Tag: Movies

Isabelle Huppert, teacher transformed into “Madame Hyde”, inspired by Stevenson

Isabelle Huppert as a clumsy teacher, Romain Duris as headmaster

[Google Translation / CULTUREBOX]
This crazy movie far from realism, is the opportunity for a new meeting between Isabelle Huppert and Serge Bozon. The star, awarded in 2017 by a Golden Globe and a César for her role in “Elle” Paul Verhoeven, had already shot under the direction of the director five years ago in the highly unclassifiable “Tip Top”, in which she embodied an inspector of police with Sandrine Kiberlain.

This time, the French actress is Madame Géquil, bad teacher unsure of her in a suburban high school to the colorful headmaster (Romain Duris), married to a homemaker (José Garcia). One day, struck down during an experiment in her laboratory, she will feel a new energy in her, which will allow her to finally transmit her knowledge to her students, and especially to one of them.

“A film about education and the transmission of knowledge”, according to Bozon

The idea of ​​the film, which transposes Stevenson’s book into the feminine and into the world of school, was first born in the spirit of the co-writer of the film Axelle Ropert. “What seemed interesting to me was the film about education whose heroine is a teacher in check, and failed since the beginning of his career,” said Serge Bozon.
“We needed the fantastic to get it to something other than its eternal failure”, adds the director, for whom “the film is perhaps at the crossroads of different genres, but at the same time it is finally very focused on a only one question, that of education “and the transmission of knowledge.

The actress as we see it rarely, as a fearful woman

The 45-year-old director also said he found “interesting to look at Isabelle Huppert a dimension she had never explored”. “She usually plays strong, assertive characters, which goes with the question of authority, of violence.There is the opposite: she plays a very weak character at first, completely cowardly, fearful, who lives in the shadow of his permanent failure, “he analyzes.
The fantasy of the film, far from all realism and with stylized characters and outraged, also allows him to be “more frontal”, he analyzes. “The refusal of realism for me, it is what allows to go to the essential”.

Source: Isabelle Huppert, teacher transformed into “Madame Hyde”, inspired by Stevenson

Film Review: Baden, Baden

Due out later this November is Rachel Lang’s debut film about a dejected young Frenchwoman co-opted to help with some bathroom remodeling for her grandma. The “Baden, Baden”movie trailer looks very funny. Check out the FrenchCulture.org review below [ – Pas De Merde – ]

Like many in her generation, 26 year-old, free-spirited Ana lives a life teetering on the edge of comedy and melodrama. After a failed experience working on a film set, she returns to her hometown and decides to focus her energy on renovating the bathroom of her spunky, aging grandmother. Over the course of a scorching summer, Ana finds herself connecting and reconnecting with lovers and friends, as her (self-)improvement project gradually becomes more than she bargained for.

BADEN BADEN is a deceptively low-key feature debut from French filmmaker Rachel Lang, anchored by a slyly compelling, effortlessly confident lead performance by Salomé Richard, Lang’s alter ego and star of her two previous short films. Equally adept at narrative minimalism, psychological portraiture, and deadpan comedy, BADEN BADEN is a character study of great penetration and charm.

 

Source: BADEN BADEN | French Culture

When France goes Brit-mad: Dinard Film Festival – Flux Magazine

The Dinard Festival of British Film may not be France’s most prestigious movie destination, but it’s a great place to watch some indie films and rub shoulders with up-and-coming British acting talent.

Source: When France goes Brit-mad: Dinard Film Festival – Flux Magazine

“Sanctuary!”

The “Sanctuary!” scene from the classic 1939 version of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda.

“Hunchback” was the only movie screened at the very first Cannes Film Festival, as the remainder of the festival was cancelled when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939. The bell-ringing scene was Laughton’s response to impending war. The actor later said he rang the bells actually wanting “to arouse the (real) world, to stop that terrible butchery!”

“It is absurd to speak of Laughton’s Quasimodo as a great performance, as if that were some quantifiable assessment. It is acting at its greatest; it is Laughton at his greatest; it is a cornerstone of this century’s dramatic achievement; it is a yardstick for all acting.”
– SIMON CALLOW, NY Times 1988

 

 

Chanson Du Jour: “Belleville Rendez-Vous”

Chanson Du Jour 10/18/2016:”Belleville Rendez-Vous” by Benoît Charest with Mathieu Chedid

“Belleville Rendez-Vous” from the soundtrack of Sylvain Chomet’s film “Les triplettes de belleville”(2003) Benoît Charest was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for this composition.