I’m digging back into my old Cinema Sentries reviews again. This review is from February 2020. This French film, directed by Henri-Georges Cluzot, is half film noir with a woman manipulating a man into bad deeds and half melodrama. Honestly, I don’t remember much about it, but according to my review, it is pretty good.
Weak Spot is a film that is difficult to explain or sum up. I reviewed it for Cinema Sentries a little over a month ago. I’ve been meaning to link to that review in these pages. I’ve literally queued it up at least four different times. But each time I’ve stared at this blank page not knowing how to write this little summary to get you interested enough to click over and read my review.
It is a French-Italian-German coproduction based on a Greek novel. It takes place in an unnamed location that is under totalitarian rule. It follows a man who may or may not be a subversive who is caught possibly passing a secret message onto another subversive. He is very casually taken to the capital city for questions by police who don’t seem all that interested in their jobs.
It is full of ridiculous situations played totally straight. It is confusing and weird and rather delightful.
I recommend watching it. I hope this intrigues you enough to click on this link and read my full review.
In a small French town, someone calling themselves The Raven (or Le Corbeau in French) is sending out poison pen letters – gossipy missives accusing various townsfolk of scandalous goings-on. Though letters are sent to nearly everyone in town, accusing loads of people of all sorts of terrible things, they concentrate on Dr. Rémy Germain (Pierre Fresnay) accusing him of having an illicit affair and of performing illegal abortions.
At first, the letters are kind of funny, at least to those who are not being accused, but as more and more of the townsfolk are being accused things become serious quickly. One man commits suicide after being told something in a letter. Fingers get pointed. Demands are made to those in power. The letters must be stopped.
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot who also helmed the masterful Diabolique (1955) and The Wages of Fear (1953) Le Corbeau is a terrific little mystery in which the answer to who The Raven really is doesn’t matter nearly as much as what those letters do to the townspeople.
Made in the middle of the Nazi occupation of France the film can be seen as a commentary of the paranoia many French people felt during this period. Never knowing who to trust or what to believe. Interestingly, it also caused problems for its directors since it was produced by a German company, and the French were none too accepting of Germany-made things after the war. They eventually got over it.
It is sometimes called the first French film noir and I can totally see that with the moody black-and-white photography and Dutch angles. It falls just short of being the masterpiece that the two other films of his I mentioned earlier in this review, but Le Corbeau is still a wonderful film deserving your attention.
Certified Copy, Abbas Kiarostami’s 2010 drama is a strange, beautiful, perplexing film that puts a giant question mark up in the middle of its story and then never bothers to give the audience an answer.
It begins with a lecture. James Miller (William Shimell), a British writer is giving a talk about his new book, Certified Copy, which argues that copies of art – reproductions of paintings, sculptures, etc. – are themselves unique and therefore authentic art.
The film gives him space for the argument. In most films, whenever a lecturer stands before a class, we only hear a few moments of what they are saying before the bell rings, they are interrupted, or the film moves on. We only need to know they are a person with knowledge who is capable of passing that knowledge on to others. What they’re actually saying isn’t important. But here we spend quite a long time with the focus on Miller and what he is saying.
I got so caught up in his lecture that when a woman (Juliette Binoche, whose character name is never given) came in late and then fussed with her belongings, and quietly mimed to her young son I was annoyed at her interruption. How rude, I thought, can’t this woman sit quietly and let me hear what this man is saying? I had to remind myself I was watching a film and that this woman’s actions were what the movie was focussing on and thus I should pay attention to her, not the lecture.
Later he’ll find himself inside her antiques shop. It is filled with originals and copies. He’s delighted seeing that this will give them plenty to talk about. She’s irritated and notes that she only owns the shop by accident and that she doesn’t care for any of it.
They go for a ride. They talk about his book. They argue over art. She hated his book, yet asked him to sign multiple copies of it for her. She takes him to a museum and shows him a piece that was, for hundreds of years, thought to be an authentic bit of ancient Roman art. When they discovered it was a forgery, they kept it on display and added the story. Even the fake has meaning.
In a coffee shop, the proprietor will mistake them for an old married couple. She’ll run with the idea, creating an entire back story for them. I don’t want to spoil where the film goes from there, but it continues to toy with the idea of identity. Of what is real and what is fake, and whether or not the distinction really matters.
I suspect it is the type of film that critics love and the average moviegoer is either perplexed by or outright hates. I landed somewhere in the middle. I appreciated the discussions on art and that the film was taking some big swings toward something original and meaningful. My wife and I had a lovely little chat about the film after the credits rolled.
But I found it more of an intellectual exercise than an entertaining one. I tend to fall on the side of movies should be an enjoyable viewing experience over wanting movies to challenge me or stimulate my mind. They can do both, of course, and I’m not against challenging films, but these days I mostly want something I find enjoyable to watch.
I will say this is a film I’d like to see again. Knowing where it goes plotwise would help me concentrate on the other things it’s doing and I suspect I’d like it a lot more on a second viewing.
I’m an amateur film reviewer. I don’t do this for money. The closest I get is landing some free Blu-rays from Cinema Sentries. I do this for fun. I like movies. I like talking about movies. I think I’m pretty good at it, but I’m not professional. I didn’t go to film school.
I follow a lot of professional film writers on social media. Sometimes they complain about amateur film writers like me. Sometimes they complain that bad reviews just talk about the plot of a movie. Good reviews should talk about a film’s themes, about the filmmaking, and style. Plot synopsis can be found on Wikipedia.
I get that to a degree. But I’d also argue that it depends on what type of review you are doing. Often a review exists simply to give an opinion on whether or not the film is worth watching. To do that you are going to need to talk about plot. At least a little bit. People want to know what a movie is about before they decide whether or not they want to watch it.
I think about these things when I’m writing a review. I think about them when I read old reviews. Because I’m an amateur, because I’ve never studied film in a formal way I don’t always have something meaningful to say about a film. When I don’t have much to say I revert to talking about the plot. I hope I do it in an entertaining, or at least interesting way. I try not to give too much away while still letting you know something about the film. I never think those reviews are my best, but sometimes that’s what you get.
That is a lot of words to say that my review of The Prince’s Voyage is mostly about the plot. That’s actually good for me because I remember very little about it. I wrote this review back in May of 2021. Now you can read it too.
Louis Fugain (Grégoire Ludig) discovers a bloody corpse outside his apartment complex and calls the police. At the police station, he is questioned by Commissaire Buron (Benoît Poelvoorde). Quickly we realize two things 1. Fugain is the main suspect. 2. Buron is an idiot of the Inspector Clouseau variety.
We first see them together at the station. Fugain is seated, waiting impatiently for Buron to get off the phone. His conversation is mundane, trying to set a date with someone for dinner. It lasts a long time. It seems a strange thing for a Commissiare to be doing in front of a man he thinks may have just committed murder. It is a strange movie.
After a few questions, Buron leaves to go speak to his son and eat a hotdog. He leaves Fugain with Phillippe (Marc Fraize) a one-eyed rookie who regularly ends his sentences with “Actually.”
A terrible accident occurs which Buron tries to cover up.
While Buron questions Fugain the film flashbacks to the scene. Sometimes Phillippe, or his wife, or Buron appear in those flashbacks and interact with Fugain even though they were not there in those scenes in the past.
The film plays it half-serious while regularly winking at the audience in its absurdities. It is difficult to explain just how ridiculous, how absurd, how French this film is. I won’t spoil how it ends, but to say it is utterly surprising and yet somehow fitting.
Jean-Paul Belmondo was one of my favorite French actors. He made some great films including Breathless from director Jean Luc Godard, Le Doulous from Jean-Pierre Melville, and Mississippi Mermaid from Francois Truffaut (if you are keeping count those are three great films from three of the greatest French directors ever). But even when he made not-so-great films from not-so-great directors Belmondo elevated the material. He was so charming, so full of life his mere presence made a film better.
Such is the case with The Burglars. It is a fairly average heist film, but Belmondo is wonderful and that makes it worth watching. You can read my full review here.
In my review of The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears I noted that while I liked the film I was not likely to ever watch it again. And yet my review of the film makes me want to do just that.
It is a strange, almost incomprehensible film – one filled with beautiful, dark, blood-soaked images. I barely remember it. I need to rewatch it.
My full review is here.
Agnes Varda was a titan of French cinema. She was a member of the French New Wave and a pioneer of using location shooting and non-professional actors. She made narrative films and documentaries. I’ve only previously seen Cleon From 5 to 7 but it is a masterpiece. My wife adores The Gleaners and I.
I keep telling myself I need to watch more foreign language films this month, and I keep finding other things to watch, but before February comes to a close, I wanted to watch something. Something short. Because it has been a long day and I’m tired.
Luckily the Criterion Channel has a bunch of short films and they even categorize them by their time frames – Under 60 minutes, Under 30 minutes, Under 15 minutes…
Les 3 Boutons (The Three Buttons) is an eleven-minute film from Agnes Varda. It was commissioned by the fashion house Miu Miu. It stars Jasmine Thiré as a young goat farmer who goes on a magical journey.
A postman brings her a package. Inside the package is a large red-looking tarp. When she unfolds it the tarp becomes an enormous red dress. The girl walks inside the dress and finds herself in a cave. When she spies some school girls walking down a lane her own clothes turn into the same dresses they are wearing. Suddenly, she’s on a city street. When she spies some kids having ice cream she reaches inside her pocket and finds her own cone. It is a stream-of-consciousness fable.
Varda infuses this very simple story with a playfulness and joy that is a delight to behold. There isn’t much to it, and so I don’t have a lot to say about it. But if you have the Criterion Channel (or Mubi) and you have 11 minutes to spare I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Jaques Demy was one of the great French directors. He was an instrumental part of the French New Wave. Early in his career, he wrote and directed two back-to-back musicals, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). They are considered essential classics. Some many months ago my wife wanted to watch The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and so we did.
I didn’t love it.
I like musicals, more or less, but they aren’t my favorite. That’s not a genre I turn to all that often. I once tried to make musicals my theme of the month and I only watched about three of them.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a type of musical that has very little dialogue. Almost everything is sung. I’m not a lyrics guy so musicals are always a little problematic in that I tend to miss plot points when they are sung. When everything is sung I get lost pretty quickly. That’s apparently even true when they sing in French and there are subtitles.
But also there weren’t any showstoppers. The music was nice but there wasn’t a single song that left me humming after it was over. There was no “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'” or “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” or whatever.
It was a perfectly fine film, but I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.
When my wife wanted to watch The Young Girls of Rochefort I was none too excited, but I relented because I love her and I enjoy watching films with her.
I liked this one a lot better. There is quite a bit of actual dialogue which allowed me to follow the story more closely. The story itself is more interesting to me. It is light and frothy and a delight. It follows two sisters (real-life siblings Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac) as they look for love in the titular coastal town of France. Little do they know their true love is closer than they think.
Much like Umbrellas, The Young Girls of Rochefort is full of bright, pastel colors, and the costumes are very 1960s and very beautiful. It feels like this one is full of real songs too. Songs you’ll leave the theater singing. It also has Gene Kelly who is always a delight.
Loads of people love The Umbrellas of Cherbourg so I probably need to revisit it at some point. I suspect knowing what I’m getting into will help me enjoy its charms more. But for now I tip my hat to The Young Girls of Rochefort and delight in it fully.
themidnightcafe.org 