8 December 2023.
By Neptune
MAESTRO **1/2
This is an Oscar-bound, grand biopic with a major subject – Leonard Bernstein, famed New York composer and conductor. It has Bradley Cooper, the wonder boy actor/director of Hollywood, directing and acting the main character as he did in his hugely successful “A Star is Born”. It even has both Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg as producers.
It has a good script, fine acting (a delicate Carrey Mulligan as his long-suffering wife) and command – going from Bernstein’s early years in black and white to full color as he ages, along with a great deal of his music.
Of course, it also tackles his homosexuality and at times excessive lifestyle, which included both his great love for his wife and his refusal to bend his ways. But his passion and driving force were always his music, from his brash conducting to his works such as West Side Story to classical symphonies.
Cooper becomes Bernstein, thanks to uncanny makeup and his physical demeanour, exuding all the unabashed energy and charm of the man. (Forget that trite, soon-dropped media controversy concerning his Jewish nose.)
But here I’m going against the mainstream. The film boasts so much talent yet it left me cold, never quite touching me emotionally. I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s almost too perfect, too formulated in its conception with all this expertise working on it, like the “too many cooks spoil the broth” syndrome.
It will definitely run off with many awards, so do see it. I should try it a second time.
BATIMENT 5 (Les Indésirables) **** (vo French)
A rundown apartment tower in a “banlieue” of Paris. Long-suffering tenants, mostly immigrants, who don’t know where to turn. A new bourgeois mayor who thinks the strict rule of law will solve all the problems of his fiefdom and turns the tenants out of their flats in the middle of Christmas season. A young, black girl who is a community activist with ambitions and wants to handle it differently. And her best pal who can’t take this unending discrimination anymore. Due to a lack of understanding these people clash under tense and tragic circumstances, creating miseries for all involved.
This second film of a trilogy by Ladj Ly (his first one, “Les misérables” won multiple awards at Cannes 2019, the Césars and around Europe) is almost a metaphor for today’s international humanitarian calamities. It once again carries a powerful punch as Ly is writing from personal experience, having grown up in just such a crumbing building and neighbourhood. One can feel that it’s from the heart and his guts. And it’s a cry for some sort of a way out, a solution. If only. A painful but important film.
LE CONSENTEMENT *** ( vo French)
This is a very troubling, disturbing film. It is also very well made and acted. It’s a true story that occurred in the ‘anything-goes’ 80s, especially in France where literature and literary figures were (and are) taken very seriously, almost reverently.
The title is from the book written by the girl who lived the story which is related in this film directed by Vanessa Filho.
At an elegant, mondaine dinner, the writer Gabriel Matzneff (a powerful, unrecognisable Jean-Paul Rouve) is holding court, enchanting his co-guests with talk of his latest book and his libertine views. In his mid-50s, he is charismatic, self-assured, a suave intellectual. And he is completely frank about his opinions and writings, which tout the joys of pedophilia.
Among the guests is a single mother with an alcohol problem (the lovely Laetitia Casta) and her 13 year-old daughter (Kim Higelin) who seems fascinated by the writer. Matzneff is taken by her open wonder and shy adoration. He zeroes in on her. So begins the saga of her emotional, intellectual and carnal captivity to this man who begins to spin his web around her.
The director takes us into the very soul of this innocent adolescent as she gives in to this Svengali-type character. It is both frightening and tantalising. The first part of the film is highly sensual in its depiction of the game of courting, convincing and almost hypnotising this introverted teenager. Of course she falls madly in love, first with his overpowering mind, then his body. She is now a 14 year-old schoolgirl, a quiet, avid reader, he is this manipulative 50 year-old who is in complete control of her life. Her whole world – from her mother’s hopeless pleas to her schoolmates’ shunning her – begins to crumble around her as she falls deeper into his grasp.
This is a film that does not go down easily, as it is so morally wrong. Yet it is well directed and gripping, completely mirroring the sentiments of Vanessa Springora’s book which was finally her banner of freedom, her cry for a normal life after such a destructive ‘love’. Devastating.
ET LA FÊTE CONTINUE *1/2 (vo French)
Robert Guédiguian of Marseille has been France’s Ken Loach or Mike Leigh for decades, rallying around the workers of his beloved city, always in defence of the common man, always with the same cast of characters, including his wife, Ariane Ascaride.
His films have won many awards and used to be gentle, loving tales of family and friends, fighting the social system, living the simple life in the southern sun.
Unfortunately, his films have started to become repetitive, lacking the charm and impact they used to have. Not much of a fête here…a pity.
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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