15 October 2021.
By Neptune
As there are five very different worthwhile films opening up this week, I will make my reviews short. Depending on your taste and inclination, they are each fascinating in their own right. So do catch them before they’re gone. And don’t forget the sublime AFTER LOVE, which I reviewed last week, showing on alternate evenings at the small CINELUX on Blvd. Saint-Georges.
EIFFEL **** (vo French)
This is the fascinating story of the man who built the most famous landmark of Paris. The engineer Gustave Eiffel had just collaborated on the Statue of Liberty, and was being encouraged to create something as spectacular for the 1889 World’s Fair that was to take place in Paris.
This film does justice to both the grand, turbulent love story that inspired him to great heights and his own brilliant perfectionism and guts that propelled him to reach his quite incredible vision for that era.
Beautifully conceived by director Martin Bourboulon, with bold cinematography, the sublime music of Alexandre Desplat, and an excellent casting of Romain Duris as Eiffel and the statuesque Emma Mackay as his great love, this is classic filmmaking that satisfies fully, both historically and emotionally.
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD/JULIE (en 12 chapitres) ***1/2 (vo Norwegian)
This enthralling tale is about a young woman who has difficulty in deciding between two men and a variety of career moves.
It is a spot-on portrait of a modern woman who is bright and charming but erratic in her life decisions. Part of Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s trilogy on Oslo, the film was in the official selection of the Cannes film festival, where his enchanting actress Renate Reinsve took the female acting award. She literally lights up the screen with her natural, ever changing loveliness. Wish her partners could have been more her equal. This is both a very personal but also sociological study of the consequences of complete freedom of choice.
L’HOMME DE LA CAVE ***1/2 (vo French)
A young couple (Berenice Bejo and Jérémie Renier) decides to sell the cellar (cave) in their Parisian apartment building. It is a small, dark room with no kitchen or toilet, as it is meant for only storage. But the supposedly-retired teacher who buys it (the always excellent Francois Cluzet) ends up living in it, and this is the beginning of a spiral of troubling, ugly events.
Director Philippe Le Guay of such luminous films as “Les femmes du 6eme étage” and “Alceste à bicyclette” has gone sombre here, with such themes as simple human decency, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories and the breakdown of a family. With shades of Durrenmatt’s “The Visit” with its crowd mentality, this is a both an astute and disturbing look at how falsehoods and differences of opinion can shake the most moral of us.
THE LAST DUEL ***
Could this film, set in the Middle Ages, be about the first MeToo episode? Based on historical facts, it is about a woman actually speaking up after she is forced into a sexual act that she had refused. As is often the case, it is a matter of he said, she said. And therein lies the huge dilemma – between her, her husband, his once close friend and the royal courts.
The great Ridley Scott – of such varied films as “Blade Runner”, “Thelma and Louise” and “A Good Year” – is back, and as always he does things in a big way. This medieval tale is told in three parts from the points of view of the three concerned characters. Something between his “Robin Hood” and “Gladiator” in grandeur, it is set in the late 1300s northern France with mighty battles, a young king, lascivious noblemen, the turnabouts of fortune and the constant power play of the ruling classes.
With Matt Damon (miscast, though he finally grows into it), Adam Driver, Ben Affleck (at first unrecognisable as the blond nobleman), and the delicate Jodie Comer, Scott has recreated an epic jousting duel to right a wrong.
LE LOUP ET LE LION ***
If you’re looking for a good family film, this is it. The somewhat amateurish dialogue and storyline have been created to frame the thrilling story of how two wolf and lion baby cubs grew up together as brothers along with the young woman who discovered them up in the Canadian woods.
The scenario and acting may not be Oscar material, but the amazing cinematography of the wolf and lion interacting and surviving together is a wonder to behold. Take the kids and have a loving family time together.
The French director Gilles De Maistre, who also made “”Mia and the White Lion”, is obviously a strong advocate of ecological balance and animal rights.
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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