Love Is All You Need

Love Is All You Need is set up as a romantic comedy, and it is pretty much by the numbers. Only the numbers don’t add up to a top-tier successful movie – which has been proven by a weak box office. The film was directed by Susanne Bier – who won an Oscar in 2011 for Best Foreign Language Film with  In a Better World. To give you some idea of what the world’s film industry thinks of Bier; currently she is post-production of a film she directed called Serena which stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper which will open overseas in the fall.

We meet the two leads quite simply. Ida is a hairdresser employed ‘somewhere in Copenhagen’. She’s also been through a mastectomy and chemo for breast cancer. Her physician announces that things look under control (as in remission) but there’s no guarantees. And would she be interested in breast reconstruction. Ida says – no thanks – my husband hasn’t noticed that there’s only one.

But before you decide to stop reading any further – thinking this film is going to be about illness – it really isn’t. Ida looks wonderful in a blonde wig – the chemo has taken her hair. Ida is played by Trine Dyrholm. When she gets home from the hospital she finds her husband frolicking on the living room with a blonde bimbo half his age.

He explains that he was on his lunch hour. And this is Thilde from Accounting.

I don’t know if he should be called a brute, a lout, or just an idiot. Or all three as he tries to blame Ida by claiming that her illness was difficult for him too.

Then we meet Pierce Brosnan as a Philip, a rather successful British importer of fruits and vegetables (of all kinds). He’s kind of a dour guy. He’s never gotten over the death of his wife in a tragic accident years ago. He wears sorrow and sadness as part of his regular ‘look’. When one of the office ladies makes a play for him – he turns her down flat.

You gorgeous, sweet beautiful girl  - this is never going to happen. I’m a guy who has chosen to be by himself. Simple as that.

So Ida and Philip meet at the airport – in a not unexpected fender-bender. And the world is so small that:

1) They are both flying to Italy to attend a wedding 2) His son 3) Her daughter 4) Are marrying each other 5) At Philip’s villa estate overlooking Naples Bay in Sorrento, Italy.

Of course it is hate at first sight – we shouldn’t have expected any thing less. But the moonlight, and the sea, and the lovely flowers can make anyone feel good. Toss in Dean Martin crooning That’s Amore, which despite being something of a cliché, still helps set up a romantic film.

Sleepless Night aka Nuit Blanche

Lately it seems that I’ve been writing a lot of posts about cops and killers, and drugs and deep undercover agents. Blame it on the fact that films I really wanted to see like The Big Wedding, Oblivion, The Internship, and After Earth were all mediocre or worse. So I had to look elsewhere.

When this usually happens, I have a fall-back plan: when in doubt, look  towards films about breaking the law, or law enforcement. There’s something so familiar and comforting about detectives pursuing leads or cinematic shell casings falling in slow motion; you know,  like wearing a favorite sweater or tee-shirt. I’ve long since understood the real meaning of case files, full metal jackets, and I don’t necessarily find that time spent on stakeouts is tedious.

So how about one more – Sleepless Night aka Nuit Blanche. This time it is French cops, and French drug dealers. In Paris. The film opens with a heist. Two guys in a car, each wearing a balaclava to cover their faces, are going to take down a drug shipment in another vehicle. Things don’t go exactly right – a gunfight breaks out, one of the drug guys gets killed, and one other bad guys escapes. But , despite the hiccups, it is mission accomplished. They get the drugs, but of the two guys who pulled the job, one suffers a knife wound.

We later come to find out that these guys who did the heist are cops. We also come to find out that they were recognized. The lead cop, Vincent, played by Tomer Sisley, who’s middle name might be ‘Intense’, gets a call from the owner of the drugs – a night club owner called Jose Marciano. And his middle name might be ‘Sleazy’.

For simplification – translated from the French to the film’s English subtitles to a familiar from TV, street vernacular:

Jose: Yo, Vincent, this is Jose Marciano. I want my stuff back.
Vincent: I dunno what you are talking about -
Jose: I got your kid. We picked him up outside of his school. Gimme my stuff, and you get your son back…

Serge Riaboukine as Jose Marciano

Do you need any more of an intro?

Renoir

Directed by Gilles Bourdos, the film Renoir is set in Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France, where famed French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir spent the summer of 1915. He’s already an old man, wheelchair bound, and suffering greatly from rheumatoid arthritis. His home and studio (atelier) is set there in the south of France, and Renoir is supported by a staff of women who take care of him and his young teenage son. Renoir’s wife had passed away recently.

We will come to learn that Renoir’s staff is composed of women who were hired on originally as models and stayed on to become maids, or hired as maids and then became models. Renoir had two older sons both of whom were currently engaged as participants in World War I which raged on further to the north in France.

Enter a beautiful young woman, Andrée (called Dedee) and played by the stunning Christa Theret.She’s smart, she’s calculating, she’s aggressive and Renoir is impressed. She not only becomes his model, but she also becomes his muse or inspiration.

That’s the end of Act I.

The Hunt – Day 8 at the Sarasota Film Festival

The Hunt aka Jagten, arrived in time for the 8th day of the 2013 Sarasota Film Festival. The film carried with it a billing as a top flight movie, and had a number of distinct film awards in its kit bag. Among the baubles were a Best Actor Award for Mads Mikkelsen from the Cannes Film Festival and a couple of major European Awards for Thomas Vinterberg who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Tobias Lindholm. So my expectations were high, as were those who were lucky enough to land a ticket. The theater was sold out.

The film is set in the present and Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a kindergarten teacher in a small Danish community. That’s right – a kindergarten teacher. And I’m not kidding. The man who delivered an unforgettable cinematic blow to the Bondian jewels belonging to Daniel Craig, plays a school teacher.  Ah-nuld played one too, and now Mads. Get over it.

He’s pretty much of a normal and regular guy as the film opens. He’s off on a weekend of hunting, drinking, smoking with his pals. You know – boys will be boys And Van Morrison provides the music with Moondance. Lucas is as much loved by his male pals, as he is loved by the youngsters in the school. He’s separated from his wife and they’re going through some coordination difficulties over visitation rights for their teen-aged son Marcus. Lucas is a good-looking guy, and another teacher (Nadja) at the school sets her sights on him.

But then something happens, and based on what one of Lucas’s students, Klara, reported to Grethe, the school’s headmistress, Lucas quickly falls under a cloud of suspicion. The charges are dark, disturbing, and totally untrue. We know that he is innocent, because we know exactly where little Klara got her information from.

The film is not about an investigation, and is not about any kind of prosecution. What the film is about is the fact that an innocent man’s life is about to be ruined. Not by the law, or the cops, or the courts – but by public opinion.

Mikkelsen is simply superb in his role. He broods, and often his silences are so very telling. He underplays his role. There are simply no histrionics. He will suffer mentally as the townsfolk first look at him askance, then with disgust. He goes from being if not a pillar in the community, then he is at least a well liked and respected man – to a pariah.

The Wall (Die Wand)

The Wall (Die Wand) is an intriguing film that was screened at the Sarasota Film Festival on Saturday April 6th. From the SFF’s own film guide we get this description:

Based on the novel of the same name by Marlen Haushofer, THE WALL follows Martina Gedeck as the nameless protagonist “Woman”. The story unfolds in flashbacks as Woman writes to keep her sanity. It all starts when she is out walking with her friend’s dog Lynx and they both bump into an invisible wall. Every living thing beyond this boundary is eerily frozen and the Woman soon feels like the last human being on Earth. But she isn’t alone, as the affected area includes a range of creatures – the dog, a pregnant cow, a cat, and other animals. Has the world gone mad or has time suddenly stopped.

Directed by Julian Roman Polsler, the above is just one description of the film. Shot high in the forests and alpine meadows in Austria, the film is spectacular to see. If trekking or hiking are your fortes, then this film is something you might want to see.

Encountering the wall for the first time

But you should know that the film lacks characters and lacks dialogue. Aside from Martina Gedeck as Woman, there are only three other actors in the film and the sum total of their screen time is about three minutes. Think of Tom Hanks in Cast Away and you are approaching a comparable film.

Only Hanks was in an airplane crash, and he was rescued, and he returned to civilization. The Wall isn’t so clearly explained. In fact, neither the character, nor the writer, nor the director offer any explanations at all.

The woman is set up in a well stocked small hunting lodge, and then later discovers a cabin much higher up in the mountains. This alpine meadow is actually above the clouds, and as such it is simply in an amazing place.

But if you want a tidy conclusion where everything is explained and accounted for, you won’t find it in this film. Simply the film is an allegory, and it is up to each person to make his own interpretation.

Delicacy

One dictionary definition of the word ‘delicacy’ might include: something delightful or pleasing, especially a choice food considered with regard to its rarity, costliness, or the like: Caviar is a great delicacy.

Another could be: a sensitive and careful way of dealing with a difficult situation.

Discarding the first definition would lead you to the second and you’d arrive at the 2011 film, Delicacy. starring Audrey Tautou. The paper sleeve for the Delicacy DVD contained a description written by the Netflix staff:

Tragic circumstances create an opportunity for new love in this romantic drama when a young woman, still grieving over the death of her husband years ago, is slowly brought out of her shell by a caring and courtly co-worker.

Tautou stars as Nathalie, who as the film begins, sells programs at a Parisian dramatique theatre. But romance arrives and quickly. A guy (Francois) is having coffee and notices Nathalie as she comes in and sits down at another table.

Francois: [As Nathalie peruses the menu] If she’s ordinary and orders coffee, I’ll be disappointed. Ditto for juice. But if she orders apricot juice – then I’ll speak to her.
Waiter: Are you ready to order?
Nathalie: I’ll have coffee … no make that juice … apricot juice …

And voila, soon Nathalie and Francois are married and hosting a dinner party for her parents and his. All of whom are wishing for grandchildren. Before coffee and dessert are even finished, Nathalie and Francois excuse themselves to go off to make a baby.

Did I mention that this romantic film is a bit off-beat?

But Francois meets his destiny when he’s jogging and an automobile enters his space. Nathalie is now a widow. Three years pass. She’s still a widow and has done well in her career. She an exec for a Swedish firm in Paris that is promoting tourism in Sweden.

Word around the office is that Nathalie has no life other than work. And it’s been three years since Francois died. Her boss, Charles, has had his eye on her for a while. And yes, he’s married.

Did I mention that this is a French romantic drama where affairs are the norm?

But she makes it clear, at a dinner with Charles – that she’s NOT attracted to him. And at some point in time, when she’s ready to move on, it still WON’T be with him.

Boom.

The Day I Saw Your Heart

Hmm, another day, and another country. Ever been to Paris? You say you’d love to, but so far, you haven’t done it, is that right? Peur de ne pas. That’s French for ‘fear not’. We will get you there today.

Our film is called The Day I Saw Your Heart and stars Michel Blanc and Melanie Laurent who I loved in Inglorious Basterds and Beginners which was written and directed by Mike Mills.

This 2011 film’s French title is Et Soudain Tout le Monde me Manque, which translates into English as And Suddenly I Miss Everyone. Seemingly that has nothing to do with Today I Saw Your Heart. Now neither of those titles gives you any inkling about what the film is about. But I’ll help you out on that score too.

TDISYH is a comedy drama with Laurent as Justine Dhrey, a Radiology Technologist. She’s a nearly 30-year-old woman who is unable to finish anything she starts, or said another way, has a fear of commitment. Her father, Eli Dhrey, is 60 and has all the pointers or indications of being an immature adult, an asshole, and something of an insensitive lout. Think Seinfeld’s George Costanza character plus 30 years and you’ll have your man.

These two are not quite estranged. But apparently Justine has a long-simmering distrust/dislike of her father that goes back to when she was just three, and her father disappointed her. On top of that, Eli would soon leave home, when Justine was just a child, to try to become a globe-trotting jazz musician. After a lengthy tour of the world’s finest jazz hot spots,  he returned home and when his father was getting elderly and infirm, Eli took over the family business in the rag trade. Meaning he dealt in schmatas, or the kind of cheap clothing you wouldn’t be caught dead in. In this field, Eli was a success.

Suzanne is pregnant

There’s a family gathering: Justine, her half-sister Dom and her husband Bertrand, Eli, and his 2nd wife, Suzanne. It is at this time that Eli announces that he and Suzanne are expecting a child. This doesn’t go over well at all.

Oh no! A kid with My Dad as its Dad….Madness!

Eli says, That went Ok…but Suzanne’s face says otherwise

Justine has experienced first hand Eli’s failures as a parent. Dom and Bertrand have struggled mightily because they’ve been trying for two years to have a child, and Dom hasn’t conceived yet. So neither of the daughter/sisters are the least bit enthused with this news.

That sets the stage. But wait. There’s more. While Justine works taking MRI images, X-Rays, and other kinds of internal scans, she’s really an artist at heart.