French Film Festival 2017: Three films
The French Film Festival, organized by the French Embassy, Institut Francais, Alliance Francais de Manille and Film Development Council of the Philippines, has just held its 22nd edition in the country (June 8-17, Central Square and Greenbelt cinemas). This is the festival that brought to Filipino cineastes on the big screen such acclaimed French films as Jean-Luc Godard's "A bout de souffle" and "Pierrot le fou", Jean Renoir's "La grande illusion", Louis Malle's "Ascenseur pour l'echafaud", Eric Rohmer's "La boulangere de Monceau", Marcel Carné's "Le Quai des brumes", Olivier Assayas' "Late August, Early September", Patrice Chereau's "Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train", among many others. For the 2017 edition (the only time that I was able to attend again the festival after many years of absence), I was able to watch three contemporary films from the nation that gave birth to cinema.
"The Night Watchman" (2015;Jamais de la vie), directed by Pierre Jolivet, features Dardenne brothers regular Olivier Gourmet in a role that wouldn't be out-of-place in the auteur siblings' oeuvre. Gourmet plays Franck, a placid and weary night security guard in a small-town shopping-mall, living all by himself in a small and shabby abode, apparently without a wife and children. We're hinted that Franck was once an active labor union leader and an irrepressible alcoholic. We also see him frequently visiting a social welfare office, most probably in preparation just in case he already hits retirement age or is no longer fit to work and he needs subsidy from the state. Franck is a working-class man living in a working-class milieu. Just like a Dardenne brothers masterpiece, the film patiently follows the daily minutiae of Franck's life, his behavior and actions as well as his interaction with the people around him. Pretty uneventful, right? Franck, at one point, even remarks: "Something has to happen". Franck's "wish" actually happens in the film's closing minutes: a robbery in the shopping-mall in which a colleague serves as an accomplice. But when it does, it doesn't just provide the film its "suspense" element, but also a major moral decision for the main character, whom we've thought all the while to be rather apathetic. "The Night Watchman" may appear to be too slow-moving for some, but those willing to stick to it (why not, it only runs for about 95 minutes) will be rewarded by Gourmet's subtly-rich characterization. The kind of working-class character that we've seen in such films as "Biutiful", "Our Life" and Gourmet's own "The Son". If nothing else, "The Night Watchman" is primarily an actor's showcase.
"Geronimo" (2014), directed by Tony Gatlif, brims with energy, chaos and intensity. So much so that they threaten to spill over from the big screen. It's really in the nature of the material: a you-and-me-against-the-world kind of love story. There's nothing wrong in seeing two young lovers madly in love with one another, with each one becoming the center of the other's life. It's only that their respective families won't approve of the relationship, at any cost. There's really nothing new in this kind of story, as it dates back to as far as Shakespeare's immortal play "Romeo and Juliet", probably the foremost archetypal model for any cinematic or theatrical depiction of doomed lovers caught up in the chaos and frenzy of a familial warfare. What makes the film a class of its own is the way Gatlif tells the story. While not exactly a musical ala-"West Side Story" (of which "Geronimo" is said to be an update), Gatlif has a gift of using music and dance to let all those fiery emotions brew off the screen, just like in his Cannes-winning "Exiles". These "musical" numbers aren't the kind that seem to have sprung out of nowhere or to have been inserted into a scene quite unnaturally. Rather, they are made to be diegetic in nature. This is particularly seen in those scenes where the respective families of the young lovers (Lucky and Nil) clash against each other. Instead of blades and bullets, they battle it out with dance and music, making the whole affair dripping in sweat rather than oozing with blood. (Though there are select instances where the use of a gun and a knife hasn't altogether been avoided.) Yet, the film isn't entirely without some creases. First is the title character herself, played by Celine Sallette: I'm not exactly sure if her serving as the mediator is really essential to the story. I can't help thinking that her character is rather extraneous (and to think that she's the title-character!). Another is that "Geronimo" kind of fizzles out in the end. One would think that the film would reach an electrifying boiling point, but what one finds is a resolution that's rather pat and even laughable. But such beef aside, "Geronimo" is still the kind of viewing-fare that makes the big screen sizzle with uncontainable energy.
"Nocturama" (2016), directed by Bertrand Bonello, is my favorite among the three. The theme of the film couldn't have been more topical. The first fifteen minutes or so of the film is a cinematic feat in itself. It's a near-wordless sequence as we meet a group of young people, seemingly strangers to one another, riding in a subway, walking in the streets or entering an establishment, but with something evidently running on their minds, the kind that invites suspicion. They appear to be wary of time, as if every second counts, with the exact temporal occurrence flashing on the screen every now and then. A sense of anxiety and dread fills the air during these moments. What is it exactly that these young people, all gentle- and good-looking enough, are up to? We, the audience, can only make some faint assumptions - until we witness the first blast. And the next. And the next. It now becomes certain: these young people have just committed some acts of terrorism in certain public places in the city of Paris ("Paris is Happening", the film's subtitle states). More so, all of them actually know one another. What's not certain though is their motivation for committing such acts.
The filmmaker is quite blunt in not rationalizing the young terrorists' behavior. Perhaps that's the point: there's nothing reasonable in any act of terror. There will never be any justification in fighting for one's "cause" that puts the lives of innocent and ordinary civilians in danger. As the director sees it, it's just plain abhorrent and detestable. Everything is clouded in darkness, no silver lining to be gleaned. That the perpetrators are young (there's even one who appears to have just entered the puberty stage) doesn't give Bonello the excuse to be forgiving of them. Just right after the series of daytime attacks, the youth find themselves holed up in a posh urban shopping mall (where one of them works in the security department), with the purpose of staying there until the next morning before they proceed again with their lives as usual, as if nothing happened. However, in a kind of a curious mish-mash of "The Breakfast Club" and "The Exterminating Angel", as the night wears on, fear, doubt, restlessness and hopelessness gradually set in, eventually consuming all of them. During this interlude in the mall, everything seems to turn towards the surreal and the bizarre, as if this brady bunch has become trapped in its own private hell, while the world outside - or Paris, to be specific - has become eerily silent and abandoned, with only the police sirens being heard every now and then. This is probably an apocalypse now. Unlike "The Breakfast Club" though, but more akin to "Elephant" (another film about young people planning and committing an act of mass terror), the way "Nocturama" closes off won't leave you with a feeling of soaring high. Albeit downbeat, this one is the kind of cinematic food-for-thought that one won't soon forget.
"The Night Watchman" (2015;Jamais de la vie), directed by Pierre Jolivet, features Dardenne brothers regular Olivier Gourmet in a role that wouldn't be out-of-place in the auteur siblings' oeuvre. Gourmet plays Franck, a placid and weary night security guard in a small-town shopping-mall, living all by himself in a small and shabby abode, apparently without a wife and children. We're hinted that Franck was once an active labor union leader and an irrepressible alcoholic. We also see him frequently visiting a social welfare office, most probably in preparation just in case he already hits retirement age or is no longer fit to work and he needs subsidy from the state. Franck is a working-class man living in a working-class milieu. Just like a Dardenne brothers masterpiece, the film patiently follows the daily minutiae of Franck's life, his behavior and actions as well as his interaction with the people around him. Pretty uneventful, right? Franck, at one point, even remarks: "Something has to happen". Franck's "wish" actually happens in the film's closing minutes: a robbery in the shopping-mall in which a colleague serves as an accomplice. But when it does, it doesn't just provide the film its "suspense" element, but also a major moral decision for the main character, whom we've thought all the while to be rather apathetic. "The Night Watchman" may appear to be too slow-moving for some, but those willing to stick to it (why not, it only runs for about 95 minutes) will be rewarded by Gourmet's subtly-rich characterization. The kind of working-class character that we've seen in such films as "Biutiful", "Our Life" and Gourmet's own "The Son". If nothing else, "The Night Watchman" is primarily an actor's showcase.
"Geronimo" (2014), directed by Tony Gatlif, brims with energy, chaos and intensity. So much so that they threaten to spill over from the big screen. It's really in the nature of the material: a you-and-me-against-the-world kind of love story. There's nothing wrong in seeing two young lovers madly in love with one another, with each one becoming the center of the other's life. It's only that their respective families won't approve of the relationship, at any cost. There's really nothing new in this kind of story, as it dates back to as far as Shakespeare's immortal play "Romeo and Juliet", probably the foremost archetypal model for any cinematic or theatrical depiction of doomed lovers caught up in the chaos and frenzy of a familial warfare. What makes the film a class of its own is the way Gatlif tells the story. While not exactly a musical ala-"West Side Story" (of which "Geronimo" is said to be an update), Gatlif has a gift of using music and dance to let all those fiery emotions brew off the screen, just like in his Cannes-winning "Exiles". These "musical" numbers aren't the kind that seem to have sprung out of nowhere or to have been inserted into a scene quite unnaturally. Rather, they are made to be diegetic in nature. This is particularly seen in those scenes where the respective families of the young lovers (Lucky and Nil) clash against each other. Instead of blades and bullets, they battle it out with dance and music, making the whole affair dripping in sweat rather than oozing with blood. (Though there are select instances where the use of a gun and a knife hasn't altogether been avoided.) Yet, the film isn't entirely without some creases. First is the title character herself, played by Celine Sallette: I'm not exactly sure if her serving as the mediator is really essential to the story. I can't help thinking that her character is rather extraneous (and to think that she's the title-character!). Another is that "Geronimo" kind of fizzles out in the end. One would think that the film would reach an electrifying boiling point, but what one finds is a resolution that's rather pat and even laughable. But such beef aside, "Geronimo" is still the kind of viewing-fare that makes the big screen sizzle with uncontainable energy.
"Nocturama" (2016), directed by Bertrand Bonello, is my favorite among the three. The theme of the film couldn't have been more topical. The first fifteen minutes or so of the film is a cinematic feat in itself. It's a near-wordless sequence as we meet a group of young people, seemingly strangers to one another, riding in a subway, walking in the streets or entering an establishment, but with something evidently running on their minds, the kind that invites suspicion. They appear to be wary of time, as if every second counts, with the exact temporal occurrence flashing on the screen every now and then. A sense of anxiety and dread fills the air during these moments. What is it exactly that these young people, all gentle- and good-looking enough, are up to? We, the audience, can only make some faint assumptions - until we witness the first blast. And the next. And the next. It now becomes certain: these young people have just committed some acts of terrorism in certain public places in the city of Paris ("Paris is Happening", the film's subtitle states). More so, all of them actually know one another. What's not certain though is their motivation for committing such acts.
The filmmaker is quite blunt in not rationalizing the young terrorists' behavior. Perhaps that's the point: there's nothing reasonable in any act of terror. There will never be any justification in fighting for one's "cause" that puts the lives of innocent and ordinary civilians in danger. As the director sees it, it's just plain abhorrent and detestable. Everything is clouded in darkness, no silver lining to be gleaned. That the perpetrators are young (there's even one who appears to have just entered the puberty stage) doesn't give Bonello the excuse to be forgiving of them. Just right after the series of daytime attacks, the youth find themselves holed up in a posh urban shopping mall (where one of them works in the security department), with the purpose of staying there until the next morning before they proceed again with their lives as usual, as if nothing happened. However, in a kind of a curious mish-mash of "The Breakfast Club" and "The Exterminating Angel", as the night wears on, fear, doubt, restlessness and hopelessness gradually set in, eventually consuming all of them. During this interlude in the mall, everything seems to turn towards the surreal and the bizarre, as if this brady bunch has become trapped in its own private hell, while the world outside - or Paris, to be specific - has become eerily silent and abandoned, with only the police sirens being heard every now and then. This is probably an apocalypse now. Unlike "The Breakfast Club" though, but more akin to "Elephant" (another film about young people planning and committing an act of mass terror), the way "Nocturama" closes off won't leave you with a feeling of soaring high. Albeit downbeat, this one is the kind of cinematic food-for-thought that one won't soon forget.
(The rebels without a cause in Bertrand Bonello's "Nocturama")
Comments