Imagine Michael Mann's 'Heat' crossed with Ken Loach's gritty northern England- and Scotland based social dramas, and you have an idea of what this film feels like - a heist film with thoroughly uncool, long-term dole recipients and other downtrodden working class folk as the perpetrators, instead of Robert DeNiro in post-modern Californian seafront diggings dashing from holdup to holdup... Lucas Belvaux brings together the disparate elements of the heist film and the anti-globalisation social commentary in fine style, though, and the story thoroughly engaged me. The elegiac, minimal soundtrack was perfectly deployed as well. Mr. Belvaux plays the hangdog career criminal better than almost anyone else, and no one plays quiet domestic desperation as well as Natacha Regnier, either... highly recommended!
Reviews
7 Reviews
Bar des rails
(1991)
Fabienne is a babe, indeed
6 March 2004
I was surprised to see that no one had commented on this film yet, so I thought I'd put in my two centimes... This seemed to me one of those hyper-realist films by modern French directors who are at great pains to show that young people in France have nothing to say to each other. M. Kahn succeeded a bit too well, I'm afraid, and his sullen protagonist became especially irritating after a while... but Fabienne Babe is certainly nice to look at as well as being a fine actress, so she kept me in my seat & awake until the end of the film. Some attempt to explain the aforementioned sullen adolescent's bizarre behaviour and penchant for walking out on his trysts with Mlle. B. would have been nice as well - still, a not entirely uninteresting early work by one of France's best directors IMHO...
If Joan Rivers were Portuguese...
31 May 2003
Definitely one of the oddest films I've seen in many a day... If you can imagine a woman who looks a great deal like Joan Rivers living in Lisbon in a house that she has redesigned as the White House and makes speeches about Manifest Destiny in Portuguese to her all-female staff (who prepare state banquets of fast food, including Kentucky Fried Chicken by the bucket)... well, if your imagination takes flights like that, then you'll be far less surprised by this movie than I was! The joke wore a little thin in the final reels, but it's nice to see such a fresh and whimsical view of things... I can't imagine anything like this being made even by an indie in the States. 2 1/2 stars out of 5, with an added half star for the originality of the concept, so 3...
A Real Man
(2003)
Can't win them all, Matt
29 May 2003
I went to see this on the strength of Matthieu Amalric's name, since he was so good in 'Comment Je Me Suis Dispute (Ma Vie Sexuelle)', one of my favourite French films of the '90s... and I can't say I was very impressed. A romantic comedy that doesn't make one believe in or feel the slightest chemistry between the two leads is hardly a winning proposition... I was especially disappointed when I saw Michel Piccoli's name in the credits at the end, and realised that he must have made his appearance during one of the several points that I was asleep! Better luck next time, Matt...
Swimming Pool
(2003)
No hole in the Ozon layer!
21 May 2003
Two women and a swimming pool... the always brilliant Francois Ozon doesn't need anything more to make a film that is as intriguing as it is hot (a term that is overused but perfectly apt here) - the ending, in fact, is so intriguing that I'm hoping that some future commentator will explain it to me, but that still didn't spoil my enjoyment. I'm not sure when this film will come out in the Anglophone world, but I'm hoping that it will get a prize at Cannes, which will give it a deserved boost!
Dogville
(2003)
No fleas on this dog!
21 May 2003
Gosh, Nicole Kidman hits it out of the pitch for the second time in a row... Until 'The Hours' I thought her one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood, but she is rapidly turning into one of those performers whose latest film I will want to go to see as soon as I hear that he/she is making it... Of course, I would have gone to see this just on the strength of Lars von Trier's name - he doesn't show any signs of slowing up either with this offering, which is something like a cross between Our Town and Bullets Over Broadway, stretched out over a sprawling three hours.
Von Trier has definitely gone out on a limb here, but as far as this reviewer is concerned, the branch more than supports his weight. If this doesn't win the Palme d'Or that it's up for, then there's even less justice in the world than the parade of photographs of poverty-stricken folk in the US that is the background to the final credits would lead me to believe...
Von Trier has definitely gone out on a limb here, but as far as this reviewer is concerned, the branch more than supports his weight. If this doesn't win the Palme d'Or that it's up for, then there's even less justice in the world than the parade of photographs of poverty-stricken folk in the US that is the background to the final credits would lead me to believe...
Night Shapes
(1999)
A bright spot in a rather dull festival
15 March 2000
I just thought that someone who is neither German nor living in Germany should comment on this wonderful film (which I saw as a part of this year's E.E.C. film festival in Prague). The form and content of this movie are very familiar, things that people who are fond of the cinema will have seen a thousand times and more. Life, however, hasn't changed much in a lot of particulars since humans began to walk upright, and the question for me is whether or not the director used these familiar materials to fashion characters that I cared about and a story that engaged me - I say a definite yes on both counts. This film was only 90 minutes long, but could easily have been twice that length without my noticing. This was one of the best German films I've seen in years!...
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