Freedom Films with English Subtitles

Roman De Gare (2.5 Slithy Toads) and The Grocer's Son (Le Fils de l'epicier) (1.5 Slithy Toads). Both seen Sunday afternoon June 22, 2008 at Cinema Village, aud. #3 and #1.

I have this thing with French (ooops, Freedom ) films. I tend to find many of them are overrated because they're in French, that things critics wouldn't put up with in an American film suddenly become acceptable when in a foreign tongue, the French tongue especially. Amorphous plotlessness, cloying sentimentality, other things. This isn't limited only to French films, though I think it infects the critical response to them more than to others. This may be a legacy of the fact that the French critical establishment and directors in its spell were especially crucial to the development of the "New Wave" 40 years ago. Or maybe it's all Benjamin Franklin's fault. There's also a certain bias critics have toward certain directors in the US that might not withstand an emperor's new clothes scenario.

I wasn't particularly eager to see Roman de Gare, but it was holding on at the box office, and my sister told me that it was actually pretty good by overrated French film standards. By and large, I think she is correct. The Grocer's Son had opened while I was in Toronto for Bloody Words and fell below my radar (though I'm not sure I'd have noticed even if I'd been in NY; it doesn't even look like all of the NYC papers reviewed the movie though the NY Times reviewed it quite lavishly and the VIllage Voice has a recommended asterisk next to it as well), but it also seemed to be getting good word of mouth and had times that matched up nicely at the same theatre, so I decided to do both.

I won't argue too much with my sister. Roman de Gare isn't at all bad, but it's also a triumph of filmmaking over a weak, weak script. For those who don't know, Roman is the word for "novel" in French (I take credit for selling many Romans into slavery in France), and Google's translation program says that a Roman de Gare is a pulp novel. In this particular instance, about a famous writer of thrillers whose "secretary" may in fact be writing them, and who may or may not have killed the ghost when he decides it is time to get credit for his work. Most of the novel is spent with an odd stretch when the ghost hooks up with a woman who's just gotten dumped by her fiancee at a service station, then (why, exactly) agrees to impersonate him on a familiy visit before hooking up with his employer for a cruise from Cannes to Elba, where he is thought to have fallen overboard on the return voyage. The movie starts with a brief scene of the writer being interrogated in his murder investigation. The director Claude Lelouch is an old French hand though this may be the first of his films I've seen, and via the use of music and all the other items in a director's arsenal he's able to generate a lot of suspense and atmosphere. There are some nice scenery shots of the Alps (I think?) outside of the village where the girl's family lives. A fishing expedition with him and her daughter (her daughter?) turns into a major intrigue. But none of it makes much sense. If not for the prologue we would have no reason to give a murderous interpretation to the writer's actions. That's one of many gaping plot holes, and there are just too many for me to give this more than a grudging tilt on the positive side of the scale, though it might be worth studying as a primer on the director's craft. An American movie that I'd think of similar is Backdraft, which Ron Howard manages to make almost good thru directorial skill in spite of a flawed script.

I don't know if The Grocer's Son is bad, but it's the quintessential example of an overrated French film. Very simple scenario: patriarch has heart attack, black sheep son returns reluctantly to his bedside, father insists not only that his grocery store must be open but that the traveling van that provide groceries to rural communities must go on the road as well, son reluctantly agrees, and (would you belive, stunning shock ahead, spoiler of all spoilers) he grows to like it so much that he's still running the grocery van when the credits role. If this were an American indie with a comparable scenario the rote routine hackneyed nature of the entire movie would be royally derided. Um, son returns home and takes over father's meals-on-wheels route? The film is gorgeous to look at. Lots of pretty mountain scenes maybe on the opposite side of France from the Alps (??) I viewed in the earlier film, maybe more in the Pyrenees? The lead actor is attractive, though not enough so i wanted to stay awake just to look at him, or at the scenery. Anyone with the modest intelligence to know this fine blog is worth reading could probably write the rest of the movie after watching the first reel. But the photography is reallly nice! Did I tell you that the photography is nice? The reviews I linked above both talk about the nice little touches and how well-observed the movie is, but haven't we stopped settling for that in Amerindie cinema? Why would anyone still consider it to be enough if the mountains border Spain and France instead of Pennsylvania and Ohio?

And if you haven't clicked the Cinema Village link about, click it here. I'm so glad their new discounts for Moving Image members make me more inclined to traipse down to it, because it is one of NY's treasures. The main screen where I saw Grocer's Son is really nice by art theatre standards. Screen #3 was carved out of the basement and is as good as any screen at the Quad or most at the Lincoln Plaza. Screen #2 I don't like so much, but it was carved out of the mezzanine level of screen #1 which was hardly ever needed customer-count wise, and the renovation to add the extra screens made the complex more viable while keeping the bulk of the main screen intact.

4 cultural events and a burrito

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Seen Sunday Morning May 18 @ the AMC Loews Kips Bay, Auditorium #9. 1.5 slithy toads.

Port Authority. Seen Sunday Afternoon May 18 @ the Atlantic Theatre main stage. Me, 1 slithy toad; the rest of the world more?

Yella. Seen Sunday Afternoon May 18 @ the Cinema Village, Auditorium #1. 2 slithy toads.

Chicken Fajita Burrito. Eaten at the St. Marks Place Chipotle Sunday Evening May 18. Yummy Yummy in my Tummy

Reprise. Seen Sunday evening May 18 @ the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, Auditorium #1. 3 slithy toads.

So Narnia first. I had been terribly ambivalent about even seeing the first movie, but ended up finding it perfectly adequate. My hope and the buzz was in part that the 2nd movie would find the series settling into a groove, but I was underwhelmed. The biggest problem may be that I've seen all of this so many times before. How many fantasy novels or movies have I come across that start with an heir to the throne being spirited out of the palace? More than you might imagine, because in my case it includes all of the variations on this theme that I stumble across in my slush pile which are likely not to go further because they're just not doing anything special enough to become the umpteenth variation on the theme. How many big fantasy battle scenes have I seen play out on the screen? Again, many many many of them. When we got to the big battle scene at the end, with the outcome never in doubt and the movie's ability to offer any new experience to me equally not in doubt, I did the same thing as I did during the extended bloated battle scene at the end of the Transformers. I took a long, hearty nap. And I don't think I missed anything. Maybe those less experienced in the field would find more to enjoy in this movie than I, but if you've seen one fantasy movie you've probably seen this one.

This is not shaping up as a good season at the Atlantic Theater. Maybe the critics will rave about Port Authority as they did Parlor Song, which I lambasted in the early days of my blog, but I just don't see it. Conor McPherson is a highly regarded UK dramatist, but not in my book. He likes to do monologues, which I don't like. I like my drama to have drama, and there isn't much in having characters on the stage that never interact with one another and get up to deliver speeches. These speeches didn't interest me very much. Modestly so for only one of the monologues, about a young Irishman tryiing to make his break from home with failure predestined. Not at all for the others. And all of it so depressing.

Yella and Reprise are both movies that I decided to see on the basis of some good reviews in the Friday papers. There have been a lot of articles recently about the disappearing film critic (here's one from Variety in December, and in April from the NY Times) which calls into question how much more this will happen. The NY Times was the main daily to run full reviews. Did Newsday ignore? The Post and the Daily News just little itty bitty squibs. I'm one of those people who does pay attention to a critical consensus.

And three cheers to the Museum of the Moving Image, which is rollling out some member discounts that enabled me to save a few dollars seeing both of these movies, which will almost certainly have me seeing an extra movie or two at these theatres.

Yella was the more ambivalently reviewed, and deservedly so. German lady leaves the farm for a career in business and to escape the jilted lover who is stalking her. It's well-crafted, but it has an ending that makes a giant cheat of it all if not for the fact that you might see it coming from an autobahn away.

Reprise is a Norwegian movie that hit the world two years ago when it received this Variety review. It finally arrives on NY screens greeted by hosannas of praise from film reviewer Manohla Dargis. I'm more with the ambivalent praise from Variety than the over-the-top praise from the Times. Yes, there is something fresh about the movie. It manages to interweave in time without making things confusing or obvious simply by making good use of the language of cinema. The youthful cast is a pleasure to look at. It deals with writers and writing, which is a bonus for me, and Peter V. Brett would almost certainly enjoy the scene in which the publisher suggests an alternate title to one of the two young authors at the center of the film. We don't see too many movies from Scandinavia so I was looking at the sides and the margins of the screen to immerse myself in the scenery. But if you read the Variety review, you'll find how it references Gallic cinema, and I sadly found myself thinking this movie shares some of the same flaws with many of the overrated French movies I've seen. In particular, this is like an Eric Rohmer movie in having some longeurs about it, and I don't understand why critics like this stuff. I found myself looking at my watch way too often for this to be a great movie, and ultimately I'm not sure that it goes anywhere.

Coda: If my review of Iron Man didn't sate you, feel free to enjoy Brandon Sanderson's.