The Kid with a Bike.

Samantha and Cyril search for his father.

We have reached the final film for this seasons Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club. It started back last September with a well-received showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and ended this week with The Kid with a Bike (2011). In between, the season has had its highs and lows. Each of us would no doubt have their favorites. My personnel top feature films would be The Skin I Live In (2011) Drive (2011) My Week with Marilyn (2011) Shame (2011) The Lady (2011)and Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (2011) My prize for the most original film would have to go to Johnny Daukes The Acts of Godfrey (2012), which was also the most enjoyable evening. We also had a selection of documentaries the two best in my humble opinion would have to be The Interrupters (2011) and Girl Model (2011). The best film of the season? We Need to talk About Kevin (2011) for which Tilda Swinton should have won an Academy Award for Best Actress and Lynn Ramsey for Best Director.

The angry boy in red.

Man of leisure Brendan Kearney was our host for the evening and opened his introduction with a question “what was Belgium best known for”, and it was probably not films, I thought chocolate which gave me food for thought. Apparently the country has two distinct languages, the Dutch speaking majority and the French-speaking minority and its cinema has been thriving. Audience attendance for local films, especially Dutch speaking releases have grown considerably.  When you look into this its quite surprising how often Belgium has been involved with many of the films I have seen including The Devils Double (2011) Potiche (2010) Ae Fond Kiss (2004) Amer (2009) Calvaire (2004) Days of Glory (2006) L’Enfant (The Child) (2005) Looking for Eric (2009) Outside the Law (2010) Private Property (2006) Seraphine (2008) and of course A Kid with a Bike (2011).

Let me say at the outset that the this film is nowhere near as sentimental as the poster would have you believe, in fact it could be a British social problem film from a director the like of Basil Dearden, Ken Loach (Kes 1969), Lynn Ramsey (Ratcatcher 1999) or even Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank 2009) to name but a few. 

Directed, produced and written by the Belgium born brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne their latest offering is accentually an unconditional love story about trust between the single young hairdresser Samantha and Cyril, a dejected young, tightly wound, pre-teen boy who has lost his mother, grandmother and has been abandoned to a children’s care home by his father who has also sold the boys beloved silver forked bicycle. Its when Cyril realises that his father has moved from the estate where they lived without leaving a forwarding address that things begin to turn nasty. Like a fairy godmother of old Samantha agrees to have the boy at her own home for weekends, helps him search for his father and buys back his bike. In the process she falls out with her boyfriend when he asks her to choose between him and the boy she chooses the rather wayward Cyril.

Certainly not a sentimental movie.

The film stars the very attractive Belgium actress Cecile de France as Samantha who you would of seen recently in Clint Eastwood’s 2010 supernatural drama Hereafter as well as many French movies including Switchblade Romance (2003) Singer (2006) Orchestra Seats (2006) A Secret (2007) and Mesrine (2008). In his debut feature film eleven-year-old Thomas Doret gives a very good performance as the vulnerable Cyril, certainly a name to watch out for. Cyril’s irresponsible father Guy is played by another well known Belgium actor Jeremie Renier (Potiche 2010, Summer Hours 2008 The Child 2005)

Cecile de France was the Dardenne's first choice for Samantha.

The Dardenne brothers have been quoted as wanting to make a film about a women who helps a boy emerge from the violence that holds him prisoner, change the word violence to anger and you have the film in a nutshell. They also for the first time combined the use of music to help the story unfold and a cracking straightforward naturalistic story it is, with no diversions, and no sub plots. Although, be warned gentleman, its another film where men are second bested by the female characters, Samantha, the Children’s Panel Chairperson and Guy’s boss, all seem better equipped to deal with ‘life’. A very good film choice to end our season and hopefully I will see you all in July for the Darren Conner Commemorative Evening.

In the House.

 

Husband and wife Jeanne and Germain.

There are two things that are fairly certain. Firstly that Francois Ozon always makes interesting and challenging movies. Films like Under the Sand (2000) 8 Women (2002), Swimming Pool (2003), 5x2 (2004), Time To Leave (2005) and Potiche (2010). Secondly Kristin Scott Thomas has rarely made a bad French language film, interchanging between the posh English stereotypical roles in which she seems to be cast while working in Britain or America. In fact her career goes from strength to strength even as the 'older women', she turned 50 in 2010, with France offering her roles that are constantly giving her the opportunity to stretch her impeccable skills as an actress. Films like I've Loved You So Long (2008) Leaving (2009), Sarah’s Key (2011), In Your Hands (2010) and the recent The Woman in the Fifth (2012).

 

Claude develops his obsession with Esther.....

....via tuition from Germain.

What do you get when you mix these two formidable movie talents together? A witty, and somewhat underlyingly sinister thriller that brings to mind the invasion of one’s private space seen in Pasolini's Theorem (1968) and perhaps even Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997). In the House (2012) is a film where your never quite sure if what you see is fact or fiction! Based on a Spanish play The Boy in the Last Row by Juan Mayorga, it opens with French literature teacher and failed writer, Germain (veteran actor Fabrice Luchini last seen as Catherine Deneuve’s husband in Ozon’s Potiche) giving his High School students an essay to write about their activities at the weekend. While marking the normal boring dross he comes across a piece of work that catches his eye composed by the 16 year old, quietly clever but puzzling, Claude Garcia (played by new comer Ernst Umhauer) it tells about his weekend in the house of a fellow student where under the guise of assisting him with ‘math’s’ he attempts to integrate with Rapha’s family mainly we suspect because he has developed an infatuation with his friends beautiful but bored mother Esther (actress, singer and the latest Mrs. Polanski, Emmanuelle Seigner). Germain encourages Claude to continue with his visits to the house and encourages him to go to even further lengths in the hope that it will improve his writing and produce a grand piece of text. The childless Germain is married to Jeanne (Scott Thomas) who runs an art gallery called Minotaur’s Labyrinth on behalf of two identical twins, which includes some strangely bizarre and sexually explicit objects including blow up dolls adorned with masks of political tyrants and dictators!

 

Will Jeanne fall for the charms of the budding young writer? 

A film about story telling where ‘life and literature become indistinguishable’.[1] A French middle class satire that deals with voyeurism and sexual desires of both sexes giving the viewer an incite into repressed bourgeois family life. Again we have a French film that outclasses many English language movies from both sides of the Atlantic with its adult story and some first rate acting from all concerned, but I most give a special mention to Ernst Umhauer whose role as the budding young writer is intoxicating. Not to be missed.

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[1] Philip French The Observer 

Potiche

Francois Ozon latest movie Potiche (2010) has been based on a 1980 stage comedy of the same name. Known as a Boulevard Play, it was this kind of theatre that provided entertainment for the Parisian middle classes, generally dealing with topical satire and carrying out light-hearted attacks on sexual morality, the British equivalent would be the Whitehall farces of Brian Rix. This is the second time Ozon has used this type of play as a basis for a film, the first being 8 femmes and like 2002 film he has populated it with icons of the French cinema, Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu. This new film also contains political themes namely labour unrest and feminist struggles that give this comedy/melodrama a certain amount of depth that was missing from 8 femmes.

It’s France the year’s 1977. Suzanne Pujol (Deneuve) is the submissive, housebound wife of wealthy Robert Pujol, tyrannical managing director of her late fathers successful umbrella factory, a business he rules in a dictatorial manner also equally domineering with both his grown up children. The factory workers go on strike and take Robert hostage, on his his release has a heart attack, Suzanne is persuaded by local mayor and communist MP Maurice Babin (Depardieu), a man she once had a fling with, to manage the factory in Roberts absence. To everyone’s surprise, she proves herself a competent replacement and revitalizes the business as well as giving both her children positions of importance. But when Robert returns from a recuperative cruise in top form he takes exception to what he finds.

Deneuve and Depardieu.

This garish camp farce succeeds in being entertaining, lighthearted and diverting and Ozon has no trouble obtaining great performances from its ensemble cast. The late 1970’s settings are spot on and I think the director’s digs at modern French politics are very well executed, Deneuve character is alleged to be based on Segolene Royal who stood against Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential elections. But it does get quite embarrassing sometimes, for example the dance scene in the Le Badaboum and Suzanne bursting into song at the end of the film (can’t imagine the grocers daughter breaking into song on hearing her election results!) Then there’s the script, which at times can make you squirm. Not to everyone’s taste! I think you have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy this one.

Criminal Lovers.

Francois Ozon second feature film is a psychological thriller that’s comes across like a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Criminal Lovers (1999) stars Natacha Regnier as Alice who persuades one of her more gullible student boyfriends Luc, portrayed by the now very popular French actor Jeremie Renier in only his second feature film, to murder Said a student who Alice accuses of instigating a gang rape. Luc agrees and stabs the boy who Alice has deliberately lured into a honey trap in the school shower. All goes to plan until unbeknown to them they are seen burying their victim in an isolated forest, on the way back to the car they get lost in the woods. Stumbling upon a hermit they discover that this strange man has dug up Said and intends eating the body. Alice is locked in a cellar with only rats for company while the mysterious hermit keeps the nubile young Luc as a sexual plaything.

Alice and Luc admire their handy work!

You just know this is not going to end well!!! Ozon’s mix of sadism, sodomy and cannibalism is an early example of the director’s diverse body of work. A very interesting take on Hansel and Gretel which could be a bit of a shock for these that were attracted to the French director by his latest movie Potiche (2010).