French film long has been the special gourmet treat of the well-seasoned film buff — which is why Facets Multimedia’s Fourth Annual Festival of New French Cinema, starting Friday, is an event to make your cinema tastebuds tingle.
France is the country, after all, where movies were first shown (by the Lumiere brothers in 1895), where people take movies more seriously than anywhere else, where “film art” is never considered an oxymoron, and where film artists are respected and indulged in ways that most U.S. filmmakers could only envy.
So, the fourth Facets French fest brings back an old tradition and its newest offshoots — one that stretches all the way from the Lumieres to this year’s top newcomers, Siegfried and Noemie Lvovsky. As with the three other Facets French fests, it taps a wealth of young talent with unfamiliar names but striking films. This year the series introduces the work of almost a dozen new directors, whose films have collectively amassed many prizes on the international festival circuit.
There are 11 Chicago premieres, plus personal appearances by filmmakers Vincent Dieutre (the semiautobiographical sex-and-art diary “Tenebrae Lessons”) and Judith Cahen (the comedy “The Sexual Revolution Did Not Take Place”). Both Cahen and Dieutre will appear for question and answer sessions with their movies.
What is the new batch like? I’ve seen seven, and the best of them — Siegfried’s “Louise (Take Two),” a lively look at Parisian street life starring the enchanting Elodie Bouchez (“Dreamlife of Angels”) and Noemie Lvovsky’s “Life Doesn’t Scare Me,” a bold study of adolescent girls and their rites of passage — are very good indeed. They’re brash, compelling and often vibrant looks at young people in France and how they live now. I also was quite taken with Denis Dercourt’s “Lisa and Andre,” an intriguingly old-fashioned road picture about Catholicism and miracles.
In recent years, alternative French cinema has gotten more technically slick but also more inward, focusing more on the sexual and social problems of small groups of people, usually alienated, in circumscribed communities. Irreverent and lively, they are also sometimes a bit too earnest and self-obsessed.
That isn’t necessarily true of the films here, though. One of them is a gorgeous period film: the tangy Cannes selection, “Love Troika,” set partly in radical political and artistic circles in the giddy, gathering-storm ’30s in Paris. But the more expansive concerns of the politically minded ’60s and ’70s — of directors such as Godard and Costa Gavras — are harder to find. Bittersweet self-examination and emotional miniatures are the order of the day; the sexual has become political.
France is one country where the cinema endlessly renews itself — from Abel Gance to Jean Renoir to Jacques Tati to Francois Truffaut, Agnes Varda, Bertrand Tavernier and Leos Carax — right up to the young directors of this year’s Facets fest. There have always been new cineastes, new directions — and new waves rolling along the shore.
Following are capsule reviews, in chronological order, of the festival films available to critics in advance. All movies are in French, with English subtitles, and all showings will be at Facets Multimedia, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. Tickets: $7 per film ($5 for Facets members). 773-281-9075.
– “Disparus” (“Love Troika”) (star)(star)(star) (Gilles Bourdos; 1998). The battle between Stalinists and Trotskyites during France’s politically explosive ’30s becomes the frame for this pretty, tense period film: an investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Alfred Katz (Gregoire Colin), a young worker-poet and lover of Man Ray’s model Mila (Anouk Grainberg), who vanished during the pre-World War II turbulence before Trotsky’s assassination. Bourdos re-creates that era of surrealists and Communists, Andre Breton and Leon Blum, while focusing on a menage a trois, betrayal and tragedy. Surprisingly good; the treatment is ordinary, but the story is reminiscent of both “Jules and Jim” and “The Conformist.” (7 p.m. Friday; 9 p.m. Monday) — Michael Wilmington
– “Rien a Faire” (“Empty Days”) (star)(star) 1/2 (Marion Vernoux; 1999). A sensitively observed study of an adulterous love affair, between out-of-work French provincials of different classes (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Patrick Dell’Isola), whose main meeting place is the local supermarket. Much admired at the Venice Film Festival; the actors are first-rate and the writing intelligent. But unless you love shopping, it may pall after a while. (9 p.m. Friday; 1 p.m. Sunday) — M.W.
– “Lisa and Andre” (star)(star)(star) (Denis Dercourt; 2000). Stories about Catholic miracles are hard to pull off these days, which is why this film becomes fascinating. It’s a bizarre road movie about a supremely odd couple — a determined, chic and abrasive mother (Isabelle Candelier) and an aging, ailing priest (the wonderful Michel Duchaussoy, also in “Love Troika”), who are thrust together when the mother forces the cleric, at gunpoint, to go on a prayer pilgrimage for her hospitalized, comatose son. The switch: The mother is obsessed with miracles, the priest skeptical. This shouldn’t work, but it does; the lead actors are splendid. (1 p.m. Saturday; 9 p.m. Sunday) — M.W.
– “Petits Arrangements Avec Les Morts” (“Coming to Terms With the Dead”) (star)(star)(star) 1/2 (Pascale Ferran; 1994). Coping with mortality at an early age is the overriding theme of this highly moving first feature, which won a major prize at the1994 Cannes Film Festival. Told in triptych form, it centers on a trio of emotional survivors we first meet sitting on a beach in Brittany, watching a man build a sandcastle. The first tale, and the strongest, is called “Jumbo” and focuses on a 9-year-old boy struggling with the death of his seemingly invincible pal, who once saved him from drowning. The way that the filmmakers play with point-of-view as they delve into the mind of this curious lad is downright Salingeresque. The last two stories, “Francois” and “Zaza” (homage to “Franny” and “Zooey”?), are about siblings who responded in different ways to the death of a sister during their youth, while also dealing with their assigned place in the family, ruled over by their older brother, who is now, ironically, the one making the sandcastle. Ferran’s direction is on-target as she lays out the groundwork for this emotionally complex tale. (3 p.m. Saturday) — John Petrakis
– “Le Ciel, Les Oiseaux Et . . . Ta Mere!” (“Homeboys on the Beach!”) (star)(star)(star) (Djamel Bensalah; 1998). Four young friends stage a fake documentary and win a three-week prize to a French resort community, where their search for adventure and sexual excitement almost invariably turns to rejection, boredom and defeat. A comic riff on the French “project” works such as Mathieu Kassovitz’s “Hate,” the movie gathers impressive momentum and sureness of touch following an uncertain start, though it is marred by some crude sexual and racial stereotypes. A coming-of-age story of nuance and crucial observation, the movie is ultimately saved by the excellent lead work of French TV star Jamel Debbouze and the very funny interplay among the four friends. (5 p.m. Saturday; 9 p.m. Tuesday) — Patrick Z. McGavin
– “Lecons Des Tenebres” (“Tenebrae Lessons”) (star)(star) (Vincent Dieutre; 2000). A sort of diary drama (the title refers to hymns for Holy Week) in which a gay artist travels from Utrecht to Naples to Rome, dividing his time between sex and art museums, constantly reflecting on the meaning of both. Beautifully shot in a Chantal Akerman minimalist style, but amazingly self-absorbed. At one point two nude male lovers hold up a light so they can form Caravaggio compositions; at another, Dieutre recites an alphabetical list of his lovers’ first names, before the music drowns him out around the “N’s.” Dieutre to attend each screening. (7 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday) — M.W.
– “Louise (Take 2)” (star)(star)(star) 1/2 (Siegfried; 1998). Terrifically beguiling and sexy film about young Parisian outsiders moving through an alternative world of petty crime, subway tunnels and not-so-mean streets. Elodie Bouchez, the great smiling gamin of “Dreamlife of Angels,” plays a bohemian daughter who tries to help out a homeless man’s child, joining in some wild rambles with an Arab-French Casanova (Roschdy Zem) and a tough local teen gang. Funny, touching, exciting; the highly charged hand-held camera images give the film tremendous life and energy. (9 p.m. Saturday; 7 p.m. Tuesday) — M.W.
– “Sombre” (star)(star) 1/2 (Philippe Grandrieux; 1998). Extremely disturbing thriller about the dangerous journey of a handsome, scowling serial killer who falls in love with a beautiful virgin. The images are raw, harsh; the style and acting deliberately suggest a cinema verite documentary shot without narration. Powerful, but it leaves a strange and ambiguous — and very unpleasant — emotional aftertaste. (5 p.m. Sunday; 9 p.m. Monday) — M.W.
– “Marie’s Counter” (star)(star)(star) (Sophie Tatischeff; 1998). Employing symbols freely, most notably a beautifully crafted bar counter that has seen its share of love and tragedy over 60 years, director Tatischeff (the daughter of famed director Jacques Tati) navigates potentially hazardous water as she relates this tale of some small-town residents who are reluctant to leave the peace and security of their home village. The story begins in 1932, with the crafting of the counter, and follows the village through Nazi occupation and beyond, all the while focusing on the muted love affair between the bar’s owner and the soft-spoken son of the man who created the counter. There is also a parallel modern story, but it is during the flashbacks that the film gathers its strength. (7 p.m. Sunday) — J.P.
– “La Vie Ne Me Fait Pas Peur” (“Life Doesn’t Scare Me”) (star)(star)(star) 1/2 (Noemie Lvovsky; 1999). Very funny, buoyant and brash, done with often irresistible energy and impudence, this is one of the most unusual, perceptive films about teenage girls to emerge from Europe in several years. Writer-director Lvovsky follows her four rambunctiously charming protagonists through three years of friendship and turmoil — and we actually see the actresses age three years during the passage. Winner of both the Jean Vigo Prize and the Locarno Festival Silver Leopard, this movie announces the arrival of a new, stunningly confident talent. (7 p.m. Monday; 9 p.m. Wednesday) — M.W.
– “La Revolution Sexuelle N’A Pas Eu Lieu” (“The Sexual Revolution Did Not Take Place”) (star)(star)(star) (Judith Cahen; 1999). A very curious, not wholly successful though frequently interesting self-portrait that balances Reichian social and sexual satire with fantasy and wish fulfillment. A young woman (well-played by director Cahen), approaching 30, a member of a radio performance collective, tries desperately to achieve some order and balance in her life. Deploying computer simulation and virtual reality, she projects herself into stylized dream states and alternate fantasy states in an effort to come to reconcile her desire, longing and regret. Cahen switches subjectivity impressively and finds a right balance of self-analysis, irony and dark humor. Cahen to attend each screening. (7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday) — P.Z.M.
