Jeune & jolie (Young & Beautiful) .

It’s strange how a single short scene in a movie can raise that film from being quite good to exceptional. This is exactly what happened in Francois Ozon latest French language offering Jeune & jolie (2013), which was being shown at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre’s Film Club evening, informatively hosted by Brendan Kearney. I won’t spoil your enjoyment of the film by going into detail but just to say the scene involves the ever-attractive Ozon regular Charlotte Rampling.

Brendan introduced the film by telling us that its takes place over the course of a year divided into four seasons from summer to spring each separated by a song by French cultural icon Francoise Hardy the words of which have significance to the narrative. He went on to explain that it’s a story about the loss of innocents, youthful rebellion and coming of age involving a well educated 17 year old girl from a middle class bourgeois family which includes her mother Sylvie (the wonderful Geraldine Paihas), her stepfather Patrick (Frederic Pierrot) and her younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat).

Is Isabelle falling for Georges?

We first observe Isabelle (played superbly by the face of Yves Saint Laurent perfume the 22 year old Marine Vacth) while on holiday with her family in the South of France its here she looses her virginity to a young German lad. After the holiday we discover that home is a large and comfortable flat in Paris and that she attends a rather elite school where we witness the Rimbaud poem ‘We’re not serious when we are 17’ being discussed. So it comes as a bit of a shock that by the autumn she is selling her body under the working name of Lea to rich middle aged and older men in luxurious hotel rooms for 300 euro’s a time. Other than her younger brother the only person she has anywhere near a relationship with is one of her clients Georges whom she sees quite often. But it’s when Georges dies suddenly from heart attack in the middle of a sex session that Isabelle’s life takes a dramatic turn.

 

Ozon regular Charlotte Rampling plays a small but important part in how the story concludes.

Ozon’s character study never really explains why Isabelle turns to prostitution, It’s obviously not for the money, which she hides in a wardrobe, and it does not appear that she does it for the sexual thrill, which leaves her motivations obscure.  What is clear to this viewer is that she leads a voluntary double life that seems to give her no pleasure and leaves her a rather sad and lonely human being who is unable to connect feelings, emotions, love and sex.  It brings to mind other French film’s that deals with the subject of prostitution Elles (2011) and Luis Bunuel’s Belle de jour (1967) that also deals with a woman’s involved in voluntary prostitution. As I said at the beginning it’s the final scene that raises this film to a different level, a film that divided critics but was very well received at the RBCFT.

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 

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).

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.

Le Refuge

Sometimes you don’t realise how many films of a particular director you have actually watched, 43-year-old French director Francois Ozon is a case in point. Having just watched his recently released movie Le Refuge (2009) I was prompted to look back on his previous movies.

Two short films come to mind A Summer Dress (1996), which is about a declining gay relationship that is refuelled in an unexpected way. The second short is also written by Ozon, the 1997 See the Sea which starred Sasha Hails as a young British mother living in a small seaside village on the French coast who takes in a homeless drifter, Marina de Van, while her husband is away on business. Most of his movies cover adult themes including sexual identity and gender. Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) was no exception. Ozon’s screenplay is based on a Rainer Werner Fassbinder play and involves a witty look at sexual relationships, and stars Ludivine Sagnier. Released the same year Under the Sand a melancholy drama nominated for 8 awards and began a collaboration between the British actress Charlotte Rampling and Ozon. Rampling’s character loses her husband of 25 years while sunbathing on a beech. Not knowing whether he has drowned or walked out on her she pretends he is still alive. His biggest commercial success to date is 8 femmes (2002) starring some of the most beautiful female icons of French cinema including Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardent and Emmanuelle Beart. A musical murder mystery taking its inspiration from 1950’s Hollywood. In Swimming Pool (2003) Rampling plays a mystery author who travels to her publisher’s summerhouse for some peace and quiet to finish her latest novel, but she is not prepared for the unexpected arrival of his complicated teenage daughter. The director next movie 5x2 (2004) dissects a romance, moving backwards in time by depicting five key moments in the relationship, but interestingly in reverse order. Time to Leave (2005) centres on a young gay man dying of cancer who is unable to except his condition. Ozon’s first full English language film Angel (2007) was based on a novel by British writer Elizabeth Taylor and follows the story of a poor young girl who climbs up the Edwardian social ladder by writing popular pulp romance novels. This films biggest problem is that the main character is not at all likable; Angel Deverell is thoroughly obnoxious, arrogant, selfish and infuriating but played brilliantly by Romola Garai.

My latest Ozon indulgence is, Le Refuge a tender and unusual love story. Mousse and Louis are a young beautiful couple, rich and very much in love. One day they overdose and when Mousse eventually comes out of her coma she finds that Louis is dead and she is pregnant with his baby. Louis’s family wants nothing to do with her and tries to talk her into an abortion, an idea she immediately rejects. Mousse leaves Paris for an ex lovers empty house by the sea. Several months later Louis’s gay brother Paul joins her in her refuge. This excellent beautifully looking movie stars real life pregnant mother Isabelle Carre who gave birth to a son Antoine on 11th October 2008. Louis-Ronan Choisy, who also composed the wonderful original soundtrack, plays Louis’s brother Paul.