Pauline et François

Pauline et François is not quite a Romeo and Juliet-story but at least one family member doesn't approve of the Juliet coming into their life.

Pauline (Laura Smet) moves into a house on the countryside. She is working at a bank and the reason for her to be in the middle of nowhere, is that she has beome a widow and the past haunted her at her former work place and neighbourhood. She is beautiful and falls in love with her equally 'beau' neighbour François (Yannick Renier).
Both have gone through difficulties in life, making them confide in each other, sharing their life stories. In the case of François, he is tormented by the fact that he once accidentally killed his brother.
His sister Catherine (Léa Drucker) is however exercising some kind of emotional blackmail against François because of this tragic incident.
These equally hurt souls find trust and love in each others company but this is not seen positively by not least François's sister, who also is working at the same bank as Pauline.

There are some fine moments in this quietly told story and the underlying threat consisting of Catherine's jealousy (I guess it have to be regarded as such), set the viewer in a mood of suspense, not knowing where this might lead.
On the same time I (Gunnar) didn't think they - or rather the director Renaud Fely - succeeded in fully going throw with these intentions, making a both suspensful and romantic film, if this was the aim.
Beautiful sceneries but sometimes the action and acting felt somewhat exaggerated in parts of the film where I felt it shouldn't have been.
I found Léa Drucker's character being the most interesting one and of course she had a actable role in Catherine, that is clear.

Demonlover

A film by Olivier Assayas made in 2002.

This film combines the idea about 'snuff movies', pure pornography, people being used as sex slaves, the cold and cynic world of pornographic films and business enterprising as a whole with the use of animations and manga to hide and package these themes in order to appeal to younger generations.
Two companies fight for the commercial rights to 'porno mangas', as they noticed that it has become a huge and profitable branch within this industry, and in order to beat the opponent they use 'spies' to infiltrate each others organizations.

Trying to shock us - I guess - Assayas does not succeed.
This film had some very interesting aesthetic points of views but I can't say it made me upset, if this was the intention?
The animated sex was much more 'lush' though than the 'real' and Assayas had created some appealing scenes of dystopic character, in my opinion.

Aurore appreciated this film more than I did. She had seen it before.

In some of the roles we saw Connie Nielsen, Chloë Sevigny and Gina Gershon.

Berry Movies selection committee 2010

This is the 2010 selection committee of the short film festival in La Châtre called Berry Movies.

Two of the main responsible for this film festival is Florent Choffel and Etienne Sautereau and one representative of MJC in La Châtre.
Aurore and I are both sitting in the back row to the left.
64 films were sent to this years competition and 10 was chosen to compete the 29th of October. May the best film win.

Inglourious Basterds

This Quentin Tarantino-film has many admirers or fans but I'm not one of them and neither is Aurore.

This is the story about a group of Jewish-American soldiers ('The Basterds') and their work during WWII, consisting of killing and scalping nazi-soldiers. The idea might be unusual but it needs more than an unusual idea to make an interesting piece of art.
The film is - in spite of the theme and in spite of the fact that Tarantino is known to make films with quite a great amount of violence in it - not at all as violent and 'bloody' as one might imagine.
This is of course not the reason why I didn't appreciate the film.

We follow the work of this group and how they use a German actress to come close to the ones they want to kill, not least the highest ranks among the nazis, that is to say Hitler, Göring, Goebbels etc.
Not following the historical development, they actually succeed in killing the above nomenklatura (I know this word is used about the ruling class/classes or castes in Russia or the former Sovjet Union but I use it in a tranferred sense) and many more and this is of course an appealing change.
On the way they loose many of their friends but in the end the main hero - lt Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) - survives - of course!
There are some amusing moments as when they all visit a cinema where they plan to kill the leaders of Germany.
Aldo Raine and his associates are brought there thanks to the German actress who not only speaks her native language but also French, English and Italian, fluently. Raine and his men try to pretend they are Italian friends of her, working for the Italian film industry.
Raine claims himself being the most competent in language and is therefore heading the group in talks with one of the principle characters in the film, colonel Hans Landa - Christoph Waltz.
When opening his mouth, we hear that Raine speaks Italian with a strong American accent but colonel Landa, on the other hand, speaks Italian like an Italian! They are exposed.

The camera work was sometimes very interesting, finding unusual angles to play with, making some parts of the film visually appealing.
The acting was'nt bad but sometimes it felt as if some actors worked on a routine basis.
Brad Pitt made his Raine into a very uncultivated American 'hooligan' but the best acting bestowed us by Christoph Waltz.
His nazi officer, rude and cultivated at the same time, being a polyglot, was extremely well portrayed.
On the same time there were to many clichées to make this film unique and sometimes I felt like the purpose must have been to make a burlesk slap-stick movie and I'm not sure that this was Tarantinos intention - or maybe I'm wrong?
Most of his films are of course made with a glimpse in the eye and deliberately ironic but was that the intention in this oeuvre, one might ask?

Tarantino hasn't made a really interesting film since Jackie Brown.

Le Café du Pont

This is a film that - according to the trailers - promises a charming story about the life in a small town in France during and after the Second World War.
We are made to believe that the story is filled with both daily events of ordinary nature, thrilling incidents, love and humour, all wrapped up within a nice photographic frame.
Unfortunately we were very disappointed.

It seemed as if the director had left the work of directing to the camera men and left the actors to manage as good as they could. Of course there are camera men who most certainly are able to direct but in this case not even the camerawork was made in a appealing way. It was more as if they had placed the camera in one spot and then followed the character coming in from left and disappering to the right, that is to say theatre.
If the ambition was to make this film as 'natural' and free of 'acting' as possible, making it more 'realistic' and almost documentary, one definitely failed.
Not only was the acting extremely poor but we asked ourselves time after time where this film wanted to take us?
It's not at all a problem if the tempo is slow and there are long shots not containing much of visible content, if the picture is filled with other components of visual hight or poetry but in this case it was neither.
To express my(our)self-(selves) mildly: The least good film we've seen in a long time!
I can't remember having seen anything of this director - Manuel Poirier - before (but I'm not sure) but Aurore has seen his film 'Western' and thought it at least better than this one - and that is easy for sure!