The independent drama Memory – starring Jessica Chastain and Peter Saarsgard – has been making waves on the festival circuit. Catch your first look here.
Memory, Jessica Chastain’s new drama, sees her play a social worker living a simple life. That is until she’s followed home from a high school reunion by an old classmate.
The movie received an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA so that its stars could promote it at Toronto International Film Festival where the film picked up something of a buzz. Also, Chastain and director Michel Franco have apparently worked together again on Dreams – the filming on which is reportedly already complete.
Just to be clear, this isn’t the film called Memory where Liam Neeson hits people and breaks a toilet. (We don’t want you to be disappointed.) You can find that trailer here. Memory will be Franco’s second English language film after 2015’s Chronic,...
Memory, Jessica Chastain’s new drama, sees her play a social worker living a simple life. That is until she’s followed home from a high school reunion by an old classmate.
The movie received an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA so that its stars could promote it at Toronto International Film Festival where the film picked up something of a buzz. Also, Chastain and director Michel Franco have apparently worked together again on Dreams – the filming on which is reportedly already complete.
Just to be clear, this isn’t the film called Memory where Liam Neeson hits people and breaks a toilet. (We don’t want you to be disappointed.) You can find that trailer here. Memory will be Franco’s second English language film after 2015’s Chronic,...
- 11/29/2023
- by Dan Cooper
- Film Stories
The title of Michel Franco’s laser-like drama about trauma and connection, Memory, embraces past experiences inescapably real or distorted, repressed or lost forever, reachable only intermittently through haze or insistently demanding to be reckoned with. While hope is a quality not readily associated with the Mexican auteur’s work, it keeps surfacing here to extend a lifeline, even as we wait for the other shoe to drop. In that regard, Franco’s latest represents a slight departure, without surrendering the director’s signature austerity and intensity. He’s helped considerably by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, two riveting leads who hold nothing back.
Shot by Franco’s regular Dp Yves Cape with a no-fuss, unblinking gaze, the film has a textured feel for its Brooklyn locations, giving clear definition to the characters’ world. It also benefits from an unusually solid supporting cast, including Merritt Wever and Josh Charles; Jessica Harper...
Shot by Franco’s regular Dp Yves Cape with a no-fuss, unblinking gaze, the film has a textured feel for its Brooklyn locations, giving clear definition to the characters’ world. It also benefits from an unusually solid supporting cast, including Merritt Wever and Josh Charles; Jessica Harper...
- 9/8/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Memory” feels like the “Silver Linings Playbook” of Michel Franco’s career: an unexpectedly accessible romance between two damaged human beings, from an independent director who’s been known to put characters through some of life’s most punishing indignities. For those familiar with Franco’s work, the previous film it most resembles is “Chronic,” though the tough-love auteur spares us the bummer ending this time around. In that movie, he followed a hospice nurse through his rounds, then abruptly cut to black when the guy was sideswiped by a car. Womp-womp. When a director does that early in his career, audiences are right to be wary.
Franco is more merciful to his characters in “Memory.” Before meeting one another at a high school reunion, recovering alcoholic Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) and widower Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) have endured more than their share of suffering. She remembers being sexually abused as a girl,...
Franco is more merciful to his characters in “Memory.” Before meeting one another at a high school reunion, recovering alcoholic Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) and widower Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) have endured more than their share of suffering. She remembers being sexually abused as a girl,...
- 9/8/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Who said nothing good comes of high school reunions?
Michel Franco’s upcoming feature “Memory” follows Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) after he reconnects with former classmate Silvia (Jessica Chastain) at their reunion. After Saul stalks Silvia back to her home, the duo are forced to confront their shared past. The film will make its world premiere at 2023 Venice in competition, and has its North American debut at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
Per TIFF’s synopsis, “Silvia works at a public home in New York City for adults struggling with mental health conditions. She leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. She meets Saul in the worst circumstances, after he has creepily followed her home from their high school reunion party and she finds him dripping wet and freezing outside her door the next morning. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as...
Michel Franco’s upcoming feature “Memory” follows Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) after he reconnects with former classmate Silvia (Jessica Chastain) at their reunion. After Saul stalks Silvia back to her home, the duo are forced to confront their shared past. The film will make its world premiere at 2023 Venice in competition, and has its North American debut at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
Per TIFF’s synopsis, “Silvia works at a public home in New York City for adults struggling with mental health conditions. She leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. She meets Saul in the worst circumstances, after he has creepily followed her home from their high school reunion party and she finds him dripping wet and freezing outside her door the next morning. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as...
- 8/18/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Location, Location, Location. After the affluent neighbourhood somewhere in Mexico with New Order, the wasteland of Acapulco with Sundown and more recently, the New York City scapes in the Venice-tipped Memory, it appears that Michel Franco might be setting up shop in San Francisco for a project titled Dreams. Producer Eréndira Núñez Larios and Yves Cape would re-team with Franco.
The project was once said to see Franco work with Jessica Chastain again – but that rumor was put to rest and it would be impossible if the project were to get greenlit. At this point we don’t know if this would be a false start, if this is a smaller scale project or if it is way too early but Production Weekly originally had this set as a July production start date.…...
The project was once said to see Franco work with Jessica Chastain again – but that rumor was put to rest and it would be impossible if the project were to get greenlit. At this point we don’t know if this would be a false start, if this is a smaller scale project or if it is way too early but Production Weekly originally had this set as a July production start date.…...
- 7/18/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Exclusive: Marking her first feature since she won a Best Actress Oscar for The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain and Dopesick and The Batman star Peter Sarsgaard have just wrapped on Michel Franco’s (New Order) new film, which we can reveal is called Memory.
Plot details are being kept under lock and key but the English-language project is rumoured to revolve around a New York City staycation. Also starring are Merritt Wever (Birdman), Josh Charles (Dead Poets Society), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), and Jessica Harper (Suspiria).
The project marks Franco’s second American-set film after 2015’s Chronic, and marks the fifth collaboration between the filmmaker and cinematographer Yves Cape. Pic wrapped shooting in New York last Friday.
Franco, a festival-favourite, won the Venice Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for recent feature New Order. Four of his films have played at Cannes, three winning prizes.
The film is produced...
Plot details are being kept under lock and key but the English-language project is rumoured to revolve around a New York City staycation. Also starring are Merritt Wever (Birdman), Josh Charles (Dead Poets Society), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), and Jessica Harper (Suspiria).
The project marks Franco’s second American-set film after 2015’s Chronic, and marks the fifth collaboration between the filmmaker and cinematographer Yves Cape. Pic wrapped shooting in New York last Friday.
Franco, a festival-favourite, won the Venice Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for recent feature New Order. Four of his films have played at Cannes, three winning prizes.
The film is produced...
- 5/23/2022
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
A number of notable directors have unveiled new projects in development. First up, Michael Sarnoski, whose directorial debut Pig was one of last year’s finest films, will next direct A Quiet Place spinoff film but he’s also lined up another project. Deadline reports he’ll helm an adaptation of Nick Drnaso’s graphic novel Sabrina, which follows a man whose girlfriend goes missing and he goes to be with his friend, an Air Force surveillance expert. When his girlfriend’s disappearance goes viral due to a grisly videotape, the news and social media frenzy leads to an uproar between the two men.
Next up, Michel Franco has quietly begun shooting his next film in NYC, reports Ioncinema. Led by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, there are no plot details yet, but cinematographer Yves Cape has returned to work with Franco.
Following her last narrative feature Honey Boy, Alma Har’el...
Next up, Michel Franco has quietly begun shooting his next film in NYC, reports Ioncinema. Led by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, there are no plot details yet, but cinematographer Yves Cape has returned to work with Franco.
Following her last narrative feature Honey Boy, Alma Har’el...
- 4/22/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Plus que jamais (More Than Ever)
Having worked on several television projects since competing for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival with 2018’s 3 Days in Quiberon, German-French-Iranian filmmaker Emily Atef headed to existential Scandi terrain with a lovely quartet of Euro actors for her next feature. Co-written by Lars Hubrich, Plus que jamais (More Than Ever) is coined as a melodrama toplined by very busy Vicky Krieps and Gaspard Ulliel and supported by Jesper Christensen and Liv Ullmann. Production began in April for two months in Bordeaux, and in Norway, and Michel Franco’s usual cinematographer Yves Cape (Sundown) was onboard.…...
Having worked on several television projects since competing for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival with 2018’s 3 Days in Quiberon, German-French-Iranian filmmaker Emily Atef headed to existential Scandi terrain with a lovely quartet of Euro actors for her next feature. Co-written by Lars Hubrich, Plus que jamais (More Than Ever) is coined as a melodrama toplined by very busy Vicky Krieps and Gaspard Ulliel and supported by Jesper Christensen and Liv Ullmann. Production began in April for two months in Bordeaux, and in Norway, and Michel Franco’s usual cinematographer Yves Cape (Sundown) was onboard.…...
- 1/11/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Michel Franco's New Order is showing exclusively on Mubi in the United Kingdom starting September 10, 2021.After six features in ten years, Michel Franco’s filmography is now large enough for his latest to court comparisons to his previous works. But both thematically and visually, New Order is something of an outlier. Set in a dystopian present-day Mexico, it’s a chronicle of a revolution gone wrong. Widespread inequalities trigger a mass uprising; the poor turn against the rich, and as the rebellion grows violent, the armed forces seize the opportunity to reinstate their own order, and the uprising turns into a bloodbath. Entry point into the nightmare is Marianne (Naian González Norvind), a young woman from a wealthy family in Mexico City. New Order opens on her wedding day, and for a while Franco lets us hobnob with the crème de la crème partying at her family’s sumptuous villa,...
- 9/9/2021
- MUBI
In “Sundown,” his latest examination of how his country’s economic and social tensions sometimes explode, Mexican director Michel Franco takes a cold-eyed stare at his characters, even as the Acapulco sun beats down on them.
In the film that premiered on Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg play British tourists holidaying in a gorgeous Banyan Tree resort, accompanied by two late-teen or early 20s kids named Alexa and Colin. They swim and eat and lounge around, getting served margaritas by their private pool, venturing out to eat dinner or watch a cliff-diving exhibition in which local men risk their lives for the visiting galleries before passing a hat for donations.
Gainsbourg is chided by the kids for always being on her phone working, until it rings with some terrible news which means they have to leave immediately. Gainsbourg squeals in pain on hearing the news,...
In the film that premiered on Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg play British tourists holidaying in a gorgeous Banyan Tree resort, accompanied by two late-teen or early 20s kids named Alexa and Colin. They swim and eat and lounge around, getting served margaritas by their private pool, venturing out to eat dinner or watch a cliff-diving exhibition in which local men risk their lives for the visiting galleries before passing a hat for donations.
Gainsbourg is chided by the kids for always being on her phone working, until it rings with some terrible news which means they have to leave immediately. Gainsbourg squeals in pain on hearing the news,...
- 9/5/2021
- by Jason Solomons
- The Wrap
Following a backlash within its membership ranks and the resignation of its board of directors and president earlier this year, France’s Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma has set new leadership. At a general assembly today, the Académie, which hands out the country’s César Awards, elected former Cnc and Arte chief Veronique Cayla as president and Intouchables co-director and filmmaker Eric Toledano as vice president. They will hold their positions for a two-year term.
The duo replaces Margaret Menegoz who was interim president following Alain Terzian’s departure in February. Terzian left amid rising controversy in the wake of this year’s César nominations which gave Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy the lead at 12. The film ultimately won three prizes at the protested ceremony.
Prior to the awards, the film org was called out as “elitist and closed” by some 200 artists who said they...
The duo replaces Margaret Menegoz who was interim president following Alain Terzian’s departure in February. Terzian left amid rising controversy in the wake of this year’s César nominations which gave Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy the lead at 12. The film ultimately won three prizes at the protested ceremony.
Prior to the awards, the film org was called out as “elitist and closed” by some 200 artists who said they...
- 9/29/2020
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
Zombi Child director Bertrand Bonello on what happened after Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With A Zombie: "And then the Zombi becomes something very different. Like in the trilogy by George Romero.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second half of my conversation with Bertrand Bonello on Zombi Child, shot by Yves Cape (Leos Carax’s Holy Motors) featuring Mackenson Bijou, Louise Labèque, Wislanda Louimat, Katiana Wilfort, Adelé David, Ninon François, Mathilde Riu, and Patrick Boucheron, the director notes the change in the genre from Victor Halperin’s White Zombie to George A Romero’s trilogy in response to my comment about Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With A Zombie.
Bertrand Bonello on Zombi Child: “The construction is very precise.”
The director/screenwriter of Nocturama; Saint Laurent; House Of Tolerance (with Adèle Haenel and Jasmine Trinca); Ingrid Caven: Music And Voice; and Tiresia has included Brian De Palma’s Carrie; Richard Donner’s [film id=19857]The.
In the second half of my conversation with Bertrand Bonello on Zombi Child, shot by Yves Cape (Leos Carax’s Holy Motors) featuring Mackenson Bijou, Louise Labèque, Wislanda Louimat, Katiana Wilfort, Adelé David, Ninon François, Mathilde Riu, and Patrick Boucheron, the director notes the change in the genre from Victor Halperin’s White Zombie to George A Romero’s trilogy in response to my comment about Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With A Zombie.
Bertrand Bonello on Zombi Child: “The construction is very precise.”
The director/screenwriter of Nocturama; Saint Laurent; House Of Tolerance (with Adèle Haenel and Jasmine Trinca); Ingrid Caven: Music And Voice; and Tiresia has included Brian De Palma’s Carrie; Richard Donner’s [film id=19857]The.
- 1/16/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
De son vivant
It seems director Emmanuelle Bercot remains nearly inextricable from Catherine Deneuve, as the director and icon are reuniting on Bercot’s sixth feature, De son vivant (In His Lifetime). Unfortunately, Deneuve suffered a minor stroke, which is being produced by Les Films du Kiosque and France 2 Cinema. Scribe Marcia Romano (who also wrote Bercot’s 2015 title Standing Tall – read review) is on hand. Joining Bercot’s team is Dp Yves Cape (Carax’s stunning Holy Motors; Bruno Dumont’s 2006 Flanders and 1999 Humanite), who recently filmed Bercot on the set of Cedric Kahn’s Happy Birthday (2019), which co-starred Deneuve, while Cecile de France and Benoit Magimel are also in the cast.…...
It seems director Emmanuelle Bercot remains nearly inextricable from Catherine Deneuve, as the director and icon are reuniting on Bercot’s sixth feature, De son vivant (In His Lifetime). Unfortunately, Deneuve suffered a minor stroke, which is being produced by Les Films du Kiosque and France 2 Cinema. Scribe Marcia Romano (who also wrote Bercot’s 2015 title Standing Tall – read review) is on hand. Joining Bercot’s team is Dp Yves Cape (Carax’s stunning Holy Motors; Bruno Dumont’s 2006 Flanders and 1999 Humanite), who recently filmed Bercot on the set of Cedric Kahn’s Happy Birthday (2019), which co-starred Deneuve, while Cecile de France and Benoit Magimel are also in the cast.…...
- 1/2/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Never one to shy away from audacious conceits, from a Moody Blues needle-drop in a late-19th century Parisian brothel in “House of Pleasures” to the sympathetic treatment of terrorist radicals in “Nocturama,” French director Bertrand Bonello returns with a brow-raising one in “Zombi Child,” a political horror film that bundles the sins of colonialism with those of mischievous boarding-school girls. Alternating between a fact-based case of zombieism in 1962 Haiti and a clique of privileged students in contemporary France, the film brings the legacy of Haitian suffering and hardship to the doorstep of a Legion of Honor school with ties to the Napoleonic age. Though Bonello eventually reveals a more concrete bridge between eras,
Though the story of Clairvius Narcisse is largely considered more legend than fact, he was a real Haitian man who supposedly turned into a zombie in 1962 and rematerialized in 1980 in perfectly normal health. The likely catalyst of his transformation was tetrodotoxin,...
Though the story of Clairvius Narcisse is largely considered more legend than fact, he was a real Haitian man who supposedly turned into a zombie in 1962 and rematerialized in 1980 in perfectly normal health. The likely catalyst of his transformation was tetrodotoxin,...
- 9/7/2019
- by Scott Tobias
- Variety Film + TV
The Dreams of a Few
Mexican director Michel Franco will shortly move into production on his sixth feature, The Dreams of a Few (Lo que algunos soñaron) described by producer Edgar San Juan as a near-future dystopia. Projected to be one of the director’s most ambitious works to date, as he usually works with a handful of characters in more intimate scenarios, his latest will be shot with an all Mexican cast in Mexico. The same core behind-the-scenes crew from past Franco productions, including cinematographer Yves Cape, will also be on hand. Franco received immediate attention with his 2009 debut Daniel and Ana, which premiered out of Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.…...
Mexican director Michel Franco will shortly move into production on his sixth feature, The Dreams of a Few (Lo que algunos soñaron) described by producer Edgar San Juan as a near-future dystopia. Projected to be one of the director’s most ambitious works to date, as he usually works with a handful of characters in more intimate scenarios, his latest will be shot with an all Mexican cast in Mexico. The same core behind-the-scenes crew from past Franco productions, including cinematographer Yves Cape, will also be on hand. Franco received immediate attention with his 2009 debut Daniel and Ana, which premiered out of Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.…...
- 1/8/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Speaking at the Marrakech Film Festival, where he is serving on the jury, Michel Franco told Variety he will shoot his sixth feature, “The Dreams of a Few” (Lo que algunos soñaron), in April. His last pic, “April’s Daughter,” premiered last year in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it won the Special Jury Prize.
The Mexican director is renowned for his distinctive, somewhat austere filmmaking style, but says his new pic, which will be shot in Mexico with an all-Mexican cast, will mark an evolution in his style, although he will still use the same core crew of his previous films, including cinematographer, Yves Cape.
“It’s a bigger movie, with a bigger cast. It’s a bigger movie, production-wise. It’s not an intimate story as in my previous five films,” he said. “I guess the technique and narrative change when you’re following more characters. So...
The Mexican director is renowned for his distinctive, somewhat austere filmmaking style, but says his new pic, which will be shot in Mexico with an all-Mexican cast, will mark an evolution in his style, although he will still use the same core crew of his previous films, including cinematographer, Yves Cape.
“It’s a bigger movie, with a bigger cast. It’s a bigger movie, production-wise. It’s not an intimate story as in my previous five films,” he said. “I guess the technique and narrative change when you’re following more characters. So...
- 12/6/2018
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
Michel Franco is careful. The writer/director doesn’t want to exploit sensitive, emotionally fraught topics through lurid attention to detail or an overwrought Oscar bait sensibility. Chronic deals with end-of-life care, something Americans are absolutely allergic to discussing seriously. Franco keeps a respectful distance from the physical indignity of terminal illness. This distance is literal — as patients retch horribly, lie wracked with pain, or have to let others bathe them, Yves Cape’s camera watches from the other end of a room or through an open doorway, almost always stock still. Close-ups are rare and non-diegetic music is nonexistent; nearly every overtly manipulative cinematic trick has not been invited. Franco leaves it to the actors to bring on the emotion.
Foremost among them are Tim Roth as David, a hospice nurse who routinely becomes too emotionally invested in his patients. He’ll take other nurses’ shifts for no extra pay,...
Foremost among them are Tim Roth as David, a hospice nurse who routinely becomes too emotionally invested in his patients. He’ll take other nurses’ shifts for no extra pay,...
- 11/16/2015
- by Daniel Schindel
- The Film Stage
Prognosis Negative: Franco’s English Language Dance with Death
After winning the Un Certain Regard Award for his 2012 sophomore feature After Lucia, Mexican director Michel Franco is back with more uncomfortable human interactions, but this time in English with Chronic. Compared to previous efforts, including the 2009 debut Daniel y Ana which deals with a singular episode, Franco spreads his disdain over the shattered lives of those grappling with advanced stages of chronic illnesses. Connected by a hospice care nurse as our main protagonist, a disturbed man with his own deep secrets, Franco downplays the usual streak of revulsion we’ve become accustomed to for more familiar profundities.
David (Tim Roth) is currently caring for a frail patient who looks as if she’s wasting away before our eyes. We see him working with her, efficient, patient, and caring. Several scenes later, we’re at her funeral, which David attends, though...
After winning the Un Certain Regard Award for his 2012 sophomore feature After Lucia, Mexican director Michel Franco is back with more uncomfortable human interactions, but this time in English with Chronic. Compared to previous efforts, including the 2009 debut Daniel y Ana which deals with a singular episode, Franco spreads his disdain over the shattered lives of those grappling with advanced stages of chronic illnesses. Connected by a hospice care nurse as our main protagonist, a disturbed man with his own deep secrets, Franco downplays the usual streak of revulsion we’ve become accustomed to for more familiar profundities.
David (Tim Roth) is currently caring for a frail patient who looks as if she’s wasting away before our eyes. We see him working with her, efficient, patient, and caring. Several scenes later, we’re at her funeral, which David attends, though...
- 5/22/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The Town That Dreaded Showdown: Bouchareb Returns to New Mexican Landscape with Mixed Results
French director Rachid Bouchareb’s long celebrated filmography has garnered two of his titles Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film (Dust of Life; Days of Glory), along with a host of other accolades for a body of work that often revolves around either Algerian experiences in France (modern and period), or explorations of race and/or gender within unique narratives. A long-time producer of Bruno Dumont’s work, Bouchareb has been pursuing a variety of international productions. His latest, Two Men in Town, is a morality exercise that happens to take place in roughly the same Us locale as his last effort, 2012’s Just Like a Woman. Despite a notable cast and several rather arresting performances, the end result never elevates beyond a standard dramatic exercise that ends in more or less the same...
French director Rachid Bouchareb’s long celebrated filmography has garnered two of his titles Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film (Dust of Life; Days of Glory), along with a host of other accolades for a body of work that often revolves around either Algerian experiences in France (modern and period), or explorations of race and/or gender within unique narratives. A long-time producer of Bruno Dumont’s work, Bouchareb has been pursuing a variety of international productions. His latest, Two Men in Town, is a morality exercise that happens to take place in roughly the same Us locale as his last effort, 2012’s Just Like a Woman. Despite a notable cast and several rather arresting performances, the end result never elevates beyond a standard dramatic exercise that ends in more or less the same...
- 3/4/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
“Two Men In Town” Dir. Rachid Bouchareb, starring Forest Whitaker, Brenda Blethyn, Harvey Keitel and Luis Guzman A remake of a 1973 French film starring Alain Delon and Jean Gabin, “Two Men In Town” is a sadly missed opportunity. It's a beautifully shot film (kudos to Dp Yves Cape, who also served on “Holy Motors” and “White Material”), but one that, aside from some unusual casting decisions, brings nothing new to the ex-con-trying-to-go-straight genre. In fact it falls into its overfamiliar rhythm so quickly that you have to keep reminding yourself you haven’t seen it before. And it really is a shame, because Blethyn’s pragmatic, “Fargo”-esque parole officer is a pleasure, Whitaker’s character’s racial profile (black man with a white adoptive mother and a Latina girlfriend) is oddly but laudably rarely even mentioned, and the dusty, sun-blanched New Mexico landscape is well evoked by Cape’s...
- 2/18/2014
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb has lately alternated between sweeping historical dramas (the WWII drama "Days of Glory," the Algerian War portrait "Outside the Law") and sentimental two-handers with quieter approaches ("London River," "Just Like a Woman"). In all cases, however, Bouchareb tends to deal in similar themes of contrasting political and personal relationships. "Two Men In Town," a loose remake of José Giovanni's 1973 tale of a paroled murderer trying to get his life back together, applies this tendency to the least-ideological of Bouchareb's movies, resulting in a thinly executed tale littered with uneven performances. Nevertheless, a committed turn by Forest Whitaker in the lead role, paired with "Holy Motors" and "My Life in Pink" cinematographer Yves Cape's evocative images of the spare western landscape, lead to an intriguing contrast between the half-baked material and a handful of stronger ingredients. It's a movie at war with its deficiencies. "Two Men.
- 2/8/2014
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
★★★★☆ Divisive filmmaker Bruno Dumont is no stranger to spirituality, and can hardly be accused of fence-sitting with Hors Satan (Outside Satan, 2011), which arrives on DVD this week courtesy of New Wave Films. Whilst the auteur's defiant opacity may put some cinephiles off, he's once again crafted an unmissable, morally-complex experience. Using little-known actors to portray his characters, Dumont creates a challenging but nevertheless compelling narrative which seeks to examine the murky synergy of good and evil - all present within Hors Satan's enigmatic protagonist, simply referred to as 'the guy' (the late David Dewaele).
Sleeping rough on the outskirts of a small coastal hamlet in Pas-de-Calais, 'the guy' ('le gars') wanders the stark landscapes akin to some messianic embodiment of nature's amorality. Here, a young woman (Alexandra Lemâtre) confides in him about her abusive stepfather. When it's claimed that she simply cannot take any more it prompts a swift...
Sleeping rough on the outskirts of a small coastal hamlet in Pas-de-Calais, 'the guy' ('le gars') wanders the stark landscapes akin to some messianic embodiment of nature's amorality. Here, a young woman (Alexandra Lemâtre) confides in him about her abusive stepfather. When it's claimed that she simply cannot take any more it prompts a swift...
- 5/13/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
A follower of Robert Bresson and admirer of the Catholic novelist Georges Bernanos, the maverick French film-maker Bruno Dumont is famous for religious fables that make no concessions to popular audiences and are performed by deliberately inexpressive non-professional actors. His last film, Hadewijch, centred on a novice so zealous that she was thrown out of her convent and fell in with an Islamic terrorist. Hors Satan, his sixth film and perhaps his most compelling, is set in a bleak, thinly populated, hauntingly beautiful corner of Pas de Calais near Boulogne, an area he's worked in several times before. A raggedly dressed ascetic figure, called simply "the guy" (le gars) in the cast list and resembling El Greco's Christ or the Spanish student Pasolini chose to play Christ in his St Matthew's Gospel film, drifts around the locality, saying little and living rough in the sand dunes. He's fed by local...
- 1/6/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The wild, coastal landscapes where Bruno Dumont's antihero roams free from retribution create a lucid dream of violence and beauty
It could be the antihero who is supposed to be "outside Satan" in Bruno Dumont's latest film, or it could be the remote, islanded world he inhabits. He and they are quite close to Satan, at all events; it is perhaps truer to say he is outside both God and Satan. Devotees of Dumont's earlier films – particularly his 1999 film Humanity – will instantly recognise the style, the locale, the narrative, the bizarre quasi-realism, in which events take place in a world infinitesimally different from the one we inhabit. As ever, the visionary, radioactive glow is compelling.
We are back in the broad, wild coastal landscapes of northern France, of which Britain's nearest equivalent is the East Anglian fen, a world of largely unsmiling, often unspeaking characters represented by non-professional actors.
It could be the antihero who is supposed to be "outside Satan" in Bruno Dumont's latest film, or it could be the remote, islanded world he inhabits. He and they are quite close to Satan, at all events; it is perhaps truer to say he is outside both God and Satan. Devotees of Dumont's earlier films – particularly his 1999 film Humanity – will instantly recognise the style, the locale, the narrative, the bizarre quasi-realism, in which events take place in a world infinitesimally different from the one we inhabit. As ever, the visionary, radioactive glow is compelling.
We are back in the broad, wild coastal landscapes of northern France, of which Britain's nearest equivalent is the East Anglian fen, a world of largely unsmiling, often unspeaking characters represented by non-professional actors.
- 1/4/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It's a bit of a slow day so I figured I'd go a little early on a small batch of Oscar related stories I've been collecting beginning with Chris Laverty's article over at Clothes on Film contemplating whether or not costume designer Sharen Davis could score a nom for her work on Quentin Tarantino's Civil War-era Western Django Unchained. Davis was last nominated in 2007 for Dreamgirls and once before that in 2005 for Ray. Ooooh, I see a pattern here, could Davis and Jamie Foxx make it a trifecta? In news that will surely disappoint some, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Sony is considering not going wide with Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty until January, leaving the film to open only in limited release on December 19 in New York and Los Angeles. My reaction to this...? Well, looking back at how a similar strategy worked for Anonymous last year,...
- 10/24/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Plus Camerimage, the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, is celebrating its landmark 20th anniversary this year and, ComingSoon.net is heading to Poland at the end of next month to cover the festival. Today, Plus Camerimage has revealed the lineup of films selected for the festival.s main competition which includes a diverse slate of acclaimed films from around the globe. The entries are: . Ben Affleck.s Argo ; USA, 2012; Cinematographer: Rodrigo Prieto . Benh Zeitlin.s Beasts of the Southern Wild ; USA, 2012; Cinematographer: Ben Richardson . Rufus Norris. Broken ; UK, 2012; Cinematographer: Rob Hardy . Reza Dormishian.s Hatred (Boghz); Iran, 2012; Cinematographer: Touraj Aslani . Leos Carax.s Holy Motors ; France, 2012; Cinematographer: Yves Cape,...
- 10/23/2012
- Comingsoon.net
Click here for complete coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff 2012)
France, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Israel And The United States
Take Home The Gold
The 48th Chicago International Festival announces the winners of its competitions
news release
Chicago (October 19, 2012) – Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director, Mimi Plauché, Programming Director, and Programmers Alex Kopecky and Penny Bartlett proudly announce the winners of the 48th Chicago International Film Festival Competitions.
French filmmaker Leos Carax’s exuberant and euphoric Holy Motors leads this extraordinary group of films with three awards. Carax’s first film, Boy Meets Girl, premiered in Chicago in 1984 as part of the 20th Chicago International Film Festival’s International Competition.
Many of the winners will be showcased during the Festival’s Best of the Fest program, Wednesday, October 24 at the AMC River East 21 (322 E. Illinois St.). The Festival runs until Thursday October 25 when Closing Night film Flight (our review...
France, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Israel And The United States
Take Home The Gold
The 48th Chicago International Festival announces the winners of its competitions
news release
Chicago (October 19, 2012) – Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director, Mimi Plauché, Programming Director, and Programmers Alex Kopecky and Penny Bartlett proudly announce the winners of the 48th Chicago International Film Festival Competitions.
French filmmaker Leos Carax’s exuberant and euphoric Holy Motors leads this extraordinary group of films with three awards. Carax’s first film, Boy Meets Girl, premiered in Chicago in 1984 as part of the 20th Chicago International Film Festival’s International Competition.
Many of the winners will be showcased during the Festival’s Best of the Fest program, Wednesday, October 24 at the AMC River East 21 (322 E. Illinois St.). The Festival runs until Thursday October 25 when Closing Night film Flight (our review...
- 10/22/2012
- by Nick Allen
- The Scorecard Review
Chicago -- French filmmaker Leos Carax’s Holy Motors (France/Germany) won the Gold Hugo, the top film award at the ongoing 48th Chicago International Film Festival. In all, Holy Motors won three Hugos, including two Silver Hugos: Denis Lavant won the Silver Hugo for Best Actor, while Yves Cape and Caroline Champetier won the Silver for Best Cinematography. The festival held its awards ceremony Friday night, enabling filmgoers to seek out the winning films at special screenings the fest schedules during the upcoming week. Video: A Few Minutes With Feinberg: the View of the Race from the Windy City The oldest
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- 10/20/2012
- by Duane Byrge
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Chicago – The 2012 48th Annual Chicago International Film Festival and Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director, announced the competition award winners at a ceremony in the ballroom of the Renaissance Blackstone Hotel on October 19th, 2012. The Gold Hugo for Best Film went to “Holy Motors,” from France and Germany.
Kutza made the announcements along with Mimi Plauché, Head of Programming, Programmers Alex Kopecky and Penny Bartlett, plus members of the various juries who worked evaluating the competition. The historic Renaissance Blackstone Hotel was built on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue in the early 20th Century, and the ballroom was used in the film “The Untouchables” (1987). The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named for the mythical God of Discovery.
International Feature Film Competition
’Holy Motors’
Photo Credit: © Chicago International Film Festival
The Gold Hugo for Best Film: “Holy Motors” (France/Germany), directed by Leos Carax
The Silver Hugo: “After Lucia...
Kutza made the announcements along with Mimi Plauché, Head of Programming, Programmers Alex Kopecky and Penny Bartlett, plus members of the various juries who worked evaluating the competition. The historic Renaissance Blackstone Hotel was built on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue in the early 20th Century, and the ballroom was used in the film “The Untouchables” (1987). The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named for the mythical God of Discovery.
International Feature Film Competition
’Holy Motors’
Photo Credit: © Chicago International Film Festival
The Gold Hugo for Best Film: “Holy Motors” (France/Germany), directed by Leos Carax
The Silver Hugo: “After Lucia...
- 10/20/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Holy Motors
Directed by Leos Carax
Written by Leos Carax
France/Germany, 2012
If you’ve never heard of Leos Carax, Holy Motors might not be the best way to make the French director’s acquaintance - or maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t matter much at all. Having not produced a feature-length film since 1999′s Pola X, Carax’s latest is an oddly euphoric plunge into madness and the bizarre. It stirs the imagination unlike any other film this year, and is likely to take the cake in regards to producing the zaniest, most absurdly loopy film-going experience in recent memory. Too cool for the likes of Nanni Moretti (President of this year’s Cannes jury), the film was met with both high praise and waives of bewilderment at Cannes, signifying that Carax is indeed back.
There’s hardly anything to compare the film with, as it co-exists as both...
Directed by Leos Carax
Written by Leos Carax
France/Germany, 2012
If you’ve never heard of Leos Carax, Holy Motors might not be the best way to make the French director’s acquaintance - or maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t matter much at all. Having not produced a feature-length film since 1999′s Pola X, Carax’s latest is an oddly euphoric plunge into madness and the bizarre. It stirs the imagination unlike any other film this year, and is likely to take the cake in regards to producing the zaniest, most absurdly loopy film-going experience in recent memory. Too cool for the likes of Nanni Moretti (President of this year’s Cannes jury), the film was met with both high praise and waives of bewilderment at Cannes, signifying that Carax is indeed back.
There’s hardly anything to compare the film with, as it co-exists as both...
- 9/23/2012
- by Ty Landis
- SoundOnSight
Chicago – Episodic ensemble pieces in America often follow a contrived pattern typified by Paul Haggis’s “Crash.” Various diverse lives are juxtaposed and intersect while illustrating an overarching theme. What’s so refreshing about Bruno Podalydès’s 2009 French gem, “Park Benches,” is its utter lack of dramatic significance. It’s more interested in exploring the idiosyncrasies of humanity rather than preaching a self-important message.
Podalydès is a writer/director not known to most American moviegoers, but this thoroughly delightful comedy is bound to win the filmmaker many new fans. The vast majority of his screwball humor does not get lost in cultural translation, and produces countless moments that are laugh-out-loud funny. As a microcosm of Parisian society, “Benches” hops whimsically from one colorful scenario to the next, capturing vignettes as endearing as they are bittersweet.
DVD Rating: 4.0/5.0
What’s apparent right off the bat is the picture’s mammoth gallery of French stars.
Podalydès is a writer/director not known to most American moviegoers, but this thoroughly delightful comedy is bound to win the filmmaker many new fans. The vast majority of his screwball humor does not get lost in cultural translation, and produces countless moments that are laugh-out-loud funny. As a microcosm of Parisian society, “Benches” hops whimsically from one colorful scenario to the next, capturing vignettes as endearing as they are bittersweet.
DVD Rating: 4.0/5.0
What’s apparent right off the bat is the picture’s mammoth gallery of French stars.
- 7/29/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Chicago – Africa has routinely played a major role in the work of Claire Denis, a French writer/director deservedly hailed as one of the greatest living filmmakers. Her upbringing in colonial Africa certainly proved to be an influence on her 1988 directorial debut, “Chocolat,” as well as 1999’s equally evocative “Beau travail.” Both films centered on protagonists re-connecting with their deep-seated memories of life on the continent.
“White Material” could easily be seen as the completion of a thematic trilogy, though it also stands on its own as a singularly haunting and disturbing work of art. The death of European colonialism is reluctantly witnessed through the eyes of Maria (Isabelle Huppert), a white plantation owner in Africa whose love of the land and devotion to her coffee crop causes her to deny the civil war gradually consuming her country. Even with a gun pointed at her head, Maria’s determination remains unflinching.
“White Material” could easily be seen as the completion of a thematic trilogy, though it also stands on its own as a singularly haunting and disturbing work of art. The death of European colonialism is reluctantly witnessed through the eyes of Maria (Isabelle Huppert), a white plantation owner in Africa whose love of the land and devotion to her coffee crop causes her to deny the civil war gradually consuming her country. Even with a gun pointed at her head, Maria’s determination remains unflinching.
- 4/26/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Bruno Dumont is a favorite son in Cannes, where his anti-intellectual pretensions and the use of nonactors in his films win jury prizes even though audiences don't always share the juries' enthusiasm. In Flanders, he is back with more of the same: A film that had some French viewers talking back to the screen yet received scattered applause at the end. Apparently, you either love this guy's work or hate it. In this review, Dumont will not feel the love.
Pretentious to the core and lacking any context or credible characterizations, Flanders juxtaposes bucolic scenes of life in a farm community, featuring a clutch of dim-witted rustics, with scenes of utter barbarity in an unspecified war. The point may have something to do with what constitutes manhood or absence making the heart grow fonder or perhaps how war deforms character. Who know?
What the film affords is a chance to watch inexpressive characters stumble though scenes of sex and violence, plunging into both activities without much thought or concern for consequences. The only expression of genuine desire comes with the film's final line.
Whatever this Cannes jury thinks of Flanders, the film will make only brief art house appearances.
In Flanders, France, Demester (thick-bodied Samuel Boidin) toils on his farm, seemingly without any family. Recreation consists of an occasional beer with buddies and quick sexual trysts with his childhood friend Barbe (lithe Adelaide Leroux). Neither he nor Barbe consider themselves a couple. For one thing, she is the town slut.
Demester goes off to war along with several locals including Blondel (Henri Cretel) -- an unlikely contrivance -- in an unnamed North African land. (These scenes were shot in Tunisia.) While on a patrol in a barren desert, a patrol with no sense of what the mission might be, his buddies get picked off one by one.
In one firefight, they kill a couple of boy soldiers. Later, they brutally gang rape a woman and kill an old man for no apparent reason. They pay for these crimes with their own deaths at the hands of a local militia. One such death has a rapist castrated before he is killed.
Meanwhile, back on the farm, Barbe rids herself of an annoying pregnancy and winds up in a mental hospital for a spell. Once released, she picks up where she left off, having barnyard sex with any willing male.
Demester, the sole survivor of the patrol, eventually returns from the war. He is a changed man at least insofar as he can finally articulate his feelings about Barbe. What a shame that it took all that carnage for him to find his inner man.
Performances are what you would expect from nonprofessionals. Even a veteran actor might have problems, though, playing characters with so little back story or sense of themselves.
The war scenes are well done on a small budget and do contain moments of highly realistic combat within the fog of war. Yves Cape's camera captures the dueling landscapes of green farms and desolate desert with crisp efficiency.
FLANDERS
3B Prods. in association with Arte France Cinema, Crrav Nord-Pas de Calais/Le Fresnoy
Credits: Writer-director: Bruno Dumont; Producer: Michele Grimaud; Executive producers: Jean Brehat, Rachid Bouchareb; Director of photography: Yves Cape; Costumes: Cedric Grenapin, Alexandra Charles; Editor: Guy Lecorne. Cast: Barbe: Adelaide Leroux; Demester: Samuel Boidin; Blondel: Henri Cretel; Leclercq: David Poulain; Mordac: Patrice Venant.
No MPAA rating, running time 91 minutes.
Pretentious to the core and lacking any context or credible characterizations, Flanders juxtaposes bucolic scenes of life in a farm community, featuring a clutch of dim-witted rustics, with scenes of utter barbarity in an unspecified war. The point may have something to do with what constitutes manhood or absence making the heart grow fonder or perhaps how war deforms character. Who know?
What the film affords is a chance to watch inexpressive characters stumble though scenes of sex and violence, plunging into both activities without much thought or concern for consequences. The only expression of genuine desire comes with the film's final line.
Whatever this Cannes jury thinks of Flanders, the film will make only brief art house appearances.
In Flanders, France, Demester (thick-bodied Samuel Boidin) toils on his farm, seemingly without any family. Recreation consists of an occasional beer with buddies and quick sexual trysts with his childhood friend Barbe (lithe Adelaide Leroux). Neither he nor Barbe consider themselves a couple. For one thing, she is the town slut.
Demester goes off to war along with several locals including Blondel (Henri Cretel) -- an unlikely contrivance -- in an unnamed North African land. (These scenes were shot in Tunisia.) While on a patrol in a barren desert, a patrol with no sense of what the mission might be, his buddies get picked off one by one.
In one firefight, they kill a couple of boy soldiers. Later, they brutally gang rape a woman and kill an old man for no apparent reason. They pay for these crimes with their own deaths at the hands of a local militia. One such death has a rapist castrated before he is killed.
Meanwhile, back on the farm, Barbe rids herself of an annoying pregnancy and winds up in a mental hospital for a spell. Once released, she picks up where she left off, having barnyard sex with any willing male.
Demester, the sole survivor of the patrol, eventually returns from the war. He is a changed man at least insofar as he can finally articulate his feelings about Barbe. What a shame that it took all that carnage for him to find his inner man.
Performances are what you would expect from nonprofessionals. Even a veteran actor might have problems, though, playing characters with so little back story or sense of themselves.
The war scenes are well done on a small budget and do contain moments of highly realistic combat within the fog of war. Yves Cape's camera captures the dueling landscapes of green farms and desolate desert with crisp efficiency.
FLANDERS
3B Prods. in association with Arte France Cinema, Crrav Nord-Pas de Calais/Le Fresnoy
Credits: Writer-director: Bruno Dumont; Producer: Michele Grimaud; Executive producers: Jean Brehat, Rachid Bouchareb; Director of photography: Yves Cape; Costumes: Cedric Grenapin, Alexandra Charles; Editor: Guy Lecorne. Cast: Barbe: Adelaide Leroux; Demester: Samuel Boidin; Blondel: Henri Cretel; Leclercq: David Poulain; Mordac: Patrice Venant.
No MPAA rating, running time 91 minutes.
- 5/24/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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