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