Bye Bye Blondie (再見，吾愛)

My closing film at the FFF, Bye Bye Blondie is a bit disappointing. I'm fortunate. The disappointment came last. It's a film adaptation of a French novel of the same name by director Virginie Despentes (who previously directed "Baise-moi"). It's about the renewal of a lesbian relation between a successful cultural TV personality in middle age Francés (Emmanuelle Béart) and her former teenage punkie lover Gloria (Béatrice Dalle).

The film opens with a pile of household objects being thrown out of a third floor window. We then see a furious Gloria emerging from screen left in black leather jacket and pants, and boots. The upper half of a male without any clothes appears on the window asking her to come back. But she marches in a puckered face to her favourite bar, a bar in a shed somewhere in the middle of nowhere for minor artists of non-conventional art. There she is consoled by her friends and told them that she had just broken up with her current boyfriend and that there's no way she would go back to him. Shortly thereafter, we see Francés arrive, unannounced, in a chauffeur driven Jaguar. They appear to have known each other for a long time. After a half cold, half indifferent reception, Gloria decides to follow her to Paris. Gloria is now married to a gay writer Claude (Pascal Greggory) in a marriage of convenience and living in a luxurious Paris apartment. Then there was a flash back to their respective teenage, where they met at a mental institution, Francés, for amnesia and Gloria for uncontrolled violence. From early on, Gloria (Soko) had been a punk from a working class family, with the usual teenage rebelliousness, sub-cultural values, songs, lingo, hairstyles, dress codes and rituals  alternating between anarchic violence and spontaneous sex a fair sample of which was shown to us on screen including a gang fight, a wild party at the suburbs and their arrest by the police at a bridge. Francés (Clara Ponsot) on the other hand, came from a well do do family with private tutors to prepare her for the "grands ecoles" or prep schools specializing in getting students to the big name universities in Paris. They had a good tender innocent time loving each other that summer after they got out from the mental institution/prison but in the end, Francés had to bow to middle class social and economic reality and follow his parents' advice and wrote a letter to Gloria which broke Gloria's punkie adolescent heart but which eventually led to her position as the host of a popular culture show on French national TV with very high audience rating.

The film then unfolds. We see how there were rumors that Francés would soon be replaced by a younger female upstart who decided to wear very short skirts in an effort to boost her own popularity rating, whom we see easing up to her from behind her seat in the dressing room, half admiring, half envious and half obsequious and how when Francés asked her producer of the show about such rumor when it got hotter and hotter, the producer assured her that nothing of the sort would happen and how when to her surprise the axe fell, she punched him in the corridors of the studio. We also see how Gloria started to use Frances' posh sitting room to build her artwork of metal sheets and wire and how she fought Claude's use of Japanese drum music to help him "get into the mood of writing" dressed in a Japanese kimono whilst being served by his adolescent gay playmate by turning up the volume of her own CD player's punkie rock songs and how in one of the parties by Francés and Claude, she got pissed with the hypocrisy of civilized conversation in affected Parisian accents of a female guest and started insulting the other guests. Her behavior raised some eyebrows as she stormed out of the party. On the way out, she hit one after another of those who tried to restrain her. Naturally, the police was called. She was arrested. Francés went there to bail her out. When she came out, she also came out of the "closet" of her hidden lesbianism: she kissed Gloria on the mouth in front of the cameras of the paperazzis. The film ends.

The film has great potentials for a bit more in depth explorations of how Gloria and Frances developed into the persons that we see or their struggle to adjust to their new life. But it merely scratches the surface. The film techniques and the use of the camera framing and music etc was unremarkable. In the end, the superficial lives of the two lesbian lovers was destroyed and so was the film's treatment of it. The only thing which saves the film from being a total failure are the scenes of the punkies enjoying themselves and the quality of acting of its actresses: they seem to fit the personalities of the characters to be portrayed so well. A brave but ultimately failed attempt by Virginie Despentes.

L'Amour dure trois ans (Love Lasts Three Years) (愛情保鮮期三年)

Love lasts three years (L'Amour dure trois ans) is the first feature film of Frédéric Beigbede based on his own novel. It's a crazy romantic French comedy about the love life of a TV literary and entertainment critic with aspirations of becoming a writer whose life-style and philosophy are in different ways paralleled by those of his best friend and his father.

As the film opens we hear Marc Marronnier (Gaspard Proust) voice off telling us that part of the perks of his profession is that he got a good life and unlimited free access to various hottest nightspots in Paris whilst being shown snippets of the same but that did not appear to make him any happier because he was in the middle of a divorce with his wife, whom he happily married just three years ago. As a result of the trials and tribulations of this painful process, he developed a cynical theory that love can never last more than three years. But that's not where he stopped. He actually started writing a book about it to let off the steam of its venom. We see him receiving for the manuscripts of his novels one rejection letter after another from publishers like Flammarion and other better known French publishers which advised him either never ever to send his manuscripts to them again or even worse, to give up the idea of being a writer altogether. And worse, there were rumors that he would soon be replaced as the anchor for the cultural TV programme. But shorlty after he finished his book "Love Lasts Three Years" in which he wrote "in the first year, you bought furniture, in the second, you move the furniture and in the third, you divide the furniture", he received a letter telling him to go for a meet-up about its possible publication. He  went, saw the editrice Francesca Vernesi,(Valérie Lemercier) and got an advance of 60,000 francs but on condition that he uses a pseudonym, something which did not present any difficulties: he just picked up the first Russian name he saw, got his advance and proceeded immediately to his favorite nightclub  to celebrate his success with his buddies  all of whom follow the philosophy that no love found there would last more than a few weeks or even one night. But in the middle of his revelry, he got a telephone call: his grandma who stayed married for 57 years was dead ! He had to go to Pays Basque for the funeral. There he met Alice (Louise Bourgoin), his cousin's (Antoine) wife, a photographer who lives according to her feelings of the moment. He was electrified and didn't lose any time. They had a wonderful time at the beach and then in bed. Since then, he could never get her out of his mind despite all attempts at diverting himself including going to a personal table dance joint with 4 or 5 dancers, waitress etc. In the meantime, his book became a runaway best-seller, he was asked to
autograph his books by his female fans who would leave their telephone
number with him and he could have anything he wanted. But Alice rejected all his text messages because she was in total disagreement with his theory once she learned that he was in fact the real author of that scandalously sexist book. To his surprise, his book even won an important book prize and during the televised award ceremony, he made an open declaration of love to her. After that, Alice took a plane and ran to him, a little just past the three years she was married to his cousin Antoine, although their love started before then! The film ends. There were also a sub-plot in which his father took up an Asian girl and his buddy Jean-Georges (Joey Starr) hooked up with a beach boy in Australia and even went through an exotic Hindu-like New Age-type marriage ceremony administered by an Indian guru in the middle of a compulsory break there as "advised"  by his publisher because he kept on messing up his own career by offensive remarks to journalists at public interviews and another little developed sub-plot in which his father advised him to make his love life last for as long as he was physically able to.

The film has got its idyllic moments and does give us a glimpse of the mindless sensual pleasures indulged in and ultimately the emptiness of the emotional life of certain pseudo-intellectuals in the Parisian cultural scene. Frédéric Beigbede may have wanted to show us how life always defeats any attempts at generalization and the futility of any theory about it, especially where love is concerned. But if so, that remains more in the imagination than in the actual materialisation of that thought in the film on the screen we see. That point is just not brought to our attention with any real impact. It seems to me that the director may not have any clear ideas about where exactly he wishes to go: undecided whether it's to be a pure comedy or something rather more serious than a middle class
housewife type romantic fantasy. There may be some witticisms, some sarcasms and some good acting but in the end, it's little more than a pleasant enough way of spending an hour or so in the darkened atmosphere of a small cinema  

What's in a Name (Le Prénom) (名字)

"What's in a name" ("Le Prénom" literally "First Name")  written by Matthieu Delaporte, and co-directed by him and Alexandre de La Patelliere and starring Patrick Bruel, Valerie Benguigui, Charles Berling, Guillaume de Tonquedec, Judith El Zein and Francois Fabian, is a powerful drama having at least two of the three Aristotelian unities: unity of time and unity of place.

It started at a hospital and ended there but the greater part of the drama enfolded at the middle class home of a stressed mother of two, doubling as high school teacher, the Jewish born Elisabeth (Valerie Benguigui) and wife of Pierre (Charles Berling), a self-opinionated intellectual but apparently quite popular  professor of French classical literature at the Sorbonne. Elizabeth's highly successful and self-assured estate agent brother, Vincent (Patrick Bruel) a smooth talker has just been to the hospital to check if the baby his wife Anna (Judith El Zein) is carrying is a boy or a girl but from the ultra sound picture, it appears that the embryo has a penis. He's overjoyed and announces it to the party. But he wanted to be dramatic and told them that he has some good news and some bad news. The good news was that he got a son but the bad news was that he just lost him. The others commiserated with him. When they all seemed to have lost spirit, he told them that it was all a joke! The others breathed a sigh of relief and they got to talking about what kind of first name the boy would have. He asked them to guess. They tried lots and lots names but none got it and they asked for a hint. He agreed and said it started with the letter "A". They continued guessing. None got it right. Finally, he announced it: Adolphe like Adolph Hilter. This got to the nerves of Pierre and a very heated argument followed along with some broken furniture. Then he announced that it was another joke! To relieve the tension, Elizabeth suggested that they pay some attention to the Moroccan dish she spent hours preparing and to change the subject.  And the attention shifted to the apparently very secretive love life of their long time family friend from childhood, the sensitive and gentle Claude (Guiilaume de Tonquedec) a renowned trombonist for a Parisian orchestra who was the first to arrive with some flowers for Elizabeth and a bottle of good wine, but nothing compared with that brought later by Vincent, an extremely expensive wine which is a gift from one of his clients. But at the end of the discussion of what he is doing with his "girl friend" which everybody except Anna ( who had seen them at a swimming pool) was shocked to learn that he had fallen in love with Francoise, the mother of Elizabeth and Vincent! In the course of the discussion which rapidly grew into quarrels, lots of things surfaced: the hidden jealousies and envy between relatives, years of frustration of Elizabeth against her husband, how they all suspected that Claude was gay etc. The irony is that, when Vincent and the others went to the hospital for the delivery of the expected baby, it was a girl! But Vincent  quickly decided on a name for the surprise baby: Françoise!

The cinematography was competent, not something one would rave about but the cut and thrust of the dialogue leaves one breathless as one shocking revelation followed another and the acting by Berling, Bruel and de Tonquedec and Benguigui was simply superb. I haven't seen such a good drama for I don't know how many years. They portrayed the dynamics of how well meaning jokes might turn bad and the sudden explosion of deep seated and long brewing feelings of petty jealousies, suspicions and frustrations beneath the taken for granted thoughts and feelings amongst family and friends in such colorful but natural flow of their verbal ripostes that there's really little one can say or do except to give them the thumb-ups that they so richly deserve. An excellent drama on celluloid with some well chosen trivial but character/mood revealing details and punchy dialogues which didn't really exploit the full potential of the camera and music!

An all English Evening (英國之夜)

Few would dispute that the English are wonderful with words (Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw etc), but serious music never seems to have been their forte. But there's nothing to stop them from welcoming musicians from the continent like Mendelssohn, who has been adopted by the Brits and treated as one of their own. But though rare, they got a home grown composer too: Elgar.  We had a taste of both specimens last Saturday at the Cultural Centre: two pieces by Mendelssohn: his The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave Overture) and his Symphony No. 3 (Scottish) and Elgar's Sea Pictures.

The first work is one of the most popular works by Mendelssohn, written in the summer of 1829, when he was about 20, said to be inspired by a visit to the famous sea cave with rectangular rock columns rising straight from the bottom of the sea at the island's shores at the northernmost part of Scotland. We hear in this work the sound of sea waves pounding at the rocky cliffs, waves after wave and we can feel the strong sea gusts cutting into the pitiless rock faces, scouring the walls of the cave and thundering out against the unforgiving northern skies, stark, magnificent, strong, and yet not completely devoid of a kind of tenderness as the winds abate and gently blow over the grass and fluffy feathers of reed flowers, growing upon its shores as the sea gulls perform graceful figures of 8 in the sky riding upon rising air current above the huge Atlantic swells of the mighty sea as the sun comes out.  Although it's called an overture, it's an overture to nothing and stands as a work complete in itself. It's one of my favourites from Mendelssohn. 

Unlike Haydn, Mendelssohn did not write many symphonies. His third was begun at more or less the same time as his Fingal Cave Overture but was not completed until almost a dozen years later in 1842 ! I really don't know why this symphony has been called "Scottish Symphony" apart from the fact that he began it shortly after his visit to Scotland in 1829. It is said that he did however visit the ruined church of Mary the Queen of of Scots there which might have inspired him to write the theme of first movement, a theme which is repeated from time to time in the other movements s. But whatever might have been the true reason for the Scottish Symphony being so named, it's another very listenable work. The first movement is rather solemn, its second is by turns very frolicking and forceful, its third has a heavy marchlike rhythm, but ts fourth blasts away into a very upbeat, massive and forceful climax.

By contrast Elgar's Sea Pictures, written at the close of the 19th century, are much less powerful.They consist of a series of 5 songs originally written for a soprano but was later done in a lower key to fit the voice of a contralto singer Clara Butt  whom Elgar liked. The five songs were all inspired by certain poems which Elgar found moving: Sea Slumber Song (Roden Noel 1834-1894), In Haven (Capri) (Caroline Alice Elgar, his wife),  Sabbath Morning at Sea (Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861) , Where Corals Lie (Richard Garnett)  and the Swimmer, (Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833-1870). They were sung for us by a rather tall and elegant mezzo-sophrano Christian Stotjin who studied under Udo Reinemann, Jard van Nes and Dame Janet Baker and had performed in Amsterdam, Vienna, New York and Paris and whose album Tchaikovsky Romances was the BBC Music Magazine's Vocal Recording of 2010. She has a good voice but I was not particularly moved although the orchestral music did help. It's got nothing to do with her. it's Elgar. I like Mendelssohn's works much better.

Donoma

Salma

Chris and Dama

Analia

Donoma by Haiti-born writer-director Djinn Carrénard, my 8th film at the FFF, and his first, is unlike any other films that I have seen. It's a thought provoking documentary shot on a digital video-cam at a cost of less than 200 Euros with amateur actors who improvised their lines and takes place at St Denis at the suburbs of Paris. It traces the lives of four different contemporary French women, one older and three younger, all looking for some kind satisfying love relations or of values to anchor their lives, but each in her own ways. The title of the film Donoma means "Le jour est là." or the day has arrived or sunrise.

As the film starts, we see Dacio (Vincente Perez) trying to kiss Salma (Salomé Blechmans) who said that he is not doing it the right way. The boy complains that they come from different worlds: her from a world of culture, he from a broken family whose father would not hesitate to beat him up. Salma who was always looking for something more spiritual, a sign from her destiny, was living with her sister strricken with cancer who had eventually to be removed to a hospital in a wheelchair and was always trying to look for that sign from a train station in which by accident she saw a frail young man Raîné (Matthieu Longuatte) in a passing train compartment always making a sign of the cross. She later finally summoned enough courage to board that train to talk to him and learned that he was on a similar quest. But when they met, after she had had what she thought was a religious revelation (stigmata appearing on her wrists) which the shrink she was seeing suggests may be delusional and that most probably she cut herself in her religious trance and that she needed to be hospitalized immediately for treatment, something which she resolutely refused to believe. She also claimed to be able to levitate two or three inches above the ground! To her surprise, Rainé is not the saint that she thought him to be . He confessed that he used to be a skinhead and a criminal but is now just trying his best not to fall into temptation again and prayer seemed his own way.

Dacio seems also to be linked to another protagonist, a Spanish woman Analia ( Emilia Dérou-Bernal ) trying her very best to be a good Spanish teacher at a professional training night school with that insolent student who never seemed to be really interested in what she put into her lessons. To her, her Spanish roots meant a great deal ; it's what gave her life meaning. To attract the attention of Dacio, he seduced him after class and then made him sign a paper in Spanish saying that he wanted to make love to his Spanish teacher and told him that if he did not behave in future, she would show that to the principal. He did and all his classmates observed a different Dacio after that he did. She then related the story to her colleagues in half embarrassment as a tale of academic and moral triumph. But one day, Dacio turned up at the entrance of her apartment. She was mad but after learning that Dacio had no home to go because he had a violent father, she relented and allowed him to continue to sit with his back against the wall on the staircase landing in front of the door to her apartment and the two got to talking about what is important to each. After that she nearly cracked up in class, doing a kind of spontaneous rap dance on the desk singing a self-improvised rap song about what touched her most deeply.

The third story relates to another pair Leelop (Laettia Lopez), a photographer and Dama (Séskouba Doucouré) whom she met in New York after a year and half ago and photographed in a project which brought her huge success which enabled her to buy an apartment in Paris and who was living with her as cohabitee. They were interviewed by a social worker who was interested in whether they were living as a couple because Dama was receiving social security benefits. Her questions made the "couple" think seriously about their relationship. In the course of the interview, when asked about whether they considered their present strate would continue, Dama was surprised to hear for the first time, that Leelop thought that their relations would probably continue for another three months. After the social worker was gone, Dama left and went to ask for help from her sister, who previously told him that he could come to her whenever he pleased if he needed help because they were family. But he was at first rejected because he did not give her any prior notice but once he admitted he was wrong, her sister took him in and washed his hair and took good care of him.

The fourth story is that of a virgin Chris (Laura Krepi) originally from Ghana but was later adopted by a diplomat and brought to France now working as a photographer and Dama, who had just broken up with Leelop. She was interested in exploring how a relationship can develop merely relying on body language, written notes and sign language in the form of inventive gestures without ever speaking. She picked him up at a metro station. It failed in the end of about a month and the couple had to talk.

The film is an extremely long film (about 135 minutes !) and its structure loose and captivates simply on the quality of the intensity of its dialogues, an attempt to interrogate the meaning of the lives of various young and not so young people. To me it seems a postmodernist attempt to question the values of modernity in the context of class, race, culture, gender and family and religious values and madness: full of ironies and pathos, done with a blazing and rasping honesty. Needless to say, the quality of cinematography leaves a great deal to be desired. But then when we consider its budget, perhaps that can be forgiven.