French film goes directly for the gusto
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Arta Dobroshi is Lorna in "Lorna's Silence" by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne at Montreal's Cinemania Film Festival. Courtesy Cinemania Film Festival |
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By Jim Lowe Times Argus Staff - Published: November 14, 2008
MONTREAL – The French are similar to Americans in many ways – but their approach to film is substantially different.
This was made abundantly clear last weekend as I viewed seven French films at the Cinemania Film Festival. Now in its 14th year, the festival, which continues through Sunday at the Imperial Cinema, features new French feature films with English subtitles.
My connection to the festival began in Waitsfield some five years ago. At a party for the singers of the Vermont International Opera Festival at the home of Maidy and Irv Teitelbaum, I found out that Maidy had founded and ran this unusual film festival. She had started it during the French-English strife in Montreal as the French had eliminated English subtitles on the films.
Soon Cinemania transcended that and now, embraced by francophones and anglophones alike, it has become the most important French film festival in North America. Its operation though is anything but French: If the opening weekend was any indication, it runs with the precision of a Swiss watch – thanks to the passion and intelligence of Teitelbaum and her managing director, Geneviève Royer.
The seven films I saw represented a broad spectrum, similar subject matter to films everywhere: dysfunctional families in crisis; a serio-comic romantic battle of the sexes; humans intersecting and coming to grips with nature; the tragedy the neglected elderly; the dramatic tension caused by unwanted immigration; and even an action-packed thriller-spoof.
What separates these films from most of their American brethren is the depth and dimension of their characters. That's not so surprising in the Belgian film, "Lorna's Silence," by the Dardenne brothers. Arta Dobroshi, a newcomer to the international film world, gives a riveting and heart-wrenching performance as an Albanian immigrant in Belgium by virtue of a marriage purchased through organized crime. The cold-hearted and seemingly amoral young woman discovers that she has a conscience.
What separates this from American films that take issues seriously is not only the raw reality of the portrayal of people's behavior (though we are certainly moving in that direction) but the ending. Our films would tie up all the loose ends for the audience; "Lorna's Silence" ends, though with some hope, realistically in limbo.
Interestingly, the Kosovo-born Dobroshi, who was in Montreal for the festival, had to learn French in two months to make the film; she had learned the audition material phonetically.
In Hiner Saleem's "Beneath the Rooftops of Paris," the great French actor Michel Piccoli plays an aging and impoverished Parisian living in a garret during the deadly heat wave as time and "progress" are destroying what is left of his life. One by one, he is losing people: the son who says he will visit but never does, the comrade-neighbor who has had enough, and the young woman forced out by the landlord after her junkie-boyfriend dies. This bleakness is countered by the man's short but all-important heartwarming interactions with his comrade, the junkie's girlfriend seeking and giving solace, and the girlfriend who finds it difficult to break away from the care of her own senile 93-year-old mother.
What gives this film its incredible depth, not often seen in commercial films made on this side of the Atlantic, is – again – the depth of its characterizations. Throughout, there is very little dialogue. It is quite easy to see in their faces what the characters are feeling, which draws the viewer even more deeply into their characters. And the ending of this truly beautiful film doesn't shy away from the inevitable – though there is a bit of ironic humor to break the sadness.
This depth in filmmaking likely comes in part as a result of France's unique method of funding film. Contrary to popular belief, the government does not subsidize films. Rather it invests in them and takes part of the profit. In this country taxpayers would balk, calling it "socialism," but the method has certainly resulted in some fine filmmaking.
Not all the films were serious. In fact, France turns out its own blockbuster types. Eric Besnard's thriller-spoof "Ca$h," seen in its North American premiere, has been described as France's answer to our "Ocean's Eleven." But the French film has sharper and more unexpected plot turns and the psychology of the characters makes sense – in the end.
It is impossible to convey the plot of "Ca$h," but it reminded me of the best of the James Bond movies. French actress Alice Taglioni who played the film's unexpectedly complex object of desire, and also starred in two other festival films, was on-hand to introduce this most entertaining and fun romp.
French film seems to go directly for the gusto and, unlike its American brethren, never lets squeamishness or prudishness get in the way. More and more central Vermonters are making the easy trek Cinemania and it's not difficult to see why.