Why we did not write for Stockholm Film Festival this year

If you are lucky, you read my text about Oslo, 31 August in Stockholm Film Festival 2011 catalogue. Or perhaps Gunnar's text about Of Gods and Men in the 2010 catalogue. Or even our other texts about Film Socialism, Another Year, Le Havre or Tyrannosaur.
Let's face it : Gunnar and I wrote among the best texts of these catalogues two years in a row.

What for ?

In 2010, we got 2 "volunteer passports". Coming from France, it felt a bit awkward since we couldn't see half the films we had planned. Not even Sound of Noise in which we were credited.
In 2011, it got even worse. We didn't go to Stockholm and gave our 3 - THREE - vouchers to friends living in Sweden.

This year, the whole thing became a huge joke.

Stockholm Film Festival contacted us. We demanded to be granted to get seats during the day - i.e before 6pm - for the screenings we wanted to attend in exchange for our gorgeous texts. After some lousy negotiation, the deal looked this way : each of us would write about 10 films - TEN - and would get in exchange...

(dramatic pause)

5 vouchers - FIVE ! - as a reward/wage/joke.

5X110 sek = 550 sek for 10 excellent texts.

Yeah you counted right. It means we should spend less than 30 minutes for a minimum wage to make a research and write a text about films.

We thought they were joking. We were wrong. And so we decided that we wouldn't work for this rich international film festival that doesn't even grant seats for its editorializers.

September 2012

Yeah, we are still alive

If you wondered why we were so mute, here are three explanations:

1) Gunnar stills works in "his" museum and has a vernissage every fortnight.
2) I work for some clients and can't update this blog as often as I should.
3) I am writing a book about Norwegian Film.

Which means we don't manage doing much more than visiting exhibitions and watch movies made up north.

Once upon a time in Norway...

Une nuit

English:
 
This is a police thriller building its story aruond the theme, corrupt polices, friendship between the 'law enforcing units' and the criminal world, the very seldom straight line between what the law says and what one should or can do. 
One can always ask oneself if it's the best thing to follow the law and if the people representing the law are morally better than the criminals.
The answer to this last question is often no.

Français:

Simon Weiss est un policier de la brigade mondaine, qui entreprend chaque soir une visite nocturne dans les établissements de nuit, mais se retrouvant dans le collimateur de l'IGS suite à une dénonciation, il tente de découvrir qui l'a piégé.
C'est l'histoire des policiers corruptibles et l'amitié entre les gendarmes/policiers et le monde criminel ou il y a jamais des frontières fixes entre ce que dit la loi et ce qu'il faut faire.
Qui sont les plus honnêtes, les gendarmes et juristes ou les 'truands'? Pas facile à dire. 

Lord Shades @ Wacken!

We are proud to announce you that our Berry special friends from Lord Shades will represent France at Wacken Open Air between the 2nd and 4th august 2012.

Extreme music for extreme people ♥

Who's going?

Knocked Up

Well, what can one say about this film? It's another turn around the theme, 'A Bachelor's life turns into something Serious' and at the same time of course a 'Bachelorette's life....' etc. 

Other examples of similar stories are of course: 'The 40 Year Old Virgin'; 'I Love You Man' and so forth.

This is Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) (more stoned sometimes), living his 'I don't want to grow up'-life (somewhat resembling Swedes) with his friends, drinking, smoking (everything) and playing around. On a club he meets Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl). She is a pretty and a (rather) sensible person, not at all likely to fall for Ben but they both fall - into bed.

After this Ben's 'status' rises among his friends but eight weeks later his spirit dips when Alison calls him to tell him - surprise, surprise!!! - that she is pregnant.

As usual the man in this kind of situation always wonders how this could happen!!!??? Well, they've all missed the biology classes, that's for sure.

What happens now is that they both try to form a couple, trying to go along with what has happened and making the best (worst?) of it.

Will they succeed? 

There are some funny moments in the film and the comedy acting is not bad but as the film is a déja vu-story with to many forseeable moments, it tends to become somewhat less interesting along the way.

Born To Be Bad

This is a film about what is sometime called (or was sometimes called) female cunningness but I think that expression is somewhat biased from a male point of view. What happens in this film between different persons - this time a woman being the instigator - could of course just as well been the work of a man.

Joan Fontaine is Christabel, a woman coming to live with her cousin Donna (Joan Leslie).

Having installed herself there, she starts to flirt with Donna's fiancée, the wealthy Curtis (Zachary Scott) but she does so in a way making her look like a innocent victim of circumstances.

She fools Curtis to believe that it's her cousin Donna who wants his money while it's the opposite, of course.

When having outmanoeuvred Donna, she marries Curtis but only for his money as she's actually in love(?) with Nick (the fine actor Robert Ryan). He also loves her but on the same time he despises her for what she has done and for what she is.

This is no masterpiece when it comes to the idea and the very cliché-filled story and plot, implying that one describes the individuals as either being 'this way or that way'. The acting is mostly good but sometimes the American 'over-explicitness' tends to annoy us, gazes, blinks etc. in order to make the American audience fully understand the different twists of the story. The main actors - Joan Fontaine, Robert Ryan and Joan Leslie - lifts the story above the mediocre.

L'Arnacoeur

This film is in English called 'Heartbreaker' and this is exactly what the story is about.

Alex (Romain Duris) and his sister Mélanie (Julie Ferrier) runs a business where the goal is to break up relationships. Mélanies husband Marc (François  Damiens) operates the business.

This only in relationships where the women are - as they put it - "not knowingly unhappy"(!?).

When Alex, the heartbreaker interferes, he makes the women feel that they lack something in their relationships, whereby they always - up till now - changes their minds concerning their lovers, fiancés or husbands to be.

When they now are hired by a rich man, possibly being a gangster but officially a florist, to prevent the wedding of his daughter Juliette (Vanessa Paradis) to an Englishman (Andrew Lincoln), they encounter some problems.

First of all this have to be arranged within ten days, before the wedding, secondly this couple seem to be perfect for each other so why should they try to intervene? Money of course!

Normally they always find some details in the relationships pointing towards the fact that they are doing 'the right thing' but this time, no!

Alex becomes Juliette's bodyguard (after having been recommended by her father). He thereby come close to her and is able to find out things about her that he uses to tie them closer to each other.

This works up til the point when her husband to be arrives, a bit earlier than expected.

Juliette finally becomes aware of the plot while Alex is leaving for the airport, just to turn back to the wedding, where Juliette's father tries to convince her that the man she is going to marry is decent but boring.

What will happen? Look for yourselves.

In all it's a rather harmless piece of cineastic work, with some humorous scenes, where François  Damien is the one being the most clumsy, slapstick funny character while Romain Duris tries to imitate a Cary Grant in his efforts to be a charming comedian (perhaps?) and if that is the case, I can't say he succeeds. He is not bad but not a comedian, at least I can't see him that way.

Vampyr

This film by Carl Theodor Dreyer was first regarded as a mishap or at least as one of his least interesting films. As with 'Häxan' by Benjamin Christensen, I find this film watchable as one of the first Nordic examples of a Vampire story.

It's based on elements taken from 'In a Glass Darkly', a collection of short stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. 'In a Glass Darkly' is of course alluding on the text in the 1st Corinthians 13 about the fact that we humans, in this life, are only able to see everything through 'A glass darkly' but once we will see evertything as it is, a quote later used by Ingmar Bergman for his film with the same name.

This story circles around a student of the occult by the name of Allan Gray (Nicolas de Gunzburg) entering a village under the curse of a vampire.
It starts when he gets a package by an old man with the text "To be opened upon my death".
After this many strange events follows, mysterious encounters and finally the revelation about the book containing dreadful stories about vampires.
When the young student wanders around in the village, meeting two sisters, one badly ill and obviously bitten by something or someone, he also meets or sees mysterious shadow figures everywhere.

At the whole the aesthetic is a mixture between German expressionism and surrealism à la Luis Buñuel. I find it very interesting and appealing.
The story as such is not so complicated of course but it becomes a rather thrilling 'tale' where the influence from Nosferatu is very clear of course.

It was Dreyer's first sound film and it was recorded in three languages but as he found this difficult he had minimized the dialogue in the film.

Badly received in Germany at first but after having rewrited or edited the film, it opened in France to a more positive revview or at least more mixed reviews.

Personally I find the surrealistic and expressionistic film language being something that talks to me in a positive way and therefore I see it primarily from the perspective of aesthetics.

Leatherheads

This is another story about football, in this case American football.

We follow the 'semi-true' story about Jimme 'Dodge' Connelly (actor George Clooney) who has the ambition to save his, not so good, team Duluth Bulldogs and American professional football in general, as it was on the verge of collapsing.
He succeeds in convincing a football star - Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) - to join the team and as this man also is a very good looking fellow and a war hero, they can't fail can they?

Unfortuntaley there's a journalist - Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) - who has discovered that the "war hero" Carter Rutherford is far from a hero, rather a coward.
She intends to reveal this and on the same time she starts an affair with Connelly, making Rutherford rather disappointed to say the least.

However, in a country like USA you don't attack a war hero just like that, even if he's not a war hero! Connelly and Littleton are making enemies and the top men within the football association takes control over the re etablation of American football a movement started by Connelly. 
In this situation Connelly threatens Carter with a confrontation with his former army friends, saying to Carter and the Commissioner  that they are standing right outside the door. In fact it's only the team, the Bulldogs being disguised as soliders.
The effect it has is that Carter admits having lied about his heroic deeds.

It leads to him having to admit publically that he has exaggerated his war story and now he also changes team, playing against Connelly and the rest in the Bulldogs.

Finally, after some tricks by Connelly the Bulldogs defeat the contenders an Connelly and Littleton becomes a couple.

It's a film trying to mix an old charming 1930-40- film aesthetics with a sometimes documentary style, very much depending on Clooney's and Zellweger's charming personalities and of course Krasinski's. 
However it's not a film making me want to know more about American football, or a film that revolutionizes the Seventh Art in any way.
It's a charming little bagatelle, to look at when you want to see a digestible story an evening when you are tired.

Bjursell April 2012 updates

Hi there!
You know what?
Gunnar is working in a museum. Not the one which was looking for a janitor but another one which was really looking for a true guide and a curator. Meaning that my foreign husband has a more interesting job in the Center of France than when we were living in Stockholm.
Weird, isn't it?

While I read Swedish books. Unreleased. For a French publisher. I am among those people who read drafts or achieved novels and have to judge them for a specific market. Here, France. As when one watches films, there are embargos. I'm not allowed to talk, write about them or name them until they're released. So you won't read a word about them here.

Otherwise, I must inform you that I rank! Again. My professional website is on the first page of GG France. I get contacts, send offers but haven't found any serious client yet. The main problem not being my ability to rank but the lack of French credentials. Does it mean I will have to contact Scandinavian partners? We'll see...

Being occupied is nice, but not always.
We were invited to a Berry-German wedding in Berlin but won't be able to go there. That's a pity. I have known the groom since 1993 and would have enjoyed a lot going to Germany for the occasion.
And for more than a breakfast at Berlin Train Station.

The latest time we met my friend and his bride to be was during Les Rencontres de Luthiers, last year. It was too short and we are a bit ashamed to stay in Berry instead of finding a way to party in Berlin :-/

That's all folks.
If you want to keep updated with Gunnar or I, here are our main twitter accounts:
@GunnarBjursell
@cineaster

La guerre des boutons

Notre film ce soir au Cinéma Lux, La Châtre. Deux films avec (presque) les mêmes noms sortent en France cette année ! Ils sont des remakes d'un film de 1962 par Yves Robert. Le film que nous avons regardé ce soir est réalisé par Yann Samuell. Our film this evening at the local cinema, Cinéma Lux, in our town La Châtre. Two films by (almost) the same name is released this year in France! Both are remakes of a film made in 1962 by the director Yves Robert. The film we saw this evening is directed by Yann Samuell.

(Photo copyright/Droit d'auteurs de photo: http://fr.web.img6.acsta.net/medias/nmedia/18/84/78/60/19796365.jpg)

Les Tuche

This is a film about a family called Tuche and what happens to them as people when they win 100 million euros. They travel to Monaco where they try to be accepted by people used to money, this while they are trying to stay "true to themselves", leading to some crasches. Not as bad as one might think but not a film we will get back to.
Director: Olivier Baroux Ce film raconte l'histoire d'une famille, les Tuches, et comment ils réagissent quand ils gagnent 100 millions euro. Ils font un voyage à Monaco et là ils essayent de devenir accepter par des gens plus habitué d'argent qu'eux en essayant de garder leur "vraie nature" et ça leur mènent aux situations un peu rocambolesques, pour s'exprimer un peu prudent. Pas si mal comme film qu'on a pu craindre mais pas un film qu'on regardera deux fois.
Réalisateur : Olivier Baroux

Lasse og Geir/Them and Us

Lasse & Geir is a social realistic drama- and youthfilm from 1976 directed by the - in Norway - very well known duo, Svend Wam (often working in team with the Norwegian director and producer Petter Vennerød).
As the main characters we find the actors Torgeir Schjerven and Lasse Tømte but also actors like Knut Pettersen, Jorunn Kjellsby og Kjersti Døvigen.
This is our film this evening.

À l'aveugle (2012)

Notre film ce soir Our film this evening:

De grønne slagtere/The Green Butchers

Fra : Notre film ce soir.  Une comédie dingue (comme d'habitude) danoise mais drôle, au moins selon notre goût. Réalisateur : Anders Thomas Jensen. Acteurs : Nikolaj Lie Kaas et Mads Mikkelsen dans les rôles principaux. En: Our film this evening. A crazy (as usual) Danish comedy but funny, at least from our point of view. Director: Anders Thomas Jensen. Actors: Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Mads Mikkelsen in the principal roles.

Cloclo

Fra :
Notre film ces soir, c'est le film biographique 
sur la vie de l'artiste Claude François.
Encore une fois, un artiste français, énormément bien connu
ou plutôt célébré en France et dans les pays francophones
mais un artiste que je ne connais pas avant avoir rencontré
ma femme française. Souvent c'est le cas avec certains
artistes français/françaises. Connu dans le monde francophone
mais très peu en dehors, malgré une vente de disques gigantesque !
Réalisateur : Florent Emilio-Siri
Acteurs principaux/actrices principales :
Jérémie Renier, Benoît Magimel, Monica Scattini et Sabrina Seyvecou.
Eng:
Our film this evening, it's the biopic about the artiste Claude François.
Once again, a French artist, enormously well known, not to
say famous in France and the French speaking countries
but an artist I hardly knew before meeting my French wife.
This is often the case with some Franch artists.
They are well known in the French speaking world
but very little outside this very same world
and this in spite of a gigantic record sales!
Director: Florent Emilio-Siri
Principal actors/actresses:
Jérémie Renier, Benoît Magimel, Monica Scattini et Sabrina Seyvecou.


Cloclo
Cloclo Bande-annonce VF

127 Hours

Our film this evening is built on a real story a real event about an experienced mountain climber and wildlife habitué who becomes to sure of himself leading him to fall down into a ravine.
At first he tries to scream and think logically but after a while, when the dark comes, he realizes that he is alone and that it might take days, weeks or never(!) for someone to find him. He got to get out of there alone.
When being stuck with his leg between rocks, it gets worse.

Although one sometimes could feel his distress and the claustrophobia, the fact that this actually happened to someone (or many), it was not an impressing film and we were not as affected by it as one could have imagined we should have been.

In the Land of Blood & Honey

Our film this evening is directed by Angelina Jolie and it's her first feature film as an director. She had directed a documentary before.
The story takes place in the 1990s, in Sarajevo during the wrath of the Bosnian War. Danijel (Goran Kostić) is a soldier fighting for the Bosnian Serbs. In a prisoner camp led by his strict father, general Nebojša, he finds Ajla (Zana Marjanović), his former love, who is a Bosniak (a Bosnian Muslim) and therefore a prisoner.  This situation creates problems concerening loyalty, love, ethnic belongings and so on.
In spite of the gravity of the subject it didn't touch us sufficiently. The reality is far worse of course.
Notre film ce soir est un film réalisé par Angelina Jolie et c'est son début comme réalisatrice d'un long-métrage, film fiction. Avant ce film elle avait aussi réalisé un documentaire.
L'histoire se déroule pendant le siège de Sarajevo dans les années 1990. Un Serbe de Bosnie, Danijel (Goran Kostić), retrouve Ajla (Zana Marjanović), une Bosniaque, qu'il a connue avant la guerre. Lui est le gardien d'un camp de concentration et elle, une prisonnière dans ce même camp. Avant la guerre ils étaient des amants.  Cette situation crée des problèmes de loyauté, l'amour, l'appartenance ethnique etc.
Malgré la gravité du sujet, le film nous a pas touché suffisamment. La réalité est biens sûr toujours pire.

The Immortals (1995)

Our film this evening:  A nightclub owner, Jack (Eric Roberts) brings together a group of small-time hoods and teams them up in unusual pairs (black man and white racist, Ivy Leaguer and simpleton) for a set of multiple heists which turn out to be an elaborate double cross against a notorious gangster, Dominic (Tony Curtis). It seems as if Jack is more or less suicidal.  Director: Brian Grant.
Not a particularly good film, even as a simple action movie.
Notre film ce soir : Jack (Eric Roberts), patron d'un night-club, a mis au point un incroyable plan pour un braquage. Huit inconnus, d'origines et sexes différentes mais ayant tous un point en commun, devront voler au même moment des valises dans différents endroits de la ville. Dans ces quatre mallettes se trouve une grosse somme d'argent appartenant à un gangster, Dominic (Tony Curtis). Chaque braqueurs prennent conscience pendant la soirée que le plan de Jack est totalement suicidaire. Réalisateur : Brian Grant.
Pas un film particulièrement bon, même pas vu sous l'angle d'un simple film d'action.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Our film this evening is a "classic" action-super-hero-film within the Marvel Comics Universe.
Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a military soldier during WWII, rejected because he is to small an thin, is transformed into Captain America after taking a dose of a "Super-Soldier serum". As Captain America his mission is to take down a war monger and a terrorist organization of Nazi origine.
Perhaps one of the better Marvel films (so far) in the action-hero-genre. Clichés and foreseeable "jokes" of course but... as "entertainment"...
In other roles we see Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper and Samuel L. Jackson.
Notre film ce soir est un film d'action avec un "super-héro" dans le cadre de l'Univers de Marvel Comics.
Fondé sur le personnage de la série Marvel Comics, Captain America, le film raconte l'histoire de Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), un jeune homme, rejeté comme soldat pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, parce qu'il est trop petit et maigre mais qui est transformé en un super-soldat "grace" ou à cause d'un "Super-Soldier-sérum". Il devient Captain America et son mission c'est d'éliminer un criminel de guerre, le chef d'une organisation Nazi.
Peut-être un des meilleurs films (jusqu'à maintenant) dans ce genre de film d'action avec des "super-héros". Des clichés et et des "blagues" prévisibles bien sûr mais... comme "divertissement"...
Dans d'autre rôles on peut voir Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper et Samuel L. Jackson.

I did not graduate with a Master in Art for that!

L'Hôtel de Villaines, La Châtre. Exhibition hall.

Today, for the first time in my (Aurore´s) life, I said no to a part time job. Why?

Well, let's say that the ad was attractive and that the real tasks were not.

We're talking about a summer job at a museum.
The employment office had announced a curator job.

The real position had more to do with a janitor one.

No. Thanks.

The Town Museum:

Musée George Sand et de la Vallée Noire

(Photo Hôtel de Villaines: http://static.berryprovince.com/wp-content/uploads/wpetourisme/hotel-de-villaines-vd-2-700x525.jpg)

(Photo Musée de George Sand et de la Vallée Noire: http://webmuseo.com/ws/musee-de-la-chatre/app/file/download/Musee.JPG?key=a57075zc27tl6z1tyy29mic00iao0168i)

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is a 2011 American 3D sequel to the 2007 film Ghost Rider and features Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider. In the supporting roles we see Ciarán Hinds (replacing Peter Fonda), Violante Placido, Johnny Whitworth, Christopher Lambert, and Idris Elba. 
The film is directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, from a screenplay written by David S. Goyer, Scott M. Gimple and Seth Hoffman. 
The critics were not to fond of it and I (Gunnar) found the first one better but this one is a not to bad Relax-on-a-Friday-evening-film.

Blinkende lygter/Flickering Lights

Our film this evening is Danish and one where they use the black humour being so common in Danish film making. Not common in a negative sense of the word because they often use it in a brilliant way. In this film too.
Four small-time gangsters from Copenhagen (played by Søren Pilmark, Ulrich Thomsen, Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, where the three last have gone on to act in international productions) steal over 4,000,000 Danish kroner which they were supposed to bring to a gangster boss. Their plan is to flee to Barcelona but they are forced to stop in the countryside, in an old, worn-down house, hiding there for several weeks.
After some time they get attached to this house and surrounding and they decide that they would stay there.  Their plan is to renovate the house and make it into a restaurant.
What they didn't foresee was that the gangster boss could show up some day, as he does.
In other roles we see the fine Danish actressess Sofie Gråbøl and Iben Hjejle.  In the role as the gangster boss we see the Swedish actor Peter Andersson, he also a very fine actor, seen in the Millenium movies but also in films by Björn Runge, among other œuvres.
Director: Anders Thomas Jensen.  

The Impressionists (TV-series)

The Impressionists is a 2006 three-part docudrama based on facts in the form of documents, archive letters, records and interviews from the time, made by the BBC, reconstructing the origins of the Impressionist art movement.

The story is structured aroudn the paintings. Some of the world's most memorable art works are recreated, following the same techniques that the artists used at the time.

The series reveals how Claude Monet took just 40 minutes to paint his seminal work Impression, soleil levant ("Sunrise") in a race against time to capture the light, the painting laying the foundations for the Impressionist movement; why Manet's depiction of Olympia so outraged Parisian society; and how Cézanne's 60 paintings of one mountain, Montagne Saint-Victoire, laid the foundations for Cubism and modern art.

Julian Glover plays 80-year-old Monet, the "father of Impressionism" and narrator of the series. He undertakes a nostalgic but painful journey as he looks back on his past life in an interview with a journalist at his garden in Giverny.

As all docudramas, I feel a bit ambiguous about these depictions of "real life stories", as with biopics. 
The problem with language: French artists speaking English? How "real" is this?
This is of course a recurrent problem in English speaking countries but also French speaking, Spanish speaking and other countries not interested in hearing another language than their own.

But otherwise a good production as (almost) always from BBC.

Exposition sur le cinéma/Exhibition on film La Berthenoux

Français (English below):

Grâce à Facebook, j'ai (Gunnar) rencontré un homme qui s'appelle Gérard Prugnaud, qui a travaillé comme professeur, mais qui est aujourd'hui à la retraite.

Toute sa vie il s'est intéressé au cinéma et il a collectionné des objets utilisés qu'on a utilisé pour créer des films mais aussi des objets dérivés de différent films et aussi des journaux de cinéma.

L'exposition a été montrée dans la bibliothèque de La Berthenoux.

L'exposition est composé par Gérard avec des objets de sa collection et c'ést intéressant de trouver de vieilles caméras, super-8 et le 'clap' original utilisé par Jacques Tati quand il a tourné le film Jour de Fête.

Ce film (Jour de fête) a été tourné pas loin d’où j'habite, La Châtre, et pas loin de La Berthenoux non plus, à Sainte-Sévère. Dans cette ville on peut aujourd'hui trouver  un musée dédié à ce film et sa réalisation, inauguré en 2009.

Nous n'avons pas de photos de l'exposition en soi (sauf les deux au-dessus), mais l'exposition reste en place jusqu'au 30 mars, ce qui vous donne la possibilité de la visiter si vous n'habitez pas loin de La Berthenoux.

English:

Through Facebook I (Gunnar) 'met' a man by the name of Gerard Prugnaud, having worked as a professor, now being retired from his work.

All his life he has had an interest in film/the movies, collecting items used making films and stemming from films but also journals about film.
This exhibition was displayed in the library in La Berthenoux.

It's put together by Gerard from his own collection and it was interesting to find some older film cameras, super-8:s and the original clapper board Tati used in his film Jour de Fête.

The latter film (Jour de Fête) was made not far from La Châtre, where I live and not far from La Berthenoux either, in Sainte-Sévère, where we today find a museum dedicated to that film and its realisation.

Now we don't have so many photographs from the exhibition (except the two at the top) but it continues to the 30th of March wherefore you can visit it if you're nearby.

On the other hand we will show you La Berthenoux through our photos.

Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1990)

Another version but better then the previous ones? Well not bad at all and as Michael Caine creates the lead role my wife Aurore would probably say it is the best one. He is one of her favourites and, at least as younger, a "perfect man"!!

Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy

This film is directed by the Swedish director Tomas Alfredsson, the son of the comedian, actor, writer and director Hans Alfredsson (1931-). 

It is an impressing cast: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ciarán Hinds and the Swedish-Danish actor David Dencik. 
Where are the women? Well there are some but one can't say they play an important role, unfortunately. Kathy Burke, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Linda Marlowe and Laura Carmichael are the most predominant women in the film. 

A very macho like film in this sense. 

As a film quite entertaining, not taking itself too seriously. A combination between different 1960-70 agent and spy-stories; James Bond and more amusing detective franchises. 

The basis is the book by John Le Carré and the action is taking place during the Cold War so the background is of course a rather severe and serious one. 

On the whole a film worth seeing with some original ingredients but mostly entertaining, not trying to take a serious standpoint on the Cold War.

Driver (1978)

For those having seen the film Drive by Nicolas Winding Refn, this is the original from which he built his film. 

The story is almost identic, that is to say it turns around a get away driver who uses his squills as a driver of fast cars to help criminals escape the police. 

In the role as the driver or "Cowbow" as he is called here, we see Ryan O'Neal and his is very good as the cold, rather ruthless but in spite of this also warm hearted character. 

In Winding Refn's film it is Ryan Gosling who takes on the same role, an actor with very few facial expressions and that works in a film like this. 

O'Neal is however more expressive although his role also implies not displaying any particular feelings. 

I or we liked both films in its genre. Winding Refn's film a bit more violent, as most of his films.

Driver is directed by Walter Hill.

Thor

Sedmikrásky/ Daisies

Ce film s'appelle "Les Petites Marguerites" (Sedmikrásky) en français et c'est un chef-d'oeuvre de La Nouvelle Vague Tchécoslovaque. La réalisatrice s'appelle Věra Chytilová est elle était une pionnière du nouveau cinéma Tchécoslovaque et une réalisatrice qu'Aurore connait très bien, car elle a beaucoup regardé des films d'elle et d'autres réalisateurs/réalisatrices tchécoslovaques pendant ces études. Aurore avait même envie de consacrer ses études au cinéma tchécoslovaque avant elle s'est tourné vers le cinéma scandinave.
This film is called "Daisies" in English and it is a masterpiece within the Czechoslovak New Wave cinema. The director's name is Věra Chytilová and she was a pioneer within the new Czechoslovak cinema and a director Aurore know very well because she has seen many films by her and other directors from the former Czechoslovakia during her studies. Aurore, for a while, even wanted to devote herself to studies of the Czechoslovak cinema before turning towards the Scandinavian cinema.

Chakushin Ari/ One Missed Call

Déjeuner avec les chasseurs Sarzay

Près du Château de Sarzay (ci-dessous) nous avons mangé avec les chasseurs (les amis de mon beau-père) aujourd'hui. Quelque photos.
Close to Château de Sarzay (below) where we ate with the hunters (friends of my father-in-law) today. Some photos.

Il y avait plus de viandes dans l'assiette que ce que révèle la photo.
Malheureusement, nous avons oublié de prendre une photo
avant j'ai mangé le chevreuil.
And it was much more meat on the plate than this photo reveal.

Unfortunately we forgot to take a photo before I had eaten the deer.

The Stranger

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Blodsbånd

The Norwegian film Blodsbånd (literary meaning "Blood relationship" or "Blood ties") is the story about a young boy - Mirush - who lives in Kosovo with his mother and older brother Armend. Armend have saved some money in order to go to Norway but he is killled in a car accident so Mirush finds the money and a map of Norway and without telling his mother, he leaves Kosovo in order to go to the land of the fjords.
His father works at a restaurant there and Mirush finds it and the day after he is given a work at the restaurant without telling his father that he is his son. Obviously he has not seen his son since he was a very small child.

In Kosovo Mirush was a good basketball player and he also gambled on winning and he continues to do so in Norway. It is just that he finds a gold watch belonging to the Albanian mafia, steals it and uses it when gambling with other boys when playing basket. He wins and gets quite a good amount of money but he does not want to return the gold watch to the mafia. A waiter, Frode, finds out that Mirush has stolen the watch and beg him to leave it back but Mirush refuses. 
The mafia thinks it is Frode who has stolen it and breaks his fingers!

A film not depicting Mirush as a very nice person, to say the least and of course it could be intepreted as a critique and accusation of dishonesty among Kosovo people, if one overinterpret the film. Dishonest "Kosovians" and an Albanian mafia. The Norwegians seem honest? A real depiction of the Norwegian society or a critique against the immigrant policy or what? Well, judge for yourselfs.

The director is Marius Holst.