Sällskapsresan eller Finns det svenskt kaffe på Grisfesten?

For those of you not knowing anything about this Swedish film - it's nothing to know!
Yet I will continue writing:
The film was made by one of Swedens most well known comedians, 'children-TV-entertainers' and artists/painters, Lasse Åberg.

It's the first in a series of films, telling the story about Stig-Helmer (Lasse Åberg), an extremely 'geeky', bumbling person who for the first time in his life is going to travel abroad, having chosen the Canary Islands (as most Swedes during not least the 1970's and 80's).
First he visits his doctor who, after examining him, gives him a package he wants delivered to a person on the island. The package contains 50 000 SEK and as it's illegal to bring these money out of the country without paying customs duty, Stig-Helmer is in danger without knowing it.
During the journey, his suitcase with the package disappears and now the doctor and his friend also starts to worry, the friend believing that Stig-Helmer has stolen the money.
After this our 'anti-hero' is experiencing a lot of adventures, not least after having met a Norwegian friend, Ole (Jon Skolmen) and two women - 'Majsan' (Lottie Ejebrant) and Siv (Kim Anderzon) - the latter only being on the island in order to get laid, Ole to get drunk.

I don't know who the persons are having rated this film at 7,1 at IMDb but on the other hand this site is not reliable when it comes to this kind of rating. I would almost change the figures around: 1,7. If not that low, at least not more than 3.
The film partly contains humour only Swedes and Scandinavians can understand and - perhaps - appreciate, partly dated humour of a kind I don't find amusing at all.
It's perhaps because I don't belong to the segment of the population having made this kind of 'booze cruise' and not experiencing all the degrading events among the plebs.
Let's say that we both - Aurore and I - laughed three times during the 107 minutes the film lasted. As this is a comedy, it's a bit alarming. Maybe we lack sense of humour?

I believe that Åbergs ambition has been to mix different comedy styles together, taking something from Tati, something from Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Stan & Laurel etc. but in contrast to them, this is not at all made in an intelligent way. Nul, comme on dit en français!

Polisse

This film by Maïwenn has a subject being very 'inflammatory', if one can put it that way.
Abuse against children is by most people felt as being the worst crime one can commit, partly because children often are totally defensless, partly because the abuse is committed by grown ups in whom children put their trust. This in combination with the fact that children all over the world - whether in economically developed countries or not - are being the victims of often very cruel treatments, to say the least (including torture perpetrated both in war and during 'civil' circumstances or other forms of physical or psychological abuse), creates a lot of emotions around these crimes. This is natural and of course very good as it shows that we have not yet become totally dehumanized in the sense that we can't engage ourselves emotionally. This could be a risk in societies where money and science often cooperate to temper or even silence the natural, logic reactions to these crimes, namely to eradicate the perpetrators from the surface of the Earth.
The director Maïwenn got the idea making this film when she saw a documentary about the 'Child Protection Unit' ('Brigade de Protection des Mineurs') in France. She was given the chance to follow this unit and through these experiences she created this drama.

What we get to see is how a unit like this work and what their goals are but also the different emotions surfacing when they witness children being ill-treated, perhaps meeting the perpetrators who, in some cases, are totally coolheaded, not at all feeling any guilt for what they have done.
How can one endure these confrontations without loosing your emphathy for the victims by shuting off your feelings and at the same time, not wanting to beat the perpreatators to death?!
It's a thin line you have to walk and I know that not all people would be able to handle these experiences in a way that would make them wanting to continue.

This not least as there are no excuses for mistreating your children or others, not least in the terrible way this can be and have been done.
Even if psychologists, other therapists and social scientists have tried to find 'explanations' to unforgivable behaviour - and this only for professional reasons - I have never heard any 'valid' argument being able to explain why these violent acts are committed.
The only explanation is of course that we are humans and as such we have these traits in our personalities but on the same time we have the responsibility to balance them.
If one don't believe in some form of predestination - and I don't - every single human being must be held responsible for the acts he or she commits, even those being diagnosed with some sort of psychological disorder. Why also the latter?
Because these diagnosis are such that they can never be proven right or wrong, meaning that we don't know what goes on in the brain of a person having some kind of psychological or psychiatric diagnosis and there is nothing indicating that people suffering from a psychosis, are not able to estimate the consequences of their actions.

Another aspect this film takes on is the fact that children or adolescents also can lie about these things and this is displayed during a conversation with a young girl. The consequences of these lies - for those being targeted - can of course be disastrous.

Further more: Therapists seeking to determine what a child has gone through, sometimes 'helps' the child in constructing images and explanations not being in congruence with the truth.
This is not explicitly shown in this film but I know through different reportages in TV that they sometimes put arguments or explanations in the mouth of a child when being convinced that something has happened.

The different discussions among the police officers around the work is also well displayed I think, showing that the policemen and -women working with these issues do not always agree neither on how to proceed with the work nor how to tackle different tasks.
This is of course very natural but sometimes one might imagine that they all act as one (wo)man having the one goal before their eyes.

I saw one critic (in the Guardian I think) write that he found the acting being exaggerated ("overacting") and the emotional outbursts to artificial.
I don't agree even though there was one scene between two female police officers, that tended to become a 'two angry cats fighting'-scene but on the whole I think that the feelings were correctly described.
I believe myself that I would find it hard to work with this kind of tasks as I easily would become rancourous (to say the least) against the perpretators.

The end is very surprising - at least I thought so - and dramatic.

One have to admire the police officers and other staff being able to continue such a tough work.

Among the actors we find: Karin Viard, Joey Starr, Marina Foïs, Nicolas Duvauchelle and Maïwenn herself.









(Poster copied from: http://www.cinemactu.com/Cinema/Polisse/Polisse.jpg)

(Poster 2 copied from: http://www.artistikrezo.com/images/stories/redac3/Stephen_Warbeck_-_bande_originale_de_Polisse_film_de_Maiwenn_Le_Besco_.jpg)

Mördaren - En Helt Vanlig Person

Svenska (English below):

Denna Arne Mattsson film är en Agatha Christie-inspirerad thriller som dessutom utspelas på ett tåg. Till detta kommer ett antal psykologiska individporträtt, som tillsammans bidrar till ett ganska effektfullt slut på denna historia. Filmen innehåller också en hel del humor, ibland t.o.m. av något 'slapstick'-liknande karaktär.

Vi träffar en ganska brokig skara människor som alla blir involverade i de drama eller dramer som utspelas inom tågvagnarnas väggar.
Konduktören - spelad av Allan Edvall (och där jag instinktivt tänker på Lars von Triers 'Europa' och konduktören där, interpreterad av Ernst-Hugo Järegård) - vaknar upp i ett mycket sparsamt, kulissartat, möblerat rum. Man vet inte om det är i hans kammare på tåget, i hans hem eller i en dröm.
Som voice-over hör vi skådespelaren Heinz Hopf som, i en filosoferande stil, talar om 'mördaren' som individ, vad som kan ligga bakom lusten att mörda, vilka och hur han/hon väljer att mörda.
Härefter får vi se hur ett par unga kvinnor, efter sina toalettbesök, blir överfallna av någon som slänger av dem från tåget. Nu börjar självfallet alla undra vem som är den skyldige och bland resenärerna finns givetvis ett antal misstänkta individer.
Vi stiftar bekantskap med en militär med alkoholproblem, Adolf Hellberg i Lars Ekborgs gestalt, Törbjörn Grälle (Karl-Arne Holmsten), resande i "special-litteratur" (som visar sig vara pornografi) som hyser ett alltför stort intresse för skådespelerskan Karin Swan (Elsa Prawitz, Arne Mattssons hustru), ett intresse av 'stalker'-karaktär där de erotiska undertonerna är ganska tydliga.
Till detta persongalleri kan adderas en f.d. sjöman vid namn Vilford Berg (Curt Masreliez) och den ganske tafatte och 'pojkaktige' (med betoning på omogne) Valfrid Andersson spelad av Björn Gustafsson (inte helt olika 'Dynamit-Harry'). Förutom dessa finns ett antal mer eller mindre suspekta individer som vi inte vet var vi har.
De talar dock alla om "tågmördaren" och intresset riktas mot ett antal individer förutom de ovan nämnda.
Direktören Assarsson (Frej Lindqvist) är en 'plastrocks'-fetischistisk person och plastrockar har förekommit eller setts i samband med försvinnandena.
Mats (Tore Bengtsson) har suttit i fängelse och förefaller allmänt nervös och psykiskt instabil, inte minst när han ansätts av Gregor Hult (Heinz Hopf), en man med missbruksproblem som tydligen känner Mats sedan tidigare.
Någon drar i nödbromsen och tåget stannar varvid de flesta passagerarna tar sig de hundra metrarna till ett stationshus dit kommissarie Tryggve Holm (den förträfflige Erik Hell) till slut infinner sig och metodiskt börjar utfråga de olika individerna om deras förehavanden.

Efter mycket om och men och en ganska komisk dressinfärd med tågkonduktören och ett par passagerare, bl.a. den stele militären som försöker ta kommandot i gruppen, avslöjas den verkligen mördaren, om det nu verkligen är han/hon?

Miljöerna är bra filmade och de är i mycket en film noir-inspirerad mise-en-scéne där de mystiska försvinnandena och de komplicerade omständigheterna interfolieras av dunkla miljöer och ibland intressanta närbilder av skådespelarna.
I stort är skådespeleriet mycket bra även om jag tycker att Björn Gustafssons karaktär är lite väl karikerad och Karl-Arne Holmsten tenderar att hamna i en form av 'töntighet' som ibland kan utmärka hans skådespeleri, dock inte samma töntighet som Gustafsson.
Hopf är en härlig skådespelare och så även Elsa Prawitz i sin roll.
Tore Bengtssons Mats blir lite överdriven i sitt neurotiska spel, han är ingen Woody Allen.

I det stora hela dock en sevärd film och något annorlunda än Mattssons 'färgdeckarfilmer': 'Damen i svart', 'Mannekäng i rött' och 'Ryttare i blått' bland andra.


English:

This Arne Mattsson-film is to some extent an Agatha Christie-inspired thriller, furthermore being enacted on a train. To this is added psychological portraits of the different individuals, contributing to a rather catchy end to this story. The film also contains a lot of humour, sometimes of almost slapstick-like character.

We get to meet a rather miscellaneous group of people who all become more and more involved in the drama or dramas being enacted within the walls of the railway carriages.
The train conductor - actor Allan Edvall (and here I instinctively come to think of Lars von Trier's 'Europa' and the train conductor there, actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård) - rouses in a very frugal, coulisse-like room. One don't know if this is his room at the train or in his home or if it's a dream.
As a voice-over we hear the actor Heinz Hopf who, in a philosophizing way, talks about 'the murderer' as an individual, what lies behind the lust to kill, whom and how he/she chooses to murder.
Hereinafter we get to see how a couple of young women, after having visited the toilet, are being attacked and thrown of the train.
Now everyone starts to wonder who the perpetrator is and among the passengers there are of course a number of suspect individuals.
We meet the military with alcohol problems, Adolf Hellberg (Lars Ekborg); Torbjörn Grälle (Karl-Arne Holmsten), a travelling salesman, selling "special literature" (being pornography) who is a bit too interested in the actress Karin Swan (Elsa Prawitz, the wife of director Arne Mattsson), an interest of almost 'stalker'-like proportions where the erotic 'undertones' are rather obvious.
In addition to this we also meet the former sailor Vilford Berg (Curt Masreliez) and the rather awkward and 'childish' (immature) Valfrid Andersson (Björn Gustafsson).
Besides these men and women (or woman) there are a number of more or less suspect individuals, where it's hard to define where they stand and what intentions they have.
They all talk about the "train murderer" and the interest is focused towards a number of persons, besides those mentioned above.
The manager Assarsson (Frej Lindqvist) is a 'plastic coat-fetishist' and plastic coats has been spotted in connection to the disappearances.
Mats (Tore Bengtsson) has been imprisoned and seems very nervous and psychological unstable, not least when he is beset by Gregor Hult (Heinz Hopf), a man with drug problems, obviously knowing Mats before they met on the train.
Someone pulls the emergency brake and the train stops whereby most passengers walks some one hundred meters to a station building where inspector Tryggve Holm (the eminent Erik Hell) finally turns up and methodically starts to question the different supects about their whereabouts.
After a while - intermissioned by a rather comical trolley-journey with the train conductor and a couple of passengers, among them the stiff military who tries to command the others - the real murderer is exposed, if it's really him/her?

The milieus are very well photographed and to a great extent it's a film noir-inspired mise-en-scéne where the mystical disappearances and complicated circumstances are being interleaved by obscure environments and sometimes interesting close-ups of the actors.
On the whole the acting is fine even if I felt that Björn Gustafsson's character is somewhat caricatured and Karl-Arne Holmsten tend to become a bit campy, sometimes significative for his acting, although not as 'nerdy' as Gustafsson.
Hopf is a wonderful actor and so also Elsa Prawits in her role. Tore Bengtsson's 'Mats' is somewhat exagerrated in his neurotic acting, he is no Woody Allen.

A largely watchable film and somewhat different from Mattsson's 'colour-detective-stories: 'Damen i svart' ('The Lady in Black'); 'Mannekäng i rött' ('Mannequin in Red') and 'Ryttare i blått' ('Rider in Blue') among others.

(Photo poster copied from: http://s4.discshop.se/img/front_large/61969/mordaren_en_helt_vanlig_person.jpg)

Mastermind (Wallander)

Svenska (English below):

Detta är en i raden av filmatiseringar baserade på Henning Mankells böcker om polisen Wallander, denna gång med Krister Henriksson i huvudrollen.

I denna episod hittar man en död kvinna i en lägenhet, tömd på sitt blod och hängande upp och ned från taket.
Detta i kombination med att polisen Martinssons dotter försvinner och man i hennes rum finner stora mängder blod, gör att detta kommer Wallander och hans män nära inpå livet.
Dessutom får man uppgifter om att det hittats ett avhugget huvud i en sjö men det visar sig vara ett huvud från en skyltdocka. Har detta med fallet i övrigt att göra?
I övrigt tycks också gärningsmannen eller -kvinnan veta allt om vad polisen företar sig och Wallander upptäcker själv att han är bevakad från huset mittemot samt att någon har tagit sig in i hans lägenhet.
Vem ligger bakom allt detta och varför? Det är självfallet den logiska frågan och i detta fall följt av frågan, kan det vara någon inom poliskåren?

Detta anses vara den bästa eller en av de bästa Wallanderfilmatiseringarna och den är riktigt sevärd men det går ändå inte att jämföra med de bästa amerikanska polisfilmerna och det har inte att göra med att det skulle vara mer action eller våld i dessa, utan det finns ett annat driv i berättandet som gör dem mer spännande (inte alla förstås men genomsnittligt sett).
Inte minst om det är regissörer som David Fincher som ansvarar för gestaltningen av dem.
Nu får vi snart se vad Fincher har lyckats åstadkomma av Millenium-filmerna (som ännu inte visats i Frankrike där vi bor).

Regissör: Peter Flinth. En av skådespelarna har också med Millenium att göra: Michael Nyqvist. Numer med internationell erfarenhet via sin medverkan i 'Mission: Impossible - Protocol Phantôme'.

Engelska:

This is one in a row of screen adaptations, based on the books by Henning Mankell about the poliseman Wallander, this time with Krister Henriksson in the leading role.

In this episode one find a dead woman in an apartment, emptied on blood, hanging upside down from the seeling.
This in combination with the fact that the policeman Martinsson's daughter disappears with the police finding great quantities of blood in her room, tend to make this case creep under the skin of the police force.
In addition to this one get a phone call about a disembodied head, but when controling this it shows itself being a head from a dummy. Does this has anything to do with the case as such?
As for the rest, the perpetrator also seems to know everything the police undertakes doing and Wallander discovers that he is being monitored from the house on the other side of the street and that someone has broken into his apartment.
Who is behind this and why? That is the logical, obvious question, in this case followed by the question whether or not it could be someone within the police force?

This is regarded being the best or one of the best screen adaptations of the Wallander stories and it's worth seeing but it still can't be compared to the best American police films.
This has nothing to do with the fact that there are more 'action' or violence in those but that there is a certain energy pushing them forward, making them more thrilling (not all of course but on an average level).
This not least if directors like David Fincher is responsible for the interpreation.
We'll soon see what David Fincher has succeeded doing with the Millenium films (not being screened in France where we live).

Director: Peter Flinth. One of the actors also having been involved in the Millenium films: Michael Nyqvist. Nowadays with international experience from film through his participation in 'Mission: Impossible - Protocole Phantôme'.

Bitter Moon

Roman Polanski is responsible for this 'crime passionnel'-drama where one can trace some influences from 'Ultimo tango a Parigi' ('The Last Tango in Paris'/'Le dernier Tango à Paris') by Bertolucci (among other cinematic and literary influences).

In this quartett by Polanski we meet a British 'gentleman' by the name of Nigel Dobson (Hugh Grant) and his wife Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas), a perfect and somewhat boring and bored couple on a cruise, heading for India.
They in turn meet Oscar (Peter Coyote) and his French wife Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner).
Oscar is a writer never having been published but he still believes that this soon will happen when the world (of publishers) notices his genious.
His wife doesn't seem to have any other occupation than taking care of her husband, not least as he is in a wheelchair.
All of a sudden Oscar starts to tell Nigel the story about his life with Mimi, a rather cruel story about a sado-masochistic couple living out their dreams and nightmares. Nigel is to polite to refuse listening and on the same time this, in a metaphorical sense, 'Victorian' man, is curious and the stories arouse and excites him. This to such a degree that he forgets his wife who starts to flirt with an Italian Don Juan.
Oscar tells Nigel how he met Mimi by chance and how he in her found a sex partner willing to try almost everything within the sexual field and ready to push the boundaries further and further, gradually humiliating herself, even in public.
Oscar is gradually getting tired of her devotion and when he wants to leave her, she begs him in a degrading way to stay. He does so and gives her what she obviously wants, namely sadistic scorn and abuse until she's only a shadow of her former self.
He finally fools her and abandons her on a flight to Martinique, after having promised Mimi a form of 'rehabilitation' and 'real' and tender love.
Oscar is later having a car acccident and Mimi returns, visiting him at the hospital and there she makes him act in a way that worsens his handicap and renders him dependent both on the wheelchair and Mimi.
The latter - after them being married - now starts to abuse Oscar and meets with other men when she wants to, without him being able to do anything about it.
After this story the evening on the boat continues with a drama between the four, ending in tragedy or perhaps a logic finale.

In spite of the attempts to create an erotic and suspensful ambience (not succeeding in doing so though), I think that the screenplay lacked profundity and interesting turns.
The 'revenge' motive when Mimi treats her husband as he had treated her, is all too foreseeable and not at all surprising but rather 'flat' as idea.
I had expected a much more interesting plot than this, wherefore the film becomes rather tedious.
This in spite of good actors. On the other hand, not even a good actor can save a poor screenplay, not always anyway.

The Terror

Using Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson in a film called 'The Terror' is rather ingenious as these two actors have personified a lot of different characters through their carrers but are both, mostly, remembered for their 'horror' or psychopath roles.

Roger Corman is said to be the director (and producer) but according to different sources, parts of this film were shot by Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill and Jack Nicholson.
Corman also uses material earlier used in other AIP productions, one of them being 'The Haunted Palace'. This is very Corman indeed.

The story is set in 1806 and we get to meet a 'French' soldier Andre Duvalier (I didn't know that Jack Nicholson was French).
Weary after the war during Napoléon, he loses his consciousness, falling of his horse but is saved by a mysterious young woman by the mane of Helene (Sandra Knight).
He is brought to a house where another, rather strange elderly woman - Katrina (Dorothy Neumann) - takes care of him.
When trying to reach Helene, our 'hero' Duvalier gets the impression that she is a woman that sometimes transforms herself into a hawklike bird. Is it a dream or reality?
Duvalier starts to ask the elderly woman questions about the castle he has seen but she is reluctant to say anything about it. After a while she tells him about the Baron - Victor Frederick Von Leppe (Boris Karloff) - living alone in the castle but she advice against going there.
Duvalier does the opposite and encounter the Baron who initially doesn't want to let him in but Duvalier threatens to come back with his troops and then the Baron bid him entré.

Inside the castle Duvalier discovers paintings of a woman that looks like Helene and when he asks the baron who she is, the latter answers that the paintings depict his - since long - dead wife, Ilsa.
Duvalier insists that he has met her and that she bears an exact ressemblence of the woman in the paintings.

After some 'interrogation' from Duvalier's side, the Baron tells him that he had found his wife in the arms of another man and killed them both. Duvalier is not totally convinced though.

At the same time we get to know that the elderly lady who took care of Duvalier is actually a witch and she seems to control both the young woman Helene and the bird and perhaps the Baron's wife Ilse, if this is not the same person as Helene.

The man who was killed - if he was killed - together with the Baron's wife Ilse, was the son of the witch, according to her. Is this true or who is her son?

Ilse haunts the Baron - or is it just his imagination or the influence from the witch - and urges him to kill himself so that they can be united in death.
A bewildering experience is what the young soldier Duvalier is going to live through - if he lives through it?
There are some interesting parts in this film, making you searching for answers. The enigma around who is who and what once actually happened and what is happening in the very moment when we get to meet all this characters, are of course created to confuse the viewer.
Nicholson's character is almost like a brave little tin soldier, a man with a noble heart, as noble as one can be when being a soldier, that is to say murderer.
Karloff's Baron is not at all particularly scary and not at all as 'mad' as he could have become, if the director had wanted to.
The witch is in fact the most intriguing person as we don't get to know much about this woman, who she really is, what her objectives are etc.
Stefan (Dick Miller), the valet of the Baron is a man who struggles with his conscience and his past, not knowing if his loyalty against the Baron really is the right path to follow.

At a whole a rather harmless story where the frightening effects are not as frightening as they should be in a 'horror movie' like this but the film had its charm though.

(Photo Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson copied from: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0588241/)
(Photo Sandra Knight and Jack Nicholson copied from: http://www.grindhousedatabase.com/images/Jack-nicholson-the-terror.jpg)

Svengali

Svenska (English below):

Detta var en film som Aurore somnade ifrån. Visserligen såg vi den mycket sent och vi hade haft en lång dag men det var inte endast detta som skapade gäspningarna.

Svengali (John Barrymore) är en "music maestro" som via hypnos kan kontrollera människor och inte minst den kvinna han är förälskad i och som han tar som sin elev.
Innan detta möte, övertygar han en annan kvinna att lämna sin man för att gifta sig med honom. Detta eftersom denna kvinna - som också är elev hos Svengali - är en mycket förmögen person. När hon dock meddelar att hon lämnat sin make, hånar Svengali henne och detta leder till att hon tar sitt liv.
Nu finner han alltså nästa, ovan nämnda, offer - Trilby O'Farrell (Marian Marsch) - och genom sin hypnos får han henne att sjunga som hon aldrig kunna sjunga tidigare.
Detta leder dem till turnéer, framgångar och - inte minst - pengar.
Dock lyckas han inte vinna hennes hjärta fullt ut.
Samtidigt är den unge Billee förälskad i Trilby och egentligen hon i honom men genom Svengali's hypnotiska makt, känner hon inte igen Billee när han kommer för att förklara sin kärlek gång efter annan.
Två av Billee's vänner försöker också hjälpa till.

Slutet blir långtifrån lyckligt, om man nu inte tycker att en hinsides tillvaro för två personer som inte alls är menade som par men som i eftervärlden förenas, kan anses som ett lyckligt slut.
Kanske var de menade för varandra? Det kanske endast är jag som inte kan se de band som egentligen förenar dem.

Filmen bygger på en gotisk roman med samma namn skriven av George du Maurier.
Eftersom jag inte är bekant med boken kan jag inte säga hur väl filmen följer förlagan men det man kan säga är att spelet är överdrivet, att figurerna är karikerade.
Inte minst gäller detta Svengali själv som är en klassisk antisemitisk karikatyr av en penninghungrig jude.
Inte en film att rekommendera trots Barrymore.

English:

This was a film that Aurore slept away from.
Certainly we saw it very late in the evening/night and we had had a long day but it wasn't only these circumstances that created the yawnings.

Svengali (John Barrymore) is a "music maestro" who through hypnosis is able to control people and not least the woman he is in love with and who he takes on as a pupil.
Before this meeting, he convinces another woman to leave her husband in order to marry Svengali. This as the woman - also a pupil to Svengali - is a very wealthy person.
When she announces that she has left her husband, Svengali ridicule her and this leads her to take her life.
Now he finds his next victim, mentioned above - Trilby O'Farrell (Marian Marsch) and through his hypnosis he gets her to sing as she has never sung before.
This leads to tours, success and - not least - money.
He doesn't however succeed in fully gaining her heart.
At the same time the young Billee is in love with Trilby and actually she in him but through Svengali's hypnotical power, she doesn't recognize Billee when he, time after another, tries to explain his love for her.
Two of Billee's friends try to help.

The end is far from happy, if one doesn't regard that a life beyond with two individuals not being meant for each other as a couple but who in the afterworld are united, is regarded as a happy end? Maybe they were meant for each other and maybe it's just me being unable to see the common bonds, uniting the two?

The film is built on a gothic novel with the same name, written by George du Maurier.
As I'm not familiar with the book, I can't tell how well the film follows the original but what I can say is that the acting is exaggerated, the characters caricatured.
This goes not least for Svengali himself, who is a 'classic' antisemitic caricature of a 'money-hungry' Jew.
Not a film I/we can recommend, in spite of Barrymore.

(Poster copied from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3XbbL691YeDeoPkUVh-UvDnTkevSshxHLCdBZDDCAE8xESfJVExFgqa4PW21Dytx7SiRZmDUymHI6LiLU5Zzm3vAxemamqmmyyorgqwEfAzO3PuaKbqFI50I_6XNsMuu0szNsLw/s1600/Svengali1931.jpg)

Beaujolais Nouveau et des cèpes

As each and every year, the last 5 years, we buy a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau in november and this year is no exception.
The bottle above is ours but we were invited to eat a 'raclette' at my parents-in-law and there we drank two variants of Beaujolais, each one with their own characteristics.

The mushrooms above - called cèpes in French - were found by my father-in-law when he, together with some friends, went for a 'mushroom-picking-day'. They are big as you can see!
Last year a couple of them weighed 1,3 kg each!
Altogether my father-in-law picked around 30 kg and the whole group of maybe ten persons, around 300 kg!

Bon appétit!

The Ides of March

In Ancient Greek the expression 'The Ides of March' had several connotative meanings.
First of all it was the 15th day of March in the Roman calender, most likely referring to the day of the full moon.
Ides is derived from the word 'Idus' meaning 'half division', in the first place in relation to a month. Half of the month had passed at this point.
The Ides of March - as the name indicates - was also a day when one celebrated the deity Mars and military parades was often held during this feast.
In more recent times the term Ides of March is perhaps more known as the date when Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. due to a conspiracy among his senators with Marcus Junius Brutus as the foremost and most well known among them.
It's more in this latter sense that this film uses this terminology.

We are plunging into a presidential campaign where Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is the Junior Campaign Manager for Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) who is running for the presidency.
Their opponent is Ted Pullman (Michael Mantell). His Campaign Manager is Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) who one day calls Meyers in order to talk with him "in secret". Meyers tries to get in contact with his boss, Senior Campaign Manager Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) but as he doesn't answer his phone, he meets with Duffy in private, tempted by his interest in him.
The reason for this meeting is that Duffy wants Meyers to change camp. At first Meyers refuse as he thinks his governor is the best but bit by bit, Duffy convince him that this is the right thing to do, as Meyers (according to Duffy) is "different from the others".
Now things gradually gets out of hand for Meyers as he also is implicated in a love affair with Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood), an intern for Morris campaign and also the daughter of the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Meyers also find out that Morris has had a brief sexual encounter with Molly and this doesn't make the situation easier.
After a while he reveals to Zara that he has met with Duffy, making him 'persona non grata' in that camp, forcing him to contact Duffy and offer him his services. As politics is a dirty game - as we all know - Duffy doesn't want him anymore. As a matter of fact, Duffy had planned all this, in order to force Meyers to quit the campaign.
Brutus has betrayed his Ceasar.
Molly commits suicide, Meyers blackmails Morris to replace Zara with himself as the head of the campaign and the snow ball is rolling.

It's a well realized film in many ways, not least technically and the rapidness in the story telling - as with most big American productions - but on the same time, it doesn't convince either one of us, Aurore or me.
The dirty game of politics is unfolded but it's done in a rather polite way, and the reason to this must be that the big film companies in the USA doesn't want to confront politicians and the politics if it's not a question of persons where it's 'legitimate' to through the first stones, like Richard Nixon e.g.
The casting with Giamatti in the role as campaign leader doesn't work out to well we thought and not even Seymour Hoffman is truely convincing, otherwise being a favourite actor.
Clooney is doing a good work but not more and Gosling is perhaps the most interesting figure in all this, but on the same time not to convincing either.
Evan Rachel Wood is - as most women in American films - only there to attract the 'male gaze'. A habile work, rather entertaining and in some passages even somewhat thrilling and exciting but nothing more.
Parenthetically one can note that the director made a deliberate blink to the film 'Drive' by Nicolas Winding Refn when we got to see Ryan Gosling drive his car, almost only displaying his hands and neck like in Refn's film.

La Classe Américaine/ Le Grand Détournement

This is a film by the same director who made The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius, but this time he is not trying to recreate an ancient way of making film, that is to say, silent movies, this time he has used a parodical process and in doing so created a new personal œuvre.
In this creational process he uses a lot of Warner Bros.-films made between 1952 and 1980 including excerpts from 'Maigret' (the serie of the inspector by the same name and built on the books by Georges Simenon).
In that way this film is also a blink to film history but in another way.

Basically this is a homage to Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' and Welles is also appearing in it declaring that he doesn't like "thiefs and sons of bitches", giving it an aura of being a dedication more than a plagiarism of Welles.

The film starts with the following sign, with delibarate spelling errors:
"Attention! This flim is not a flim about cyclign. Thank you for your
understanding."

"The Most Classy Man on Earth" dies and the last words he utters are not "Rosebud" but: "cr*ppy world!". Well, not so classy but maybe true.
Three reporters: Dave (Paul Newman), Peter (Dustin Hoffman) and Steven (Robert Redford), triy to investigate his death and what his last words might have meant.

The performances by the actors are - as you've understood - taken from other films, in the case with Hoffman and Redford from 'Allt the President's Men'.

The three journalists mainly search evidence on the fictious atoll Pom Pom Galli, taken from the John Wayne movie 'The Sea Chase'.
What they find out is that 'the classiest man in the world' might not have been as classy as they initially thought.

As you understand this film is filled of these kinds of references and it's just for the spectator to find them all. You can always arrange a competition among your friends.

In all, it's an interesting film from this point of view and the parodical elements sometimes turn into absurdity and this makes the film very humourous.
It's not a master piece but a film we can recommend you to see and why not try to look for possible links between this film and 'The Artist'.

The Artist

Svenska (English below):

Jag tror inte vi behöver skriva så mycket kring denna film eftersom den nog vid detta laget är ganska välkänd bland de flesta av er. När jag skriver detta (en tid efter att vi sett filmen, Aurore och jag) har den nominerats till ett antal Golden Globes.

Historien kretsar kring en av de mest självupptagna skådespelarna i ett stumfilms-Hollywood à la 1927: George Valentin (Jean Dujardin). Karaktären i sig har drag av både Errol Flynn och Rudolph Valentino.

Årtalet indikerar för de flesta av er filmälskare att det är brytningstiden mellan stum- och talfilm. Som i exempelvis 'Singin' in the Rain', behandlar denna film hur väl eller illa denna övergång fungerar för vissa skådespelare samt vilka som slås ut och vilka som klarar sig vidare in i den nya eran.

Valentin ser inte alls några fördelar med talfilmen och menar - som många skådespelare under denna tid de facto menade - att det var en övergående 'fluga' som det inte var värt att satsa vare sig mänskliga eller ekonomiska resurser i.
Dock vet vi hur det gick och Valentin tvingas nu välja hur han skall ställa sig till detta nya tekniska fenomen. Han väljer att själv finansiera de filmer han agerar i och de är självfallet stumma!
Innan detta beslut träffar han dock en ung lovande skådespelar- och dansar-talang vid namn Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) som är en stor beundrare av Valentin som skådespelare.
Han beslutar sig för att ta henne under sina vingars beskydd och sakta men säkert når hon skådespelarhimlen och en stjärnstatus.
För Valentin är det raka motsatsen. Vandringen ned mot skådespelarnas Gehenna har börjat och eftersom han inte valt att bestiga den talande filmens estrader, glöms han snart bort, ruineras och får sitt liv förändrat i grunden.

Utan att gå in på vad som senare sker, vill jag säga att vi båda - Aurore och jag - fann denna film mycket sevärd av flera skäl.

Dels är den ju ett smörgåsbord av referenser till ett stort antal skådespelare under stumfilmsepoken dels en pastisch av stumfilmsgenren samt alla de olika ingredienser denna rymde dels en historielektion i hur det till del sett ut under denna övergångsperiod i filmkonstens historia.

Skådespeleriet referear till dåtidens agerande och allt är självfallet gjort som en riktig stumfilm med textskyltar samt musik som vid tidpunkten för dessa filmer oftast utfördes 'live' i biosalongen, som vi vet.

Filmen var väl genomtänkt och genomförd och det intressanta var att se om en publik som sedan länge är vana vid mycket ljud i olika former samt musik av diegetisk och icke-diegetisk natur, kunde uppskatta ett retrospektivt verk av denna karaktär. Jag tror de flesta förstod att uppskatta filmen och med oss hade vi också denna gång Aurore's mor Solange som faktiskt tyckte mycket om denna film, trots att hon inte är en habitué.

Det finns mycket mer att skriva om filmens alla referenser men det skulle leda alltför långt varför jag endast vill uppmana filmälskare att gå och se denna film om ni har möjlighet.
Slutet - då det plötsligt finns ljud i form av musik, sång och tal - har en riktigt underhållande clou.

Jag skulle inte skriva så mycket kring denna film, lät jag deklarera inledningsvis. Nu blev det för mycket i alla fall.

English:

I don't think I actually need to write too much about this film as I think it's by now a rather well known film among most of you. When writing this (some time after having seen the film), it has been nominated to a number of Golden Globes.

The story circles around one of the most self-absorbed actors in a silent movie-Hollywood à la 1927: George Valentin (Jean Dujardin). His character has in himself features resembling both Errol Flynn and Rudolph Valentino.

For most of you film lovers, the year indicates that it's the transitional period between silent- (not at all silent as we know) and talking movies ('talkies').
As in 'Singin' in the Rain', this film also treats the subject around how well or bad this transition turned out for certain actors and whom among them were 'eliminated' and whom made it into the new era.
Valentin doesn't see any advantages with the 'talkies' and argue - as many actors during this time actually did - that this would only become a transient trend, not worth hazarding neither human nor economical resourses into.

We know however what happened and Valentin now has to choose how to relate to this new technical phenomena. He chooses to finance films he is acting in himself and they are of course silent!
Before this decision he meets a young and promising actress and dancer by the name of Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) who is a huge admirer of Valentin as an actor.
He decides to become her mentor and gradually she reaches the actors heaven and stardom.
For Valentin it's the opposite. The 'peregrination' down towards the actor's Gehenna has just begun and as he didn't decide to mount the stage of the talking movies, he is soon forgotten, ruined, leading to a radical change in his life.

Without going into details about what happens later on in the film, I would like to write that we both - Aurore and I - found this film very interesting and worth seeing and this for many reasons.

Partly it's a 'smorgasbord' (using a well known Swedish word) of references to a huge number of actors during the silent movie era partly it's a pastiche of the silent movie genre and all its ingredients partly it's a history lesson displaying the development during this transitional period in the history of cinema.

The acting is referring to the acting of those days and everything is of course made to look as a real silent movie with text signs and music, the latter often performed 'live' in the cinema auditorium at the time, as we know.

The film was well thought-out and realized and it was interesting to see if an audience since long used to a lot of sound in different ways, including music of diegetic or non-diegetic nature, could appreciate a retrospective work of this kind. I felt as if most people understood to appreciate the film and today we also had brought Aurore's mother Solange, who very much appreciated this œuvre even if she is not a habitué.

There is a lot more to write about the film and all its references but this would lead to far, wherefore we only want to exhort film lovers to see this movie, if you have the possibility.
The end - where there is sound in the form of both music, singing and speach - contain a very amusing clou.

I shouldn't write to much about this film, I declared initially. Now I have written too much about it anyway.

Behandlingen/Guidance

Svenska (English below):

Roy (Björn Andersson) är en håglös man som spenderar sina dagar i hemmet och som gör allt för att undvika arbete eller ens att hjälpa till med vardagliga sysslor.
Hans fru ylva (Eva Fritjofson) står inte ut med detta utan försöker hitta något som kan motivera Roy att komma ur denna inaktivitet.
Hon hittar av en slump en form av alternativbehandling och ser till så att Roy kommer iväg på denna tillsammans med en ung man som fungerar som hans terapeut.
Ganska snart förstår Roy att det som kallas behandling inte alls är detta och att terapeuten inte är den han ger sig ut för att vara.
När han upptäcker det är det dock för sent.

Upptakten till filmen gav goda föraningar om att det skulle kunna ha utvecklat sig till ett riktigt spännande psykologiskt drama.
Dock blir det så snart uppenbart vad som är fel med terapeuten samt den situation de befinner sig i - och varför - att det inte riktigt finns mycket mer att dölja eller för oss åskådare att finna.
Skådespeleriet från inte minst Björn Anderssons sida är dock riktigt bra, inte minst som hans karaktär framkallar både irritation och sympati hos oss.

English:

Roy (Björn Andersson) is a rather apathetic person, spending his days in the home and doing all he can in order to avoid work or even help his wife at home.
His wife Ylva (Eva Frijofson) can't stand this anymore and tries to find something that could motivate Roy to snap out of his inactivity.
By chance she finds an alternative treatment and she sees to that Roy sets off on this journey together with a young man serving as his therapist.
Early on Roy understands that the so called treatment is not treatment at all and that the therapist isn't the person he passes himself off being.
When Roy discovers this, it's however to late.

The prelude to this film, gave us good presentiments concerning the rest of the film and let us believe that this could have developed into an exciting psychological drama.
However, very soon it becomes clear what is wrong with the therapist and the situation - and why - and after this there is nothing to hide or anything to find for us as spectators.
The acting from not least Björn andersson is however good, not least as his character,in us, evokes both irritation and symphaty.

Kommissarie Späck

Detta var en film vi initialt fruktade men som de facto vi fann bättre än våra föraningar hade givit vid handen.

Det hela är en parodi på Kommissarie Beck men har också integrerat delar ur filmer som 'Nakna pistolen' ('The Naked Gun'), 'Hot Shots' och 'Scary Movie' m.fl.
Mårten Späck (Leif Andrée) (som självfallet har sitt namn efter det faktum att han konstant äter och inte direkt magrar av detta) har sina egna mycket speciella teorier kring de fall han skall lösa.
I filmen rör det sig om ett antal mordfall som får den mindre geniale Späck att misstänka en serie --------- självmördare!
Det första mordoffret hittas dödad genomborrad av knivar, gafflar, osthyvlar och en pepparkvarn. Att detta skulle kunna tolkas som ett självmord är ju fullständigt otänkbart för alla - utom för kommissarie Späck.

Nu följer en osannolik jakt med fler bisarra teorier och till sin hjälp har han sin buttre kollega Grünvald Karlsson (Johan Hedenborg) - som onödigt att säga är en karbonkopia på Gunvald Larsson - samt Irene Snusk (Cecilia Frode), en karaktär som refererar till polisserien Irene Huss, men där Snusk samtidigt ser ut som en Lara Croft-kopia. Snusk heter hon för att hon är sexfixerad och accepterar all sorts sex, vad de vara månde.

Flera karaktärer från initialt nämnda filmer (och tv-serier) kan kännas igen och man parodierar allt i varenda ruta, i kombination med att man skapat en av filmvärldens mest ointelligenta poliser, 'späckad' med halsbrytande teorier av inget värde alls.

Detta lilla förstlingsverk i långfilmsgenren för Fredde Granberg (regissören), har fått dålig kritik men jag upplever att tar man det för vad det är och istället inriktar sig på att finna hur många idéer man stulit från hur många filmer, kan det ändå betraktas som 1h 20 minuters acceptabel underhållning.
Vi hade stundtals riktigt roligt (inte minst i samband med mannen som 'begår självmord' med alla ovan nämnda köksverktyg) men vår humor kanske är speciell?

Habemus Papam

Svenska (English below):

Detta är en film vars namn kommer från det uttryck man använder då en ny påve har valts av kardinalkollegiet: "Vi har en påve!". I detta fall hade man en men tappade honom på vägen!

Historien kretsar kring valet av ny påve och de troende på Petersplatsen samlas för att se om det ur skorstenen under konklavens möte, kommer ut vit eller svart rök. Sistnämnda innebär att man inte lyckats enas kring en påve.

Svart rök emanerar vid ett par tillfällen men slutligen kommer den vita röken men ingen rök utan eld och det tar eld i den nyutnämnde kardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli), som drabbas av en psykisk kollaps och skriker ut sin frustration (och skräck?), flyendes till sitt rum.

Detta var inte vad man väntat sig och nu inleds en medlingsprocess för att utröna varför Melville reagerar som han gör.
För detta ändamål anlitar man en psykoanalytiker/psykiatriker (Nanni Moretti) som dock finner det svårt att utföra en analys eftersom hela kollegiet ideligen finns omkring den nyutnämnde. Inget får ju döljas.

Under en biltur med sin närmaste medarbetare och chaufförer, flyr Melville från dessa i ett obevakat ögonblick. Detta skapar självfallet ångest och oro samt skam hos den som hade ansvaret för den nyutnämnde påvens säkerhet.

Härefter följer en form av odyssé i staden bland Melvilles landsmän och -kvinnor. Han blir inte igenkänd eftersom man inte publicerat någon bild då det nu uppstått denna situation men likt forna tiders kungar (eller Fantomen?) vandrar han omkring på gator och torg "som en vanlig man".
Detta lär honom mycket om de troendes syn på kyrkan, påven, samhället och han får känna på hur det är att leva ett vanligt liv bortom alla de krav som skulle ha ställts eller skall ställas på honom som påve.

Det intressanta under valets gång initialt är att inte endast han vill att "kalken tas ifrån honom" utan mer eller mindre alla kardinaler känner likadant.

Det är en roande och till del tänkvärd film som tar upp frågor kring tro och traditioner samt den katolska kyrkans olika ritualer och hur det inte alltid kanske känns relevant för alla inblandade parter, kardinaler eller ej.

Man ser här en människa som reagerar som en människa, inte en maskin som automatiskt tar på sig ett uppdrag givet honom av människor, inte av Gud, även om man inom alla kyrkor försöker ge de troende den uppfattningen.
Det vi vet är att det är människor som väljer, människor som bedömer, människor som intrigerar, människor som har olika skäl för att rösta si eller så och om Gud har något med detta att göra, om detta kan vi ingenting veta.

I denna film visas hur de enskilda kardinalerna kan tänkas fundera och reagera på det som väntar dem. Det är ju trots allt inte vilket arbete - eller 'kall' om man vill - som helst, eftersom man blir chef för världens största 'företag', Katolska kyrkan med 1,5 miljarder troende!

Moretti tar dock också upp terapeuters tillkortakommanden, deras minst lika dogmatiska syn på människans kropp och själ. Detta gestaltas väl i Morettis egen psykiatriker som, i likhet med de flesta terapeuter, själv brottas med de största problemen av relationell natur i sitt eget liv.

Det visar också att en alltför dogmatisk tro på ett visst ideologiskt system, inte är fruktbart, om det inte innefattar ett starkt ifrågasättande av detsamma.
Att ha det man uppfattar som Gud's budskap som sin yttersta och enda ledstjärna och inte ifrågasätta vad som kommer från Gud och vad som kommer från människan är i stort sett lika illa som att ha Freud som samma ledstjärna utan att ifrågasätta vad som kommer från den förnuftige, intellektuellt tänkande Freud och vad som emanerar från hans besatthet av sex.

Vi lär oss av denna film att ifrågasättandet av traditioner inom vilken ideologisk kontext det månde vara är en förutsättning för människans yttersta val i livet.
Vi lär oss också att "se människan"/"Ecce Homo" bakom 'personan' på den som skall åtaga sig ett ämbete av denna karaktär, där inte alla är passade att leda utan har andra kvaliteter som gör sig bättre i det fördolda.

English:

This is a film where the name is derived from the expression used when a new Pope has been elected by the conclave of cardinals: "We have a Pope!"
In this very case one had a Pope but lost him on the way.

The story orbit around the election of a new Pope and its consequences.
The believers are gathered on St Peter's Square to see, if it from the chimney during the meeting in the conclave, emerges white or black smoke. The latter means - as we know - that one haven't reached a conclusion around the election of a new Pope.
Black smoke do emerge at a couple of occasions but finally the white smoke is seen and people rejoices.

However, 'no smoke without a fire' and the newly ordained Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli) is mentally 'on fire', afflicted by an acute nervous breakdown, leading him to flee to his room, crying out his frustration (and fear?).

This was of course not what one had expected and now a process of negotiation is initiated, in order to determine the causes for Melville's reaction.

For this purpose one engage a psychoanalyst/psychiatrist (Nanni Moretti) who finds it difficult to execute an analysis as the whole 'collegium' of Cardinals constantly surrounds the newly appointed colleague. Nothing must be hidden.

During a car ride with his closest man and his chauffeurs, Melville flees during a unattended moment. This creates anguish, worry and alarm among those having the responsibility for the newly appointed Pope and his security.

What now follows is an oddysey through the city among Melvilles fellow country men and -women.
He is not recognized by 'his people' as one haven't published any photo of him after this very special situation occured but as former kings (or Dragos?), he now wanders streets and squares like "an ordinary man".
This teaches him a lot concerning the believers and their views on the Church, the Pope, the society and he is able to feel how it is being able to live an 'ordinary' life without all the demands that would have been or will be raised on him as a Pope.

An interesting detail during the voting process initially, was that not only he wanted "this cup to be taken from me" (him) but more or less all the cardinals felt the same.

This is a diverting film, worth considering as it brings up to discussion questions about faith and traditions and the different rituals within the Catholic Church and how all this, not always, are felt being relevant to all parties involved, cardinals or not.

We get to meet a human, reacting like a human, not a machine who automatically takes on a mission given to him by men, not God.
Within all Christian churches and denominations one has always tried and still tries to evoke the impression among believers that it's God who decides and appoints.
What we know is that it's people who chooses, people judging, people intriguing, people having different kinds of motivations for voting this way or that but if God has anything to do with this, we can't know for sure.

In this film one displays how the individual cardinals might think and react concerning what might be expected of them.
In spite of everything, this is not any job - or 'vocation' if one wants - among other jobs, as one becomes the head of the biggest 'enterprise' on Earth, The Catholic Church with its 1,5 billion adherents.

Moretti also puts the light on the shortcomings of therapists, their at least as dogmatic view on Man's body and soul, as ever the Church.
This is well depicted within the framework of Moretti's own psychiatrist, who, as most therapists, himself to a great extent is struggeling with problems of relational character in his own life.

It also shows that a all too dogmatic belief in a certain ideological system, is not fructuous, if it doesn't imply a constant questioning of the very same system.
To have, what one perceive, Gods message to mankind as ones ultimate and only guiding star and not questioning what in all this actually comes from God and what emanates from Man, is in principle as bad as having Freud as the only guiding star without questioning what emanates from the sensible, intellectually thinking Freud and what is a result of his obsession with sex.

We learn, from this film, that a questioning of traditions within any given ideological context is a prerequisite for Man's ultimate decisions in life and his/her development as a human being.

We also learn to "see Man (or the man)"/"Ecce Homo" behind the persona of the person taking on an office like this, where not all are meant to lead but have other qualities, better used in the 'hidden'.

(Photo Michel Piccoli at Cannes with Nanni Moretti and other actors copied from: https://www.purepeople.com/article/cannes-2011-le-pape-michel-piccoli-et-nanni-moretti-sur-les-marches_a79795/1)
(Photo Nanni Moretti, Michel Piccoli and 'the cardinals' copied from: http://s.excessif.com/mmdia/i/46/8/habemus-papam-de-nanni-moretti-10454468idydt.jpg?v=1)

Un monstre à Paris !

Svenska (English below):

Detta är en charmig historia som kombinerar 'Skönheten och Odjuret'-temat med 'Fantomen på Operan' och 'Cabaret'.

Berättelsen utspelar sig under året 1910 i Paris, det år då staden upplevde sina värsta översvämningar någonsin.

Mitt i denna rotblöta utspelar sig både kärlekshistorier - i pluralis - och dramatik samt politiska intriger.

Émile (Sébastien Desjours) är en blyg biografmaskinist som är förälskad i sin medarbetare Maud (Ludivine Sagnier).

Han lyckas dock inte framföra detta till henne eftersom han aldrig lyckas avsluta sina försök till indirekta frierier.

Som sin vän har Émile, Raoul (Gad Elmaleh) som arbetar som bud - med en budbil som heter Catherine i vilken han också bor - men som också är uppfinnare.

Raoul har en barndomsvän och förälskelse som heter Lucille (Vanessa Paradis) och som är cabaret-artist på teatern 'L'Oiseau rare' ('Den ovanliga fågeln'). De har en något komplicerad relation eftersom de båda är förälskade i varandra men p.g.a. en rad missförstånd, häcklar den ene den andre, utan att man (som tittare) förstår varför. Det avslöjas senare under filmens gång.

Till följd av Lucille's popularitet, har hon påkallat polisprefekten Maynott's (François Cluzet) uppmärksamhet och han börjar nu uppvakta henne, utan något direkt intresse från hennes sida.

En kväll skall Raoul leverera ett paket till Le Jardin des Plantes och med sig har han Émile.

Professorn - som detta paket är adresserat till - är inte på plats men de tar sig in i hans växthus och 'laboratorium', där det endast finns en intelligent apa som heter Charles (som vi vet via 'Apornas Planet'-filmerna skall man dock inte underskatta apor).
Till följd av Raoul's nyfikenhet och hans vilja att prova allt, inklusive ett antal kemiska vätskor - som apan Charles försöker varna honom för - sker en kemisk reaktion eller snarare explosion som förstorar en växt och en loppa!
Émile tycker sig ha sett ett monster och det är den gigantiska loppan som nu flyr ut i den parisiska natten.

Han (loppan) träffar på Lucille som tar honom till sitt hjärta och klär honom i kläder samt låter honom sjunga med henne. Detta eftersom hon funnit att han har en underbar sångröst. Tänk vad lite man vet om loppor! Lucille ger honom också namnet Francoeur.

Polisprefekten tar dock upp jakten på detta 'monster' som så många rapporterat sig ha sett och detta i sin strävan att bli återvald i sitt ämbete samt att klättra högre på rangskalan.

Nu vidtar en jakt där alla blir involverade och där Émile, Raoul och Lucille försöker gömma undan Francoeur från polismyndigheterna.

Denna animerade film blandar - som noterat ovan - flera berättelser vi känner till om den vackra kvinnan och den som uppfattas som ett monster men där den sistnämnde oftast visar sig mer empatisk än de människor som jagar densamma.

Vi kan här tänka på 'Frankenstein', Quasimodo i 'Notre-Dame de Paris', 'King Kong' etc.
Filmen slutar dock gott för dem de bör sluta gott för, i sagans värld.

English:

This is a charming story (we often write 'charming' but is it charming, what else should one write?) combining 'The Beauty and the Beast' with 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'Cabaret'.

The story is enacted in Paris in 1910, the year when the city experienced its worst floodings ever.
In the middle of this soak, we are presented love stories, drama and political intrigues.

Émile (Sébastien Desjours) is a shy cinema projectionist, who is in love with his collaborator Maud (Ludivine Sagnier).

He is however not capable of expressing this as he never succeeds in finishing his indirect 'proposals'.

Emile has, as his friend, Raoul (Gad Elmaleh) who is working as delivery man - with a delivery car called Catherine in which he also lives. Besides this Raoul is also an inventor.

Raoul, in turn, has a childhood friend and love by the name of Lucille (Vanessa Paradis), who works as a cabaret artiste at the theatre 'L'Oiseau rare' ('The Unusual Bird').

They have a somewhat complicated relationship as they are both in love with each other but because of a misunderstanding, they heckle one another, without us (the spectator) understanding why. It is later on revealed.

Due to Lucille's popularity, she has called on the attention of the 'police prefect' Maynott (François Cluzet) and he now starts to court her, without her being interested.

One evening Raoul is going to deliver a package to 'Le Jardin des Plantes' and he has brought Émile.

The professor - to whom this package is designated - is not present but they enter his greenhouse and laboratory, where they only find an intelligent ape, called Charles (as we know from 'The Planet of the Apes'-films one shall not underestimate apes).
As a result of Raoul's curiosity and wish to try everything, included some chemical fluids - something Charles the ape tries to warn him from - a chemical reaction or rather explosion takes place, enlarging a plant and a flea!
Émile believes he has seen a monster and it's the flea, now fleeing (ha ha!) out into the Parisian night.
He (the flea) meets Lucille who care for him and dresses him in ordinary clothes, letting him sing with her on stage. This as she has found that he has a wonderful singing voice. How little one know about fleas! Lucille also gives him the name Francoeur.

The Police Prefect does however initiate a hunt for this 'monster', having been spotted by so many people in town and this in his efforts to become re-elected and climb higher in the ranks.

Now a hunt starts that involves everyone and where Émile, Raoul and Lucille tries to hide Francoeur from the police authorities.

This animated film mixes - as mentioned above - a number of stories we know of, about the beautiful woman and the creature being regarded as a monster but where the latter often turns out being more emphatic than the humans hunting the very same.
We can of course recall the stories told in 'Frankenstein', and Quasimodo in 'Notre-Dame de Paris', 'King Kong' etc.
The film ends good for those persons (or flea's) it should end good, in the world of fairytales.

(Poster copied from: http://www.focusonanimation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/UN-MONSTRE-A-PARIS.jpg)