work, though it did feel just a tad overlong.

Like you, I liked a lot Patients, a quite pleasing surprise from first-time director Grand Corps Malade. I don't know if you saw his follow-up movie La vie scolaire, which is just a notch below but was otherwise quite a nice job too.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#96 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jan 08, 2022 4:45 pm

I haven’t seen La vie scolaire yet, but I think it’s a Netflix film here in the states, so easy enough for me to do so!

I liked Les intouchables more than you, and was somewhat won over by the chaotic energy and scale of Le sens de la fête by the end of it to give it a marginal thumbs up, but haven’t seen their other films. I’d rate Hors normes between those two

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#97 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:34 pm

First post updated with this year's nominees
domino harvey wrote:
Mon Sep 03, 2018 10:48 pm
2021
Aline (Valerie Lemercier)
Annette (Leos Carax) Amazon Prime streaming
BAC Nord (Cedric Jimenez)
L'événement (Audrey Diwan)
La fracture (Catherine Corsini)
Illusions perdues (Xavier Giannoli)
Onoda, 10,000 nuits dans la jungle (Arthur Harari)

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#98 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:28 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:33 pm
I know we're no longer in the heyday of Hollywood adapting popular French films, but I feel like an American remake of La Belle Époque is inevitable because it has a great high concept idea and speaks to where a lot of us are these days. The film's most obvious inspirations are inescapable, as it straddles the line of exactly what a mashup of Kore-eda's After Life and Allen's Midnight in Paris would look like: Guillaume Canet acts as an IRL director who recreates the past via an immersive "real life" film production for those willing to pay (one of the better offhand jokes in the film is that Nazis keep utilizing the service to spend time with Hitler). Enter cartoonist Daniel Auteuil, a man not at ease in the modern technological age. After his therapist wife Fanny Ardant kicks him out (for one of her patients-- are there no ethical therapists in France??), he uses the services to go back to the day in 1974 when he met her. In the process of interacting with his own memories, recreated from his input and drawings, he falls for the actress playing his wife... but is he falling for his idea of her as his wife, or her? And how much of her performance is performance? I think the filmmaking motif here makes a lot more sense than it does in After Life, and I like how writer-director Nicolas Bedos gives us the totality of film in corporeal interactions, as when the music swells within the scenarios, or Canet rattles off the cost of various elements employed in the process. I liked how Auteuil interacts with his memories on set as well, alternately nitpicking and being delighted at what the company gets right and wrong. I think this would make for a good double bill with Tirard's Le retour du héros in how both examine in a comical way the methods we use to construct who we are and, here, who we were. With nostalgia exploitation becoming more and more prominent from the capitalist contingent, it may only be a matter of time til some more realistic variation of Canet's services arise!

Also, I liked how the cold opening of the film essentially parodies all of Tarantino's recent ironic wishful reclamations of the past!
therewillbeblus wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:06 am
knives wrote:
Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:37 pm
Sounds like a Charlie Kaufman film.
There’s definitely a Synecdoche, New York kinship without the existential despair or emotional profundity (I was actually reminded of The Truman Show more than any other movie, sans manipulation and heartstring tugs, plus comedy). domino’s analysis is spot on, though the film doesn’t really spend time asking these questions in any depth, instead leaving the concept up for us to decipher based on our own selective experiences - which may be the smarter, but definitely safer, modality. There’s something powerful about a man who spends every night reliving a meeting with his father to experience the catharsis he never had in ‘real life’ for example, but will any opportunity- real or imagined or in memory- ever fulfill that void? Is that even possible? If I think back on all the memories I hold dearest, are the ‘cathartic’ ones enough or do I crave more by wanting to go back and relive them? All fascinating questions (to me) that I think about often, but this film either isn’t interested or doesn’t possess the courage to explore them or meditate for more than a second in a self-conscious space. Instead it opts for the always-funny French witty interplay meshed with drama sourced in that nostalgia, but comfortable grazing its surface in a lighter, jumpy style.

While the nostalgic drama postures towards these questions, what I found most interesting here is how these ideas are created around one person’s memories as if to bathe in an egocentric theme park by design, but we as the audience are afforded witness to an objectivity that continually disrupts this illusion. The cross-pollination in seeing the actress’ and director’s own storylines outside of Auteuil’s scope while he’s feeling a connection to the present moment only heightens the myth of the self as center actor on the stage of life. So the film validates that desire and yet it consistently reminds us of what we lack which is absolute perspective or control, and the need to take a back seat to accept those blind spots to achieve any sense of lasting contentment. My favorite dramatic moment was
SpoilerShow
how Auteuil impacted Canet’s life to degrees he never knew, outside of the spotlight just from being himself. A wonderful reminder that the ways in which we’ve actually been the center of the world for a moment have been in the eyes of another, often without us knowing it, but always subjectively, not through this objective fantasy.
I enjoyed spending time in this 70s milieu, and some of the 70s specific gags in how it contrasts completely with ours, were inspired. There are also a few key moments that play like a sustained perfect memory, which makes the entire game worthwhile, but of course these are fleeting and the interruptions can come across as choppy tangled between one too many characters to emote organically. I wasn’t as interested in whether or not he falls for the actress or the idea of his wife because I think the film makes the barriers clear between his ability to fully access this space, and though the question is briefly prompted it struck me as a shallow wink, but I wish I could be more charitable. As a lover of French cinema I hate to say this, but I can see a remake of this done better.

Also, I think at this point the French see moral ambiguity strung through everything (which I love) to the point where therapists are treated as just as humanly capable of selfish unethical behavior as any other profession (at least they don’t discriminate!) It’s worth noting that the act of therapy isn’t what is being skewered, but rather people as inherently flawed, regardless of profession and so including practitioners. I am happy report that one of the most genuine, sympathetic characters I’ve seen in French cinema is a health care provider, but a doctor, in La maladie de Sachs.
La Belle Époque was interesting. A lot of films came to mind with this premise. After Life as already mentioned (though much more blackly comic, to the point of cynical, about the idea of nostalgia as being anything more than a solipsistic retreat into a fantasy world - at least at first - and a good if labour intensive money making scheme on the other). The idea of getting a gift and going to an company offering ‘experiences’ and tailoring a world to your whims without entirely realising what you are getting into of The Game, or Total Recall (or Westworld) although this film is just as much split between the self-created dramas of the client and the travails of the staff working intensely behind the scenes to create the illusionary delusion (also bit like After Life, but again more cynical about the way that the creators are working themselves into a frazzle compared to the way that the creative process is part of a move towards a sense of serene catharsis for both subject and staff in the Kore-eda film, and offers a way of moving on rather than just living in a bubble forever).

And particularly as knives and twbb notes Syndecdoche, New York in the way that it is someone retreating into their past, although the main difference here is that instead of the ultimate micro-managing control freak who wants to recreate and in some ways 'perfect' memories, and trap them in aspic in the Kaufman film, here the main character is impressionistic and vague about the 1974 era that he wants to return to and, at least at first, abdicate responsibility for his present day (in)actions inside. But abdicate it for a holiday rather than forever exist there.

The big theme here appears to as much about the technological satire as the relationship dramas going on. Or rather the older generation end up showing the younger ones in danger of being too caught up in technological distanciation that a retreat into technology is not a replacement for actually being present in relationships but only a tool through which to view them in a different light. The film starts by sketching in a pretty broad Luddite agenda (or rather pro-pre-digital age nostalgic chic, which fits in with the return to the pre-technology 1974 era of rotary phones, handwritten messages and the moments of possible missed communications that begins at the mid-point, which itself contrasts against the way that the figures viewing and stage managing the action from the gallery become ever more intrusive with their technology, and crude in their comments, yet end up becoming more and more distant, forever trapped behind glass and one way mirrors and frustrated at being unable to just break the fourth wall with abandon and jump into the action themselves) with a kind of rather overplayed disgust at and distrust of the modern world of “Internet shows, VOD, streaming” that the main character’s son does for his work, then showing him being harassed by their apparently self-driving car's route planner continually butting into conversations by speaking out its directions. Whilst his wife Marianne is excited by the possibilities afforded by smart phones, VR headsets and new horizons offered by exciting youth-recapturing affairs, Victor is interested in ‘old fashioned’ art as a cartoonist, painting and drawing and reading actual books printed on paper, content to remain standing still rather than embrace technology.

But the irony is that when he is thrown out by his wife despairing at his lack of drive and general passivity towards existence and decides to take up the offer of the mysterious ‘gift’ from his son he gets involved in the extremely modern experience of a kind of ‘immersive theatre’ experience taken to the ultimate end with actors and sets and technology to recreate their client’s wishes to the exact detail, providing Victor with the opportunity of re-wooing a woman pretending to be Marianne at the time when they first met as youngsters, but whom he actually ends up charming by reminiscing to her about all of the details he remembers about Marianne. Its kind of his way of apologising to his wife by proxy, and thanking her for choosing him. But just done initially to actors in a controlled environment rather than, you know, to his actual wife.

In the end he ‘breaks character’ and ruins the pre-planned scene more than the harassed to the breaking point by the managers line flubbing actors do, forcing the actress playing his wife into playfully improvising around his reminiscences. Because after all the customer is always right, however much it is deviating from the planned script (We could say that Victor is similar to a client visiting a prostitute and only wanting the company and to talk in intimacy in that sense) He is both existing in the moment but not in a delusional way, rather is commenting and adding context to the ersatz recreation surrounding him at the same time. Everyone else has to play catch up around him because suddenly he is in a world that actually does entirely revolve around only his needs and wishes, and responds (has to respond) to whatever new element he introduces into it.

Whilst Marianne is actually trying to live a new life in the real world, with a real lover in order to live the rest of her life to the fullest, and begins to find that itself frustrating, Victor retreats into his past. But the (slightly un-PC) twist here is that the wife ends up becoming disillusioned with the seeming liberation of escaping from her stifling marriage as she comes to become just as frustrated with the newly discovered human foilbles of her lover, and bored by the sterile dinner parties of the modern day, which the film pointedly contrasts against a Victor enjoying a pot-smoking holiday in 1974 with a bunch of hippies which helps to reawaken his vigour for life again.
SpoilerShow
And it all appears to initially have been a kind of a ruse by the son to bring his parent's fracturing relationship together again by waking his father up to the way that he has been lazily coasting through the last few decades of his life, but it works too well and his father ends up running riot with the idea! In a way that not only reinvigorates him but the relationship between the floor manager and the actress as well in having to respond to his improvisations. In that sense I thought a little of the Gena Rowlands character in Cassavetes’ Opening Night too.
I liked the more throwaway lighter moments the most, such as the moment when the 70s attired Victor, on a brief trip out of the set into the real world, runs into a similarly attired hipster on the Metro, and exchanges a complicit nod which only unnerves the hipster in coming across someone wearing the same get up seemingly unironically! Or the actor playing the young Victor in the café who has to keep getting drinks thrown into his face on a daily basis as part of the act! And the moment of the younger actress playing Marianne leading Victor through all the other sets back as they escape from her jealous floor manager boyfriend (which is the moment that involves running into Hitler, and an orgy) briefly has a tinge of the flight through the corridors of memory in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to it! Also the way that the floor manager is kind of a younger version of Victor is a bit like the duality of the older man and younger man simultaneously existing in the same timeline that occurred in Three Colours: Red, where there was a similar compare and contrast opportunity for the younger generation to not go down the same path into a calcified loveless marriage but to keep things on a more intimate level.

So it sort of brings to mind a whole number of other films (Holy Motors too in the sense that there is sometimes a suspicion that all life is just a series of contrived stage sets to display oneself in), but combines the influences in an interesting manner with a particularly French spin! It is inevitably about relationship troubles, petty jealousies and adultery. And unfortunately also rather inevitably is much more sympathetic to the guy’s troubles, giving much more time to them than his longsuffering wife’s crisis, who is portrayed as doing little to salvage and everything to ruin the relationship at first until her affair turns out to be as stultifying and sterile as her marriage had been (she kind of ends up turning her new lover into a new Victor). Which itself gets interestingly contrasted with the floor manager forcing the actress playing the younger version of his wife to mouth the moral lesson of adultery and the callousness of women at Victor to push him permanently away from his infatuation with her as a substitute figure.

But I do think the film pulls it all together well in that beautifully played final scene where instead of just one voyeur solipsistically reliving their rose-tinted past in a bar full of choreographed actors finally Marianne is there with him too, and the two real people get to show the surrounding cast how an improvisional approach to a scene of reminiscence actually should be played! (They get turned from being facilitating actors into being facilitating counsellors in a sense). Which is, again like the final scene of Opening Night, to perform the well trodden role more with a playful sense of knowingness, and lack of care for adhering to nuance or subtlety anymore, that comes from the familiarity of reminiscing together over a fond memory.

In the end perhaps the title was the most telling thing of the entire film, since La Belle Époque evokes an idea of looking back with nostalgia on a halcyon period before the war began that changed everything for the worse. A period of time that maybe, one day, with luck and shared willingness could perhaps be recaptured.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Mar 07, 2022 3:03 am, edited 3 times in total.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#99 Post by tenia » Sun Mar 06, 2022 5:25 am

I'm not sure the twist is that un-PC. In the end, the guy obsessed by the past and rejecting the future and the progress finds that the past isn't all good and the future not all bad, while the woman obsessed by the future finds out it's not all good and there are good things to save from the past.

There are real nostalgia and novelty biases, and I found thoses evolutions to be a riff on that and reminding us to be careful about both of those.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: The Alternate César Awards: César du meilleur film (Best Film)

#100 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Mar 06, 2022 5:42 am

That is certainly there as a theme and an aesthetic (especially in that rather disorientating editing technique of intercutting between a scene set in the present and a simultaneous one taking place in the future in more aggressive-feeling first half of the film until things thankfully calm down a bit in the second half), but Victor's crisis becomes a kind of reinvigorating reawakening for him whilst Marianne seems (after unsympathetically telling Victor that she was hoping he would just die but he was too feckless to even do that, throwing him out of the house and then revealing that she has been seeing a lover off and on for an unspecified period of time) to be the one who most pays the price and needs the lesson that the grass is not always greener after making a fresh start. Victor changes into something more palatable to her, but in the end she is the one who has to shift her perspectives (or become less naive?) to repair their relationship in reality. If Marianne had not decided to return after experiencing the disillusioning reality of her life without Victor being similar to the boring life with him (making this film seemingly just as much about the differences in the wilder culture of 1974 versus the sterile one of 2019 as something that has caused the personal relationship to stagnate as about returning to recapture the moment of first love again) this would just have been a tragedy about a sadsack loser spending all his money on an even more elaborate VR game (in the end perhaps the film is mostly about the solipsistic forced individualism as shown by face-mounted VR devices versus communal immersive theatre events) to escape from the current reality of his failed marriage.

Maybe its all about how men in a crisis retreat into fantasy where part of the attraction is the pleasurable lack of effect on the real crisis they are facing; whilst women have little option but to keep confronting harsh reality over and over again, at least until they find a man who lets them dream again?

And there is also that moment of Victor selling off one of their houses in Biarritz without consulting with Marianne about it (seemingly to afford the cash to keep paying for the presumably horrendously expensive immersive theatrical experience), which seems to be a suggestion that instead of being so passively lumpen anymore and beholden to his wife's decisions that Victor is now 'taking charge' again and doing things that affect them both (as Marianne did in the first half by throwing him out) without feeling the need to talk to her about it. Which feels a bit iffy, or at least as iffy as Marianne's actions in the first half of the film.

(However this is all also contrasted by the younger generation of the relationship between the actress and the floor manager, where the Floor Manager is constantly spiraling off into darkly obsessive petty jealousies and an inability to separate playacting from reality when things start getting improvised on the fly; whilst the actress is the one who is more able to pragmatically adapt and shift between the two worlds better than anyone)
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Mar 07, 2022 2:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Post Reply