Tag: film

25 years of ‘Amélie’: the movie that changed my life

25 years on, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s movie ‘Amélie’ is still just as fresh and enjoyable as it was in 2001, led by a brilliant performance from Audrey Tautou.

Source: 25 years of ‘Amélie’: the movie that changed my life

This April, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie turns 25, and in a few months’ time, so do I, becoming the same age as one of my most beloved films, and just a year or two older than the protagonist, who was played so charmingly by Audrey Tautou.

I’ve long felt a deep connection to the film, although that’s hardly a unique experience, as millions of people love Amélie, and it’s perhaps one of the most famous French movies ever made, rivalling French New Wave classics like Breathless when the question ‘name a French film’ is asked. You don’t have to be into foreign or arthouse cinema to have seen the 2001 film, and for many, it’s a gateway; it certainly was for me.

But while we often discard these gateway films in favour of weirder, more obscure ones as we delve into a specific niche, I could never forget how perfect Amélie is, and while some might see it as a little saccharine, I would simply argue against that conception. Sure, it has its moments, but the film is aware of these, and it asks us to lean into the whimsy, to appreciate the more wholesome parts of life.

You can take it from me, as I’m not one to enjoy a saccharine movie and much rather watch something a bit depressing, to be honest, but Amélie Poulain just steals my heart every time, and makes me wish I worked in a Parisian café, distracting myself from my own world by getting stuck into the lives of others, while buoyed by perhaps the most French-sounding score of all-time courtesy of Yann Tiersen.

Amélie is illuminated in a warm and nostalgic palette of reds, greens and yellows, making me yearn for my world to actually look as vibrant and fantastical as that, even when everything is a little too green, and I love that there are little moments of magic that colour the everyday, like when the titular character lies in bed, and the lamp by her side momentarily comes to life, the ceramic pig attached to the stand pulling the cord and turning out the light.

I love her desire to help others and to see the best in people, although she never gets too good for a bit of playful revenge, like when she sabotages Collignon’s routine because of his treatment of the mentally-disabled Lucien, and I definitely enjoy her strange friendship with the glass man, Raymond, who carefully paints reproductions of Luncheon of the Boating Party and soon unlocks the key to Amélie’s desire for romance with a young man named Nino.

What I love most, though, is how romance plays a central role in the film without being its sole defining factor, as regardless of the fact that Amélie is pretty lonely, when she realises that she fancies Nino, she enacts a cat-and-mouse game with him, all the while playing matchmaker for others and meddling in their lives for the sake of helping people for the better.

Her interest in Nino is playful and ultimately rewarding because she finds her match in a man who is similarly a little odd, his quirk being collecting disused photobooth strips and compiling them into a photo album, while Amélie has a whole host of peculiarities which the film so adoringly celebrates, like hearing the cracking of a crème brûlée, with the montage of her favourite little moments, and those of her friends and family, never failing to elicit a smile.

The film highlights those intense moments of fancying someone, with Amélie’s heart literally thumping out of her chest at one point when she sees Nino, and while she gets her happy ending with him, the film doesn’t ever make this romance its only conceit, which remains focused on the tale of a dreaming introvert who finds her own ways of communicating and connecting with others, of imagining the world around her, like when she observes others in the cinema with a smile or contemplates how many people are having sex across Paris in that very moment, and never before had I seen a film with a character quite like her.

Watching Amélie as a teenager for the first time was a turning point, giving me someone I could relate to, who was quiet but never subservient, who found happiness in her own determined and fun way. And what’s more, it opened me up to a world of cinema I didn’t quite know existed; I’d certainly seen a few foreign films before, but this one was so vibrant, so artistically-driven without sacrificing plot or character development, that it was witty and stylish, and an utterly addictive gateway.

I fell in love with the movie and subsequently immersed myself in the kinds of cinema that further depicted a world so real yet larger-than-life, with Amélie becoming the cinematic embodiment of possibility and pure magic to me, and years later, that magic is still there, flickering through every frame.

Listen to radio broadcast featuring French composers Georges Auric, Georges Delerue, Frances Lai and Yann Tierson

By Wayne Cresser and Michael Stevenson

Yann Tiersen
“Let’s play with sound, forget all knowledge and instrumental skills, and just use instinct – the same way Punk did” – Yann Tiersen
PICTURE THIS – FILM MUSIC ON THE RADIO : WRIU 90.3 FM 9/21/25

Georges Auric (1899–1983)

Auric was a versatile and significant figure in 20th-century French music and culture. 

  • A member of Les Six: As one of the prominent members of the group of avant-garde composers known as Les Six, he rebelled against late-Romanticism and Impressionism, advocating for a more modern, populist, and distinctively French style.
  • Major film scores: He composed over 100 film scores, many for prominent directors, including his longtime collaborator Jean Cocteau. His famous film scores include:
    • Beauty and the Beast (1946)
    • Moulin Rouge (1952), which produced the popular song “Where Is Your Heart?”
    • The Wages of Fear (1953)
    • Roman Holiday (1953)
  • Administrator of French music: Auric also held significant administrative positions, including director of the Paris Opéra and chairman of the French performing rights society, SACEM. 

Georges Delerue (1925–1992)

Dubbed “The Mozart of Cinema” by the newspaper Le Figaro, Delerue was one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his generation. 

  • Prolific career: He wrote more than 350 scores for film and television, with his signature style blending classical orchestration with romantic, lyrical melodies.
  • French New Wave collaborator: His distinctive style shaped the sound of the French New Wave, notably through his collaborations with director François Truffaut on films such as Jules and Jim (1962) and Day for Night (1973).
  • Hollywood success: His success extended to Hollywood, where he scored notable films, including:
    • A Little Romance (1979), for which he won an Academy Award
    • Platoon (1986)
    • Steel Magnolias (1989) 

Francis Lai (1932–2018)

Lai was an Oscar-winning composer whose work helped define the “easy listening” and popular instrumental music of his era. 

  • Popular melodies: He was a gifted melodist known for his emotionally expressive themes. His music gained massive global recognition through his collaboration with director Claude Lelouch, for whom he scored almost 40 films.
  • Global hits: His most famous and influential works include:
    • The romantic theme from A Man and a Woman (1966), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination.
    • The iconic, Oscar-winning score for Love Story (1970). The theme, “Where Do I Begin?”, became an international pop standard.
  • Classical crossover influence: Lai’s success demonstrated that a film score could become a hit in its own right, influencing the popular music charts and inspiring a new generation of “classical crossover” artists

‘Adam’s Sake’ Review: Could Laura Wandel Be Heir to Dardenne Brothers?

A thought-provoking procedural about the nurse trying to keep a single mom from losing custody of her child, from the promising ‘Playground’ director.

By Peter Debruge

Who decides what’s best for a child? In “Adam’s Sake,” a scrawny 4-year-old boy is admitted to the pediatric ward with a broken arm, which the doctors attribute to malnutrition. A social worker is called, and Adam’s mother — who’s hardly more than a child herself — is forbidden access to her son while hospital staff try to nurse him back to health. But Adam refuses to eat unless his mother is present, fighting against the feeding tubes the doctors have ordered.

All that is backstory that we piece together on the trot during the opening minutes of Belgian director Laura Wandel’s emotionally wrenching whirlwind, which is bolstered by a pair of terrific performances from Léa Drucker as Lucy, the pediatric department’s head nurse, and “Happening” star Anamaria Vartolomei as Adam’s mom, Rebecca — to say nothing of soulful newcomer Jules Delsart, the remarkable young actor who plays Adam.

From the get-go, we see Lucy attempting to mediate between the impatient doctor (Laurent Capelluto), an inflexible social worker (Claire Bodson) and desperate Rebecca, who’s been granted a narrow window of visitation on a probationary basis. The boy in turn clings to his mom’s neck, plaintively asking any who will listen whether she might be permitted to stay the night.

The stakes are life and death, as the medical staff makes clear. Meanwhile, Rebecca works at cross-purposes, smuggling in plastic containers of a runny porridge-like goop she insists on feeding Adam instead of the hospital food. Without proper sustenance, the boy risks additional fractures, which makes it especially difficult to watch the scene in which Rebecca throws out the prescribed meal while Lucy’s back is turned.

Over the course of a tight, intense 70-odd minutes, Wandel plunges audiences into the frantic hustle of this overtaxed hospital, observing through fresh eyes a world we know from so many TV dramas — much as she did the daunting turf of an elementary schoolyard in her stunning 2021 debut, “Playground.” In that film, Wandel developed a formal approach perfectly suited to her milieu, adopting the perspective of her 7-year-old protagonist as the first grader tried to make sense of her intimidating new surroundings. Adults, when seen, were either cropped at the waist (à la the teacher in “Peanuts” cartoons) or obliged to bend down into frame, engaging with the girl at eye level.

Wandel could have repeated that same tactic in “Adam’s Sake,” but instead of portraying the action from the poor kid’s point of view, she aligns herself with Lucy, employing a similarly dynamic observational style to that of her producer-mentor Luc Dardenne. Nimbly covering the action via a small handheld camera, cinematographer Frédéric Noirhomme shadows Lucy and the other characters via long unbroken takes, occasionally staring at the back of her protagonist’s head (as Dardenne often did in “Rosetta”).

It’s an audacious strategy, not intended to impress so much as to immerse, which distinguishes “Adam’s Sake” from countless hospital-set procedurals. Wandel wants her audience to weigh the philosophical aspects of the situation, revealing the behind-the-scenes power struggles and split-second decisions that complicate Lucy and her superiors’ ability to spare Adam.

Audiences — especially those with children of their own — may have a tough time dealing with Rebecca’s self-defeating behavior, which springs from a place of panic. Abandoned by Adam’s father, she has raised the boy this far on her own, but her instincts are off. It’s not clear whether what’s she’s feeding him is vegan or some kind of religiously sanctioned alternative, although Wandel has explicitly said that’s beside the point. Her focus is on the various hierarchies at play in this hospital, where parents typically have authority — and which this mom has somehow lost to the legal system.

Rebecca has cultivated a codependent dynamic with Adam whereby neither can stand to be apart from the other; she goes so far as to lock herself in the hospital bathroom with her son one moment, then all but kidnaps him the next. No wonder practically everyone on staff seems determined to restrain Rebecca and limit access to her son. Only Lucy seems to recognize that they need the mother’s cooperation in order for Adam to pull through, heroically bending the rules for his benefit.

Lucy may have Adam’s best interests in mind, but she finds herself at the bottom of a chain of command, in which Adam’s doctor, the ward supervisor (Alex Descas) and eventually the law stand in her way. The movie can feel a bit melodramatic at times, especially when Adam finally speaks his truth — a chilling line it’s hard to believe any child actually saying, which no one who sees it will soon forget. In the end, “Adam’s Sake” is not quite as effective a film as “Playground,” but it most certainly confirms Wandel as a filmmaker to be reckoned with.

Source: ‘Adam’s Sake’ Review: Could Laura Wandel Be Heir to Dardenne Brothers?

Movie Review: “Deception” (2021)

Directed by Arnaud Desplechin, Tromperie (also known as Deception, 2021) is a deeply introspective and thought-provoking adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel. Featuring Denis Podalydès and Léa Seydoux in the lead roles, the film explores the complex, often ambiguous relationship between a writer and his mistress, seamlessly blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. With its richly layered dialogue and philosophical tone, Tromperie invites viewers into an exploration of love, memory, and the blurred lines of storytelling.

Set in the 1980s in London, the film follows Philip (Denis Podalydès), a successful American novelist, and his unnamed lover (Léa Seydoux), a married woman who visits him frequently in his writing studio. Their interactions unfold as a series of emotionally charged dialogues—sometimes tender, sometimes confrontational—exploring themes of desire, fidelity, and the power dynamics at play in creative relationships.

As Philip’s bond with his mistress deepens, he also reflects on his past relationships, including those with his wife, former lovers, and even characters from his own literary works. Tromperie delicately weaves the line between reality and fiction, challenging the viewer to question where the truth ends and the imagination begins.

The Nature of Fiction and Reality – The film encourages the audience to grapple with the distinctions between what is real and what Philip conjures in his mind as a writer.

Desire and Betrayal – The emotional undercurrents of love, passion, and infidelity form the crux of the story, reflecting the complexities and contradictions inherent in human relationships.

Exile and Identity – Set against the backdrop of Philip’s life as an American writer living in Europe, the film examines themes of cultural alienation, belonging, and the internal conflicts that shape both his personal and creative identity.

Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021, Tromperie earned critical acclaim for its sophisticated storytelling and the exceptional performances of its leads. Léa Seydoux delivers a mesmerizing portrayal of emotional depth, while Denis Podalydès embodies the intellectual yet morally complex character of Philip with subtle brilliance.

Unlike conventional narratives driven by action, Tromperie thrives on the power of words, remaining true to Roth’s literary style. Its cerebral approach and philosophical layers make it a captivating watch for those who appreciate dialogue-heavy, thought-provoking cinema. With its blend of romance, intellectual exploration, and literary elegance, Tromperie stands as a remarkable adaptation of one of Roth’s most compelling works, inviting reflection on the nature of love, identity, and the boundaries of storytelling.

French Film Review: Le Fil

Le Fil
Le Fil

Daniel Auteil directs and stars as a disillusioned criminal lawyer who has been appointed to defend a man accused of murdering his wife.

Daniel Auteil directs and stars as disillusioned criminal lawyer Jean Monier, who has been appointed to defend Nicolas Milik, a man accused of murdering his wife. While everything points to his guilt, Monier takes up the case, convinced of his innocence. As his investigations keep taking him back to the night of the murder and the family dynamics, he gets closer to his client, adding to the pressure to defend him. What began as an ordinary case will put him to the test.

Auteuil’s seasoned performance and Gadebois’ nuanced portrayal of Milik add depth to this courtroom thriller, which explores themes of moral ambiguity and redemption.

Director: Daniel Auteuil

Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Grégory Gadebois

Source: French Film Review: Le Fil – France Today