As filmmaking gets further relegated to smaller screens, it’s a breath of fresh air to have a director like Pietro Marcello crafting cinema that is best experienced on a vast canvas. While the release of his stunning 2019 drama Martin Eden was unfortunately dampened by the pandemic, he’s now returned with the gorgeous fable Scarlet (aka L’Envol). Premiering just about a year ago at Cannes, the tale of a woman’s family and romantic journey in post-wwi France will now arrive in U.S. theaters starting this Friday. Starring Juliette Jouan, Raphaël Thierry, Louis Garrel, Noémie Lvovsky, Ernst Umhauer, François Négret, and Yolande Moreau.
While he stopped by NYC for last fall’s New York Film Festival premiere, I had the opportunity to speak with Marcello about his experience working in France, the silent film connections to Scarlet, how his latest work marked a transitional point for his career,...
While he stopped by NYC for last fall’s New York Film Festival premiere, I had the opportunity to speak with Marcello about his experience working in France, the silent film connections to Scarlet, how his latest work marked a transitional point for his career,...
- 6/6/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Unless you were lucky enough to catch it on the 2019 festival circuit, the pandemic unfortunately led to most viewers seeing Pietro Marcello’s stunning drama Martin Eden at home. Thankfully his next feature, the gorgeous fable Scarlet (aka L’Envol), will be primed for theatrical viewing. The Cannes selection will get a U.S. release from Kino Lorber on June 9. An adaptation of Scarlet Sails by Alexander Grin, the tale of a woman’s family and romantic journey stars Juliette Jouan, Raphaël Thierry, Louis Garrel, Noémie Lvovsky, Ernst Umhauer, François Négret, and Yolande Moreau.
As David Katz said in his review, “In his previous film Martin Eden, and now with Scarlet, Pietro Marcello has found a novel way to depict artistic striving, closely tying it with the concept of labor. It’s also something that runs through Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, about the poetry-penning bus driver of the same name:...
As David Katz said in his review, “In his previous film Martin Eden, and now with Scarlet, Pietro Marcello has found a novel way to depict artistic striving, closely tying it with the concept of labor. It’s also something that runs through Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, about the poetry-penning bus driver of the same name:...
- 5/8/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Unless you were lucky enough to catch it on the 2019 festival circuit, the pandemic unfortunately led to most viewers seeing Pietro Marcello’s stunning drama Martin Eden at home. Thankfully, when it comes to his next feature, the gorgeous fable Scarlet (aka L’Envol), there will be ample opportunity for a theatrical viewing. The Cannes selection will arrive in France this January, and the first trailer has now arrived, followed by a U.S. release from Kino Lorber in 2023. An adaptation of Scarlet Sails by Alexander Grin, the tale of a woman’s family and romantic journey stars Juliette Jouan, Raphaël Thierry, Louis Garrel, Noémie Lvovsky, Ernst Umhauer, François Négret, and Yolande Moreau.
David Katz said in his review, “In his previous film Martin Eden, and now with Scarlet, Pietro Marcello has found a novel way to depict artistic striving, closely tying it with the concept of labor. It’s...
David Katz said in his review, “In his previous film Martin Eden, and now with Scarlet, Pietro Marcello has found a novel way to depict artistic striving, closely tying it with the concept of labor. It’s...
- 11/30/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
A slight but satisfying choice to open Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, Pietro Marcello’s “Scarlet” isn’t quite a fairy tale, although it certainly feels like one at times. For example, roughly midway through the movie, a woman who might be a witch meets the film’s fanciful young heroine, Juliette (Juliette Jouan), in the woods and predicts her fortune, explaining that one day this girl — who’s destined for greater things than the provincial Normandy farm where she’s dutifully passed her adolescence — will be whisked away by a ship flying scarlet sails.
Set in the years just after the Great War, this charming French-language fable — which hails from the celebrated Italian doc maker whose epic narrative debut, “Martin Eden,” was a critical success on the festival circuit just pre-covid — is smaller, sweeter and more sensitive than Marcello’s earlier work. The movie’s sense of reality-based romance,...
Set in the years just after the Great War, this charming French-language fable — which hails from the celebrated Italian doc maker whose epic narrative debut, “Martin Eden,” was a critical success on the festival circuit just pre-covid — is smaller, sweeter and more sensitive than Marcello’s earlier work. The movie’s sense of reality-based romance,...
- 5/18/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Pietro Marcello, the critically acclaimed Italian filmmaker of the Venice prize-winning “Martin Eden,” has just started shooting “Scarlet” (“L’envol”), a French-language drama set in Northern Normandy. Orange Studio has acquired international sales rights to the film which will be distributed in France by Le Pacte.
Charles Gillibert, whose Paris-based outfit CG Cinema previously delivered award-winning films such as Deniz Erguven’s “Mustang” and Leos Carax’s “Annette,” is producing “Scarlet” with Avventurosa and Rai Cinema in Italy, in collaboration with Ilya Stewart (Hype Film) and Antonio Miyakawa (Wise Pictures).
Marcello penned the script with his regular screenwriting partner Maurizio Braucci (“Gomorra”), as well as Maud Ameline (“Amanda”), with the participation of the novelist Geneviève Brisac.
The film is set between the two world wars, a time of great inventions, and follows the journey of a young woman who was raised by her father, a widowed war veteran, and strives...
Charles Gillibert, whose Paris-based outfit CG Cinema previously delivered award-winning films such as Deniz Erguven’s “Mustang” and Leos Carax’s “Annette,” is producing “Scarlet” with Avventurosa and Rai Cinema in Italy, in collaboration with Ilya Stewart (Hype Film) and Antonio Miyakawa (Wise Pictures).
Marcello penned the script with his regular screenwriting partner Maurizio Braucci (“Gomorra”), as well as Maud Ameline (“Amanda”), with the participation of the novelist Geneviève Brisac.
The film is set between the two world wars, a time of great inventions, and follows the journey of a young woman who was raised by her father, a widowed war veteran, and strives...
- 8/19/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
François Ozon seems to be fascinated by what makes writers tick. And he loves to prod the viewer to reconsider his/her mental evaluation of fiction and reality as they watch his later films.
Many viewers are likely to initially consider the superb tale of In the House to be solely Ozon’s creative work; it is not. In the House appears to be almost totally leaning on the product of a contemporary Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga titled The Boy in the Last Row, if one goes by the reviews of the play. It is, thus, not a coincidence that the French film went on to win the well-deserved Golden Shell (the grand prize) and the Jury prize for Best Screenplay at the San Sebastian film Festival in Spain. Then why is the film important, if almost all the credit rests with the play on which the film is built?...
Many viewers are likely to initially consider the superb tale of In the House to be solely Ozon’s creative work; it is not. In the House appears to be almost totally leaning on the product of a contemporary Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga titled The Boy in the Last Row, if one goes by the reviews of the play. It is, thus, not a coincidence that the French film went on to win the well-deserved Golden Shell (the grand prize) and the Jury prize for Best Screenplay at the San Sebastian film Festival in Spain. Then why is the film important, if almost all the credit rests with the play on which the film is built?...
- 11/5/2014
- by Jugu Abraham
- DearCinema.com
Fabrice Luchini's jaded high-school literature teacher, Germain, becomes fixated by the handwritten anecdotes of his enigmatic 16-year-old pupil Claude (Ernst Umhauer). The stories centre on Claude's observations of a classmate's unhappy family; the bored, beautiful mother (Emmanuelle Seigner) and the bonehead dad (Denis Ménochet). The pedantic Germain encourages his charge to develop his talent and embellish his observations. It can't end well for Germain, imperilling his job, his marriage (to Kristen Scott Thomas's gallery owner) and sanity.
- 7/19/2013
- The Independent - Film
Zack Snyder.s reboot of the Superman franchise Man of Steel reigned at the Australian box-office last weekend, raking in $8.8 million plus about $600,000 in previews.
The four-day figure was below the opening weekend of Fast & Furious 6 and slightly below The Hangover Part 111.s debut.. But that was rated as an excellent result by one exhibitor who observed the Superman character isn.t as strongly entrenched in Australian pop culture as it is in the Us.
Given the man of steel.s invasion, zombie thriller World War Z held reasonably well in its second frame, down 48%.
The start of the school vacation ensured great turn-outs for the second weekends of Despicable Me 2 and Monster.s University.
But Blue Sky Studios. Epic, a 3D animated adventure comedy set in a suburban forest voiced by Colin Farrell, Jason Sudeikis, Christoph Waltz and Amanda Seyfried, opened weakly. The distributor will be hoping...
The four-day figure was below the opening weekend of Fast & Furious 6 and slightly below The Hangover Part 111.s debut.. But that was rated as an excellent result by one exhibitor who observed the Superman character isn.t as strongly entrenched in Australian pop culture as it is in the Us.
Given the man of steel.s invasion, zombie thriller World War Z held reasonably well in its second frame, down 48%.
The start of the school vacation ensured great turn-outs for the second weekends of Despicable Me 2 and Monster.s University.
But Blue Sky Studios. Epic, a 3D animated adventure comedy set in a suburban forest voiced by Colin Farrell, Jason Sudeikis, Christoph Waltz and Amanda Seyfried, opened weakly. The distributor will be hoping...
- 7/1/2013
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
The teacher is a veteran of the French school system, not burnt out but resigned to the mediocrity of each new crop of high school sophomores. That first assignment -- "Write about what you did last weekend" -- confirms what he tells his gallery manager wife: "This is the worst class I've had in my life."
But one 16-year-old boy, Claude, takes it seriously. He describes a classmate he selected, a somewhat dim kid whose life he'd love to have, whose house he longed to gain entry to. And he did, taking in details -- the sports-crazed dad beaten down by a job that includes petty humiliations from his boss and Chinese clients, and "the singular scent of a middle-class woman," his classmate's fetching blond mother.
He's ingratiating himself into their lives. He's observing, passing judgment, telling their secrets. And he knows how to make the essay a cliffhanger.
"To be continued.
But one 16-year-old boy, Claude, takes it seriously. He describes a classmate he selected, a somewhat dim kid whose life he'd love to have, whose house he longed to gain entry to. And he did, taking in details -- the sports-crazed dad beaten down by a job that includes petty humiliations from his boss and Chinese clients, and "the singular scent of a middle-class woman," his classmate's fetching blond mother.
He's ingratiating himself into their lives. He's observing, passing judgment, telling their secrets. And he knows how to make the essay a cliffhanger.
"To be continued.
- 5/2/2013
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
A few days after it was announced he'd be making his way to Cannes again for his fourteenth feature film ( "Jeune and Jolie"), François Ozon returns to the American theaters this weekend with his thirteenth. "In The House," which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, stands alongside the filmmaker's best work. Adapted from Spanish writer Juan Mayorga's play "The Boy in the Last Row," the film follows sixteen year old student Claude (Ernst Umhauer) who charms his French teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) -- not to mention his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) -- with a series of stories about his middle class classmate Rapha (Bastien Ughetto) and his family. It's a twisty, clever thriller where much lies beyond the surface. "I discovered the play because a friend of mine -- an actress -- was in the play in Paris and she called me and told me to come see it,...
- 4/19/2013
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
A few days after it was announced he'd be making his way to Cannes again for his fourteenth feature film ( "Jeune and Jolie"), François Ozon returns to the American theaters this weekend with his thirteenth. "In The House," which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, stands alongside the filmmaker's best work. Adapted from Spanish writer Juan Mayorga's play "The Boy in the Last Row," the film follows sixteen year old student Claude (Ernst Umhauer) who charms his French teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) -- not to mention his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) -- with a series of stories about his middle class classmate Rapha (Bastien Ughetto) and his family. Its a twisty, clever thriller where much lies beyond the surface. "I discovered the play because a friend of mine -- an actress -- was in the play in Paris and she called me and told me to come see it,...
- 4/19/2013
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
Tom Cruise apocalyptic vehicle "Oblivion," which is expected to score about $30 million when it opens wide this weekend, is a rare thing these days: a movie that arrives full-blown from the head of its filmmaker. While critics agree that Joseph Kosinski's spectacular piece of grown-up sci-fi boasts impressive visuals, some complain that the familiar sci-fi rehash -- unfavorable comparisons to "Total Recall" keep coming up -- bogs down the film. Meanwhile, in limited release, Francois Ozon's psycho-sexual thriller and dark comedy "In the House," starring Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ernst Umhauer, is the weekend's top-rated film. Past Sundance entry "Filly Brown," starring Gina Rodriguez as an up-and-comer in the hip-hop world, is landing tepid reviews, as is Rob Zombie's visually enticing witch-hunt horror title "The Lords of Salem," which the NY Times laments abandons its interesting aspects for "hallucinatory garishness." Finally, the April 17 release of Molly.
- 4/19/2013
- by Anne Thompson and Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
To say that François Ozon has worked in many genres would be a misstatement, but only because his films tend to ignore the boundaries of genre in the first place. 8 Women is a musical, melodrama and murder mystery. Swimming Pool is a thriller inflected by romance novels. Sitcom is a fusion of sitcom tropes and rambunctious sexuality. And now, Ozon has made a film that functions almost as a retrospective blend of his own prior work. In the House builds from the insightful narrative trickery of Swimming Pool, blends in the promiscuous anarchy and wry humor of Sitcom, and drops the whole thing into the otherwise boring “inspirational schoolteacher” movie. The result is Ozon’s best work in a decade. The student in question is Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer), a sly young man with a lot of ambition and little humility. He’s the star of his literature class, taught by once-aspiring novelist Germain (Fabrice Luchini). It...
- 4/18/2013
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Check out this exclusive clip from Francois Ozon's psychological mystery "In the House," starring Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ernst Umhauer. The film, which premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, centers on the increasingly dicey relationship between a high school lit teacher and his more than apt pupil, who spies on his best friend's parents as fodder for extracurricular essays. In the clip, student Claude (Umhauer) invents a reason to visit housewife Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner), who he secretly refers to as "the world's most bored woman," on a weekend afternoon. The film has a limited release on April 19, via Cohen Media Group.
- 4/18/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
In François Ozon's new film In the House, it is clear from the title sequence on a school notebook and as Fabrice Luchini's jaded high school literature teacher cynically commenting on the new rule on school uniforms in the first few scenes, that something deliciously sinister is brewing. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) notices the writing of Claude (Ernst Umhauer) while correcting mountains of his students' weekly assignment. It's the 16-year old's description of his friend's mom that catches his eye, "that unmistakable odor of a middle-class woman," that stands out among the sea of mindless scribbles about cell phones and pizzas. He reads on and sees potential. His interest is piqued. After reading more of Claude's 'observations,' Germain is hooked. He zeros in on the boy, tutoring...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 4/18/2013
- Screen Anarchy
Title: In the House Director: François Ozon Starring: Ernst Umhauer, Fabrice Luchini, Kristen Scott Thomas, Bastien Ughetto, Emmanuelle Seigner and Denis Ménochet. François Ozon was inspired by Juan Mayorga’s play ‘The Boy in the Last Row,’ for his last film ‘In the House,’ which was awarded the main prize at the 2012 San Sebastián International Film Festival, the Golden Shell, as well as the Jury Prize for Best Screenplay. The middle-aged Germaine (Fabrice Luchini) is a literature teacher at the French High School Flaubert, while his wife Jeanne (Kristen Scott Thomas) works at a gallery, proposing the new trends of the contemporary art world. Germaine has never succeeded as a writer, [ Read More ]
The post In the House Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post In the House Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 4/17/2013
- by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
- ShockYa
Title: In The House (Dans la maison) Cohen Media Group Director: François Ozon Screenwriter: François Ozon, adapting Juan Mayorga’s play “The Boy in the Last Row” Cast: Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner, Denis Menochet, Ernst Umhauer, Bastien Ughetto Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 4/2/13 Opens: April 19, 2013 A sixteen-year-old student in one of my high school English classes—call him Robert—had a vivid imagination. I declared him a Walter Mitty from the stories he would tell me about himself. The kicker is that he insisted the stories were true. He was of Puerto Rican heritage but spoke of visiting his Romanian grandfather in Bucharest. He was pudgy, even nerdy-looking, [ Read More ]
The post In the House Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post In the House Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 4/3/2013
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
François Ozon's clever psychological comedy about teaching and erotic obsession is his best work to date
The 45-year-old François Ozon has made a dozen feature-length films and several shorts over the past 15 years, and he has found a popular audience in France for stylish, sophisticated movies that often deal with gay themes. Unlike the work of most French mainstream directors, a fair proportion of his pictures have crossed the Channel. Moreover, he's worked with several prominent British actresses – most notably Charlotte Rampling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Romola Garai, the last named having appeared in his version of Elizabeth Taylor's novel Angel playing a romantic novelist in Edwardian England.
Ozon's new film, the teasing comedy In the House, touches on a number of his recurrent concerns, among them the nature of creativity and stories within stories, and it is, I think, his best work to date. Loosely based on...
The 45-year-old François Ozon has made a dozen feature-length films and several shorts over the past 15 years, and he has found a popular audience in France for stylish, sophisticated movies that often deal with gay themes. Unlike the work of most French mainstream directors, a fair proportion of his pictures have crossed the Channel. Moreover, he's worked with several prominent British actresses – most notably Charlotte Rampling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Romola Garai, the last named having appeared in his version of Elizabeth Taylor's novel Angel playing a romantic novelist in Edwardian England.
Ozon's new film, the teasing comedy In the House, touches on a number of his recurrent concerns, among them the nature of creativity and stories within stories, and it is, I think, his best work to date. Loosely based on...
- 4/2/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
François Ozon's tantalising new comedy, In the House, is all about storytelling, and that's something it does delightfully well – to begin with, anyway. Fabrice Luchini stars as a prissy middle-aged teacher of creative writing at the French equivalent of a modern comprehensive. He has resigned himself to being bored to tears by his pupils' semi-literate compositions, but one evening he reads an essay that sends his eyebrows rocketing above his owlish spectacles. Its writer is a 16-year-old (Ernst Umhauer) who has inveigled his way into a classmate's home in order to spy on and satirise his enviable life. The teacher and his wife, Kristin Scott Thomas, are appalled by the voyeurism – but not so appalled that they aren't salivating for the next chapter. Soon, Luchini is breaking school rules to ensure that the boys maintain their friendship, and advising the protégé on how to improve his subsequent undercover dispatches.
- 3/30/2013
- The Independent - Film
In The House | Trance | Good Vibrations | 12 In A Box | The Host | GI Joe: Retaliation | One Mile Away | King Of The Travellers | We Went To War | Point Blank | Finding Nemo 3D
In The House (15)
(François Ozon, 2012, Fra) Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ernst Umhauer, Emmanuelle Seigner. 105 mins
A French teacher is instantly drawn in by a student's essay on infiltrating his friend's family, and so are we. Before we know it, we're swept off on a self-reflexive journey into storytelling, voyeurism and ethical boundaries. Both the boy's story and the movie struggle to find an ending, but it's another distinctly "Ozonian" comedy-thriller.
Trance (15)
(Danny Boyle, 2013, UK) James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel. 101 mins
Boyle chucks everything he can (maybe too much) at this twisty, visceral art-heist thriller, which hinges on McAvoy's hypnosis to reveal the whereabouts of a stolen Goya painting. The result is more of a Jackson Pollock.
Good Vibrations (15)
(Lisa Barros D'Sa,...
In The House (15)
(François Ozon, 2012, Fra) Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ernst Umhauer, Emmanuelle Seigner. 105 mins
A French teacher is instantly drawn in by a student's essay on infiltrating his friend's family, and so are we. Before we know it, we're swept off on a self-reflexive journey into storytelling, voyeurism and ethical boundaries. Both the boy's story and the movie struggle to find an ending, but it's another distinctly "Ozonian" comedy-thriller.
Trance (15)
(Danny Boyle, 2013, UK) James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel. 101 mins
Boyle chucks everything he can (maybe too much) at this twisty, visceral art-heist thriller, which hinges on McAvoy's hypnosis to reveal the whereabouts of a stolen Goya painting. The result is more of a Jackson Pollock.
Good Vibrations (15)
(Lisa Barros D'Sa,...
- 3/30/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Creepy classroom voyeurism gives this poised French drama the promise of a big payoff, but it all ebbs away
François Ozon's new movie is a black-comic psychological drama with poise and self-possession. Featuring Fabrice Luchini and Kristin Scott Thomas, how could it have anything else? It begins grippingly, like something by Claude Chabrol, and yet the film's suspense begins to leak before the end and the comic and serious sides don't quite mesh. At one stage, there is a visit to the cinema to see Match Point – and, in fact, In the House does oddly come to resemble a goodish late-period Woody Allen. Luchini plays Germain, a high-school teacher of French literature; his wife, Jeanne, (Scott Thomas) runs a gallery, featuring bizarre and sexually explicit conceptual art. Germain is bored and depressed with his job, but is one day galvanised by the creative-writing assignments being handed in by talented...
François Ozon's new movie is a black-comic psychological drama with poise and self-possession. Featuring Fabrice Luchini and Kristin Scott Thomas, how could it have anything else? It begins grippingly, like something by Claude Chabrol, and yet the film's suspense begins to leak before the end and the comic and serious sides don't quite mesh. At one stage, there is a visit to the cinema to see Match Point – and, in fact, In the House does oddly come to resemble a goodish late-period Woody Allen. Luchini plays Germain, a high-school teacher of French literature; his wife, Jeanne, (Scott Thomas) runs a gallery, featuring bizarre and sexually explicit conceptual art. Germain is bored and depressed with his job, but is one day galvanised by the creative-writing assignments being handed in by talented...
- 3/29/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
François Ozon's new film, In the House, looks set to be his international breakthrough. But has the erstwhile enfant terrible fallen for the bourgeois values he once satirised?
François Ozon has been knocking out roughly a film a year since the late 1990s: some camp and frivolous (Sitcom, Potiche), others intense (5x2, Time to Leave), each one zesty and provocative. Occasionally he will make something truly exceptional: Under the Sand, starring Charlotte Rampling as a woman falling apart after the disappearance of her husband, was rightly considered a masterpiece by the late Ingmar Bergman.
But though Ozon has had commercial success in France, he is still chasing the sort of career-changing international breakthrough on a par with, say, Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown or Michael Haneke's Hidden. If there is any justice, his new film In the House will change that. It's a witty,...
François Ozon has been knocking out roughly a film a year since the late 1990s: some camp and frivolous (Sitcom, Potiche), others intense (5x2, Time to Leave), each one zesty and provocative. Occasionally he will make something truly exceptional: Under the Sand, starring Charlotte Rampling as a woman falling apart after the disappearance of her husband, was rightly considered a masterpiece by the late Ingmar Bergman.
But though Ozon has had commercial success in France, he is still chasing the sort of career-changing international breakthrough on a par with, say, Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown or Michael Haneke's Hidden. If there is any justice, his new film In the House will change that. It's a witty,...
- 3/29/2013
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ The refined, if slightly aloof new offering from French director François Ozon, In the House (Dans la maison, 2012) initially impresses thanks to its central triumvirate and jigsaw-style narrative, before petering out disappointingly as it approaches its convoluted conclusion. Fabrice Luchini, Ernst Umhauer and demi-Brit Kristin Scott Thomas all put in fine turns in their respective roles - ranging from the befuddled to the Machiavellian - but Ozon's knowing study into the nature of storytelling does eventually get the better of itself, capitulating into a rather familiar battle of wits between a neurotic teacher and his cocksure student.
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- 3/28/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
In the House presents viewers with a series of sharp and often dizzying reflections on the meaning of realism and the moral duty of the writer
François Ozon's new film In the House marks the completion of a decade-long enterprise – a study, drawn from three angles at five-year intervals, of that cold-blooded parasite, the novelist. The approach is a broad one, psychoanalytic, anthropological, even literary-critical, with emphasis on where the creative urge comes from – being an only child helps – and how it is indulged, the wellsprings of creativity and its workings, too. When it comes to describing the relationship between life and art, Ozon isn't above drawing parallels and even arrows, though most of the time he aligns himself with a more antic French tradition – previous representatives include Alain Resnais and Jacques Rivette – in which the two are intertwined to the point of blurring.
Swimming Pool (2002), the first of these films,...
François Ozon's new film In the House marks the completion of a decade-long enterprise – a study, drawn from three angles at five-year intervals, of that cold-blooded parasite, the novelist. The approach is a broad one, psychoanalytic, anthropological, even literary-critical, with emphasis on where the creative urge comes from – being an only child helps – and how it is indulged, the wellsprings of creativity and its workings, too. When it comes to describing the relationship between life and art, Ozon isn't above drawing parallels and even arrows, though most of the time he aligns himself with a more antic French tradition – previous representatives include Alain Resnais and Jacques Rivette – in which the two are intertwined to the point of blurring.
Swimming Pool (2002), the first of these films,...
- 3/23/2013
- by Leo Robson
- The Guardian - Film News
If Rushmore's Max Fischer and the anonymous videographer from Michael Haneke's Caché somehow spawned a love child, he'd look something like Claude Garcia (newcomer Ernst Umhauer), the apt pupil at the center of François Ozon's delicious bourgeois horror story, In the House, one of the major highlights from this year's edition of Rendez-vous with French Cinema. An open-faced overachiever with a dangerous glint in his eyes, Claude sparks the attention of his burned-out French teacher (Fabrice Luchini) when he turns a series of perfunctory writing assignments into an ongoing chronicle of his entry into the picture-perfect home—and lives—of a fellow classmate and his parents. Of particular interest to young Claude: his friend's voluptuous moth...
- 2/27/2013
- Village Voice
Frenchie film auteur François Ozon has made a name for himself as both a wonderful director of women, and, as Potiche demonstrated, someone who takes an impish, Buñuel-like pleasure in poking fun at the serious stuff in life. Class, gender and sex are all back under his wry gaze in his new film, In The House, the UK poster for which has landed online.Ozon's latest takes him away from Potiche's pastel frippery and back to the tougher underbelly of 2003's Swimming Pool, in which nearly everyone involved ignored those 'No Heavy Petting' signs you find around pools to forge a darkly sexual drama.Like that Charlotte Rampling starrer, In The House packs in as much stifled sexual desire as you shake a funny shaped stick at. Frustrated teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is hooked on the increasingly twisted assignments submitted by star pupil, Claude (Ernst Umhauer), most of which...
- 2/21/2013
- EmpireOnline
The nominations for the César Awards aka the French Oscars were announced. "Farewell, My Queen," "Amour," "Camille Redouble," "In the House," "Rust & Bone," "Holy Motors," and "What's My Name" are competing for the Best Picture category. We'll find out the winners on February 22nd.
Here's the full list of nominees of the 2013 César Awards:
Best Picture
Farewell, My Queen
Amour
Camille Redouble
In The House
Rust & Bone
Holy Motors
What.s In A Name
Best Director
Benoît Jacquot, Farewell, My Queen
Michael Haneke, Amour
Noémie Lvovsky, Camille Redouble
François Ozon, In The House
Jacques Audiard, Rust & Bone
Leos Carax, Holy Motors
Stéphane Brizé, Quelques Heures De Printemps
Best Actress
Catherine Frot, Les Sauveurs Du Palais
Marion Cotillard, Rust & Bone
Noémie Lvovsky, Camille Redouble
Corinne Masiero, Louise Wimmer
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Léa Seydoux, Farewell, My Queen
Hélène Vincent, Quelques Heures De Printemps
Best Actor
Jean-Pierre Bacri, Cherchez Hortense
Patrick Bruel, What...
Here's the full list of nominees of the 2013 César Awards:
Best Picture
Farewell, My Queen
Amour
Camille Redouble
In The House
Rust & Bone
Holy Motors
What.s In A Name
Best Director
Benoît Jacquot, Farewell, My Queen
Michael Haneke, Amour
Noémie Lvovsky, Camille Redouble
François Ozon, In The House
Jacques Audiard, Rust & Bone
Leos Carax, Holy Motors
Stéphane Brizé, Quelques Heures De Printemps
Best Actress
Catherine Frot, Les Sauveurs Du Palais
Marion Cotillard, Rust & Bone
Noémie Lvovsky, Camille Redouble
Corinne Masiero, Louise Wimmer
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Léa Seydoux, Farewell, My Queen
Hélène Vincent, Quelques Heures De Printemps
Best Actor
Jean-Pierre Bacri, Cherchez Hortense
Patrick Bruel, What...
- 1/27/2013
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
The Lumiere Awards -- in French film inustry terms, the Golden Globes to the Cesars' Oscars -- actually took place on Friday, but I missed the news in the Sundance crush. Anyway, better late than never, and you probably could have guessed anyway that Michael Haneke's "Amour" took the top prize, as well as Best Actor and Actress for Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. It wasn't a sweep, however: Haneke was foiled by Jacques Audiard and "Rust and Bone" in both the Best Director and Best Screenplay categories. Meanwhile, I'm pleased to see a newcomer award for Ernst Umhauer, a crafty...
- 1/23/2013
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
How to describe Francois Ozon’s In the House… Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is a teacher of literature, critical of his pupils except for the one student – Claude (Ernst Umhauer) – who’s just written a voyeuristic document about his new friend Rapha (Bastien Ughetto) as his French assignment. Germain questions Claude’s critical depiction of his friend’s family home, but gets drawn into Claude’s increasingly fanciful stories from ‘in the house.’ Germain starts to influence Claude’s writing, recommending changes to passages of the story, but these recommendations may be impacting on Claude’s treatment of Rapha, his doting father (Denis Menochet) and bored mother (Emmanuelle Seigner) within their home.
Layered and metatextual to the extreme, In the House (based on a play by Juan Mayorga) must have been a complicated film to assemble. At times it descends into Pedro Almodovar territory, bored of its own plot, bored of its characters,...
Layered and metatextual to the extreme, In the House (based on a play by Juan Mayorga) must have been a complicated film to assemble. At times it descends into Pedro Almodovar territory, bored of its own plot, bored of its characters,...
- 11/4/2012
- by Brogan Morris
- Obsessed with Film
Francois Ozon’s previous film, “Potiche,” was a fun and frothy effort, and while it was undeniably beautifully composed and performed, it was arguably also a little inconsequential. Ozon approaches the structurally more ambitious “In the House” from a more devious and darkly comic perspective, yet despite this approach sustaining intrigue for much of the 105 minute running time, there’s still a sneaking suspicion once things are done that once again it doesn’t amount to very much. Adapted from Juan Mayorga’s play “El chico de la ultima fila,” Ozon’s script is told largely from the perspective of the world-weary teacher and failed novelist Germain (Fabrice Luchini), whose interest is piqued after reading a student’s writing assignment. The student in question is Claude (a superbly self-assured Ernst Umhauer), who has written a mischievous essay about finally making it into the bourgeois home of a classmate...
- 10/24/2012
- by Joe Cunningham
- The Playlist
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
François Ozon’s latest work adapts Juan Mayorga’s play The Boy in the Last Row, centred on the bizarre friendship between a jaded high-school literature teacher, Germain (Fabrice Luchini), and one of his precocious students, Claude (Ernst Umhauer). Wryly funny and benefiting from a jaunty – if slightly repetitive – score, Ozon’s film pits Claude’s fierce intelligence and ability to infiltrate the virulently middle-class family of a classmate, Rapha (Bastien Ughetto) against Germain’s professional inadequacy and middle-class satisfaction. When Claude begins writing about Rapha’s life for a school assignment, Germain is transfixed, becoming a literary critic, and along with his pretentious, art curator wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), examining the merits of what might be a slice-of-life work of naturalism, a class satire, or something insidiously in-between.
Such is true of the film itself; its dual narrative begins naturalistically, serving as a potent satire of the self-important,...
François Ozon’s latest work adapts Juan Mayorga’s play The Boy in the Last Row, centred on the bizarre friendship between a jaded high-school literature teacher, Germain (Fabrice Luchini), and one of his precocious students, Claude (Ernst Umhauer). Wryly funny and benefiting from a jaunty – if slightly repetitive – score, Ozon’s film pits Claude’s fierce intelligence and ability to infiltrate the virulently middle-class family of a classmate, Rapha (Bastien Ughetto) against Germain’s professional inadequacy and middle-class satisfaction. When Claude begins writing about Rapha’s life for a school assignment, Germain is transfixed, becoming a literary critic, and along with his pretentious, art curator wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), examining the merits of what might be a slice-of-life work of naturalism, a class satire, or something insidiously in-between.
Such is true of the film itself; its dual narrative begins naturalistically, serving as a potent satire of the self-important,...
- 10/14/2012
- by Shaun Munro
- Obsessed with Film
★★★★☆ François Ozon follows up the camp charm of Potiche (2010) with In the House (2012) - a delightfully droll tale of suburban voyeurism with a dark comic twist. Germain (Fabrice Luchini in impeccable comic form) is a childless English teacher who has grown increasingly disenfranchised at the appalling literary skills of his students. That is until one day, whilst grading a collection of predictably appalling 'What I did last weekend' essays, he discovers Claude (Ernst Umhauer), whose curious tale of how he infiltrated the suburban home of a middle class family quickly escalating into a series of enthralling essays.
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- 10/14/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Based on The Boy in the Back Row by Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga, Francois Ozon’s latest is something of a return to form for the former enfant terrible and a deliciously witty story about storytelling.
Weary literature teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) finds a diamond in the rough in Claude (Ernst Umhauer), who shows real flair in a writing assignment set by Germain. Despite being asked by Germain to simply write about what he did that weekend Claude manages to turn a few hundred words into a fascinating glimpse into the private life of the family of one of his school friends and in doing so weave the beginnings of a very absorbing story. The one page story ends with the line “to be continued…”, which helps, along with the deviously generated content, to immediately hook in Germain, his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) who he reads it to, and most importantly the wider audience,...
Weary literature teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) finds a diamond in the rough in Claude (Ernst Umhauer), who shows real flair in a writing assignment set by Germain. Despite being asked by Germain to simply write about what he did that weekend Claude manages to turn a few hundred words into a fascinating glimpse into the private life of the family of one of his school friends and in doing so weave the beginnings of a very absorbing story. The one page story ends with the line “to be continued…”, which helps, along with the deviously generated content, to immediately hook in Germain, his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) who he reads it to, and most importantly the wider audience,...
- 10/13/2012
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
David here, heralding the return of the BFI London Film Festival – Craig and I are back again, and we’ll be bringing you various updates across the next two weeks. The 56th festival kicked off last night with the European premiere of Frankenweenie, but my first round-up post has more of a Francophile feel to it…
Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard in 'Rust & Bone'
With Rust & Bone, director Jacques Audiard is still in the business of tempering abrasive, down-on-their-luck characters in the French banlieues with a style that smears the poetic and the aggressive into one confrontational melting pot. It seems to be part of Audiard’s intention to throw severe miserablism at his audience just to see if they can survive. Still, such a vibrantly aggressive film with a charged sense of the physical is a rare thing, and Audiard works to balance the lead performances by Marion Cotillard...
Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard in 'Rust & Bone'
With Rust & Bone, director Jacques Audiard is still in the business of tempering abrasive, down-on-their-luck characters in the French banlieues with a style that smears the poetic and the aggressive into one confrontational melting pot. It seems to be part of Audiard’s intention to throw severe miserablism at his audience just to see if they can survive. Still, such a vibrantly aggressive film with a charged sense of the physical is a rare thing, and Audiard works to balance the lead performances by Marion Cotillard...
- 10/11/2012
- by Dave
- FilmExperience
As the San Sebastian Film Festival drew to a close, there was — as there should be with festivals that want to thrive — a sense of honoring the past and looking to the future.
The week had been studded with Hollywood star appearances, from Ewan McGregor becoming the youngest ever actor to win a Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award to 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman tearfully collecting his Donostia on Saturday. Thanking the festival for honoring the art form of cinema, he told the packed Kursaal auditorium: “The feeling that you gave me is as important as the award.”
But there was also a sense of new talent coming up. From the first-time outings in the Kutxa-New Directors Award — the 90,000 euro ($115,600) prize for which is the biggest on offer at any film festival — won by Fernando Guzzoni’s Carne De Perro, to the continued strength of the Cinema in Motion section, which will help...
The week had been studded with Hollywood star appearances, from Ewan McGregor becoming the youngest ever actor to win a Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award to 75-year-old Dustin Hoffman tearfully collecting his Donostia on Saturday. Thanking the festival for honoring the art form of cinema, he told the packed Kursaal auditorium: “The feeling that you gave me is as important as the award.”
But there was also a sense of new talent coming up. From the first-time outings in the Kutxa-New Directors Award — the 90,000 euro ($115,600) prize for which is the biggest on offer at any film festival — won by Fernando Guzzoni’s Carne De Perro, to the continued strength of the Cinema in Motion section, which will help...
- 10/1/2012
- by Amber Wilkinson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Write On: Ozon’s Latest an Exercise in Authorial Manipulation
The steadily working Francois Ozon continues with his playful dark comic streak in his latest, In the House, an adaptation of a play by Juan Mayorga. A thriller with literary machinations, not unlike Swimming Pool (2003), one of Ozon’s most well known features, his latest is a low key narrative, one that starts out as a broad caricature loosely criticizing class ideals but then coils tightly to an introspective finale on manipulation and a cheeky exploration of the truth.
French teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is all set to start another school year after spending a leisurely summer reading. The new school year is beginning with some major changes, namely that all students will now be required to wear school uniforms, a concept Germain disagrees with, as this is seen as a move to make all the students equal when on the premises.
The steadily working Francois Ozon continues with his playful dark comic streak in his latest, In the House, an adaptation of a play by Juan Mayorga. A thriller with literary machinations, not unlike Swimming Pool (2003), one of Ozon’s most well known features, his latest is a low key narrative, one that starts out as a broad caricature loosely criticizing class ideals but then coils tightly to an introspective finale on manipulation and a cheeky exploration of the truth.
French teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is all set to start another school year after spending a leisurely summer reading. The new school year is beginning with some major changes, namely that all students will now be required to wear school uniforms, a concept Germain disagrees with, as this is seen as a move to make all the students equal when on the premises.
- 9/21/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
In the House (Dans la maison)
Written by Juan Mayorga (play), François Ozon
Directed by François Ozon
France, 2012
French director François Ozon has been working steadily albeit fairly quietly for over two decades, striking the occasional hit with films like 8 Women and Swimming Pool. His latest effort In the House has the potential to be another one of Ozon’s sleeper hits. The film tells the story of French Literature teacher Germain Germain who becomes enamored with the writing of one of his students in particular, shy boy-in-the-last-row Claude (Ernst Umhauer). Claude’s weekly assignments detail his exploits within the house of a fellow student. Germain becomes more and more involved in Claude’s narrative and soon helps Claude set in motion a series of events that impacts both Claude’s story as well as the lives of student, teacher and the people around them.
This tightly written and structured...
Written by Juan Mayorga (play), François Ozon
Directed by François Ozon
France, 2012
French director François Ozon has been working steadily albeit fairly quietly for over two decades, striking the occasional hit with films like 8 Women and Swimming Pool. His latest effort In the House has the potential to be another one of Ozon’s sleeper hits. The film tells the story of French Literature teacher Germain Germain who becomes enamored with the writing of one of his students in particular, shy boy-in-the-last-row Claude (Ernst Umhauer). Claude’s weekly assignments detail his exploits within the house of a fellow student. Germain becomes more and more involved in Claude’s narrative and soon helps Claude set in motion a series of events that impacts both Claude’s story as well as the lives of student, teacher and the people around them.
This tightly written and structured...
- 9/18/2012
- by Laura Holtebrinck
- SoundOnSight
In the House Francois Ozon is this year's example of show, don't tell. While fellow fest selection Writers continually shouted its writerly premise within the dialogue, Ozon's In the House (Dans la Maison) simply is a writer's story. Fabrice Luchini plays Germain, a withered teacher sick at the increasingly diminishing returns offered by his students until one, Claude (Ernst Umhauer), breaks through the monotony, turning a "what I did on my Saturday" assignment into the beginning of a captivating voyeuristic tale. Against his better judgment, Germain takes Claude under his wing, stubbornly ignoring all the problematic aspects of the rapidly growing novel, a story recounting the student's obsession with classmate Rapha's house and mother...
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- 9/17/2012
- by Monika Bartyzel
- Movies.com
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