Movie Review: Potiche (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

It's 1970s France and Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve) is content. Her husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini) is the director of her late father's umbrella factory. He's having some trouble with striking workers, but that's okay because Robert avoids sharing his troubles with her. Instead, he dumps his problems on his secretary (and mistress), Nadège (Karin Viard). Daughter Joëlle (Judith Godrèche) belittles Suzanne for being a simple potiche—a trophy wife—confessing she is about to ask for a divorce from her own freeloading husband. And son Laurent (Jérémie Rénier) is a student still undecided about his plans for the future. No one is happy, least of all Suzanne, but she's content. Nobody's perfect, right? This is the way life should be. And at least she's happy enough that when she goes for a jog in the morning, the forest animals are attracted to her cheerfulness, surrounding her and serenading her with their soft chirps and purrs like they would Sleeping Beauty. Wait... say what?

DVD Review: A Christmas Tale (2008)

by Tony Dayoub



When I reviewed Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) almost one year ago, I ended my post with this observation:

A memorable image comes midway in Un conte de Noël when [a central character] opens a present from a neighbor, a gold necklace with a heart-shaped charm. As she admires it, there is a cut to the charm spinning in the center of the film frame as the surrounding space dissolves into a snowy exterior of the family home. This central image somehow captures the ineffable feelings that arise when viewing this exquisite film, of a family that may not actually like each other much, but manage to hold deep love for each other nonetheless.

This ethereal image of the twirling bauble still lingers. It is the essential image of the film, distilling the warmth and fragility of the almost archetypal family story of the Vuillards.



But director Arnaud Desplechin elevates the familiar genre of the Christmas family reunion beyond its cliche saccharine elements, complicating the tale by introducing long-held resentments, rivalries, and recriminations between the siblings and their parents. The two characters who are often at the crux of most of these complications are the cancer-stricken Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and her least favorite son, Henri (Mathieu Amalric). So it is with no small tragicomic irony that it is only Henri's bone marrow that is deemed compatible with Junon's need. And it is a credit to Desplechin's profundity in fashioning this small fable that these two characters who dislike each other so immensely still love each other greatly, and in fact, identify with each other to the exclusion of the rest of their family. Thus does the gyrating trinket in the image come to literally depict the otherwise unknowable heart of gold buried deep within the spiteful characters.



It is because of Desplechin's ease at pictorially depicting such lush, passionate emotions in counterpoint to the quiet expressions of love and regret at the center of the family's interactions that this film made my top ten list for last year's films (and is seriously vying for top ten of the decade).



Criterion has wisely timed this week's release of the film on DVD and Blu-ray to the holiday season, when the movie's magic can most effectively touch the viewer. And what an astounding trio of supplements it includes: an essay by esteemed critic Phillip Lopate; a 35-minute documentary featuring interviews with Amalric, Deneuve, and Desplechin—all eloquently expressing their fascination with each other and the film (in English, surprisingly); and L'aimée, Desplechin's 2007 documentary about his paternal grandmother, her death when his father was only two, and how it impacted the development of his family. It is this last one hour doc that proves to be most insightful, illustrating how Desplechin's interactions with his own family in Roubaix, France may have served as the inspiration for A Christmas Tale—also set in Roubaix—released one year later.

M.I.A. on Region 1 DVD Tribute Month: Cul-de-Sac

The premise of Roman Polanski's Cul-de-Sac (1966) resembles that of an ethnic joke, "An effeminate Englishman, a French nymphomaniac, and an American gangster are stuck on an island..." And in many ways, Polanski approaches his moody character study with black comedy in mind. But the film is a non-sequitur with situations that illuminate the characters in question while never really taking the plot to any logical conclusion. As the credits roll, we see a car slowly approaching. It is being pushed down a coastal road by Dickie (Lionel Stander), a burly gangster nursing a wounded arm. His friend, Albie (Jack MacGowran), lays in the car, apparently paralyzed and bleeding to death. When Dickie sees a castle in the horizon, he leaves Albie and the car to get help. He sneaks around surveying the castle and its surroundings, still alert after the presumed gunfight he just survived. He is unaware that the tide has started coming in, and Albie is helplessly fretting as water starts seeping into the car. Soon Dickie will find out that the castle's grounds sometimes become an island, occasionally cut off from civilization by the rising tide. Dickie finds an odd couple living at the castle, a young French woman in her 20s, Teresa (Françoise Dorléac), and her mannered British husband, the significantly older George (Donald Pleasence). The arrangement between husband and wife is understood from the beginning, as we spy Teresa laying topless on the beach with a friend while they are suppose to be "shrimping." George is otherwise occupied with the friend's parents, showing them around the castle, oblivious to his wife's shenanigans. Teresa takes every opportunity to emasculate George, even in private. They play games in which she coerces George to cross-dress. But their relationship seems to work at some level, Polanski seems to be telling us. As we later find out, George is not ignorant of his wife's indiscretions with the young man. And Teresa seems to accept her husband's softness, maybe even enjoy it, as is evident in the picture above. It is only when Dickie intrudes on George and Teresa that the dynamic between the couple is disrupted, and a three-way battle for dominance begins. Teresa loses respect for George because he won't stand up to Dickie, and will often side with the gangster to denigrate her husband further. George starts resenting Teresa for continuing to use her feminine wiles so openly around the gun-wielding thug, and enlists Dickie in ostracizing her from any competitive gamesmanship being played out by the two men. The upper-class George and Teresa are infuriated by Dickie's transgression into their exclusive domain, and take the opportunity to force him into the role of servant when some unexpected visitors stop by. And all the while Dickie waits for his boss, the never-seen Katelbach, to rescue him from the grating obnoxiousness of the couple and their petty worries. The pivotal role here is Dorléac's, as the ebb and flow of the film's energy depends on Teresa's mercurial nature as much as it does on the Northumberland location's rise and fall of the surrounding tide. The older sister of Catherine Deneuve (star of Polanski's previous film, Repulsion), Dorléac is riveting as Teresa, at times seductive, crafty, and immature. And the actress bears more than a passing resemblance to Polanski's future wife, Sharon Tate, who would star in his next film, The Fearless Vampire Killers, or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (1967). Dorléac seemed to be headed for a significant career until tragedy struck a year later, and she died in a car accident at the age of 25. Everyone else involved would go on to greater acclaim in the future. Stander, an American living in Europe after being a victim of the Hollywood Blacklist would become better known as Max, the chauffeur on TV's Hart to Hart (1979-84). Donald Pleasence would gain great cult fame as Dr. Loomis in Halloween (1978) and four sequels. Polanski's tumultuous life would also encounter tragedy and controversy, with his wife, Sharon Tate, brutally murdered by the Manson Family, and his fleeing the country after allegedly having sex with a minor. But he would go on to direct such classics as Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974), while revisiting some of the themes of Cul-de-Sac in such movies as Macbeth (1971), the underrated Bitter Moon (1992), and Death and the Maiden (1994). This post is a contribution to Jeremy Richey's month-long tribute to films that are M.I.A. on Region 1 DVD at Moon in the Gutter.

Movie Review: Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) - An Exquisite Depiction of Family Dysfunction

Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale), the French language film by Arnaud Desplechin, is one of the most elegantly beautiful films I've seen in a long time. A portrait of the extremely dysfunctional Vuillard clan, a family at a crossroads of sorts, the movie is bolstered by the performances of Catherine Deneuve, her daughter Chiara Mastroianni, and the fascinating Mathieu Amalric. Everything, from the music to the imagery to the performances, contribute to a sense of warmth and reality so rarely found in this usually American genre, the family reunion film, that the movie is simply one of the most satisfying cinematic experiences I've had in the last couple of years. The Vuillards are a family that revel in their animosity towards each other, turning it into a gamesmanship of sorts between them. Eldest daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) is trying to extricate herself from the relentless negativity, but in doing so she takes the game to a new level. After dealing with the habitual irresponsibility of middle brother Henri (Amalric), she bails him out of a business deal that went bad, with the condition that he is never to be present, or even talked about, in front of her for as long as they live. This extreme measure may be a way of coping with her son Paul (Emile Berling) and his schizophrenic breakdown. Add the stress of the discovery by Junon (Deneuve), the family matriarch, that she suffers from a rare form of cancer and needs a bone marrow transfusion. The upcoming family reunion this Christmas is one that most of them are not looking forward to. Desplechin adopts a variety of techniques to communicate a great amount of backstory in what seems like a breezy 2 and 1/2 hours. At the outset of the film he uses shadow puppets to describe how the childhood death of brother Joseph may have been the inciting incident in the family's complex history of mutual loathing. This short prologue casts a mythic quality on what is a essentially a family of traditional archetypes, a fact Henri makes note of early in the film when he says (and I paraphrase) that if his life is a myth he does not know what part he is supposed to play. The director also often has his characters break the fourth wall, and discuss their inner thoughts, or read personal letters directly to the camera. Another curious device, that may not be as successful, is one in which the viewer enters a scene being shot as if through a peephole, with the lens aperture slowly opening onto the scene proper, a form of eavesdropping that literally reminds us that though we are privy to the Vuillards' secrets, this is just cinema. All of the technical aspects of the film seem to be on point. Grégoire Hetzel's music is lush and comforting, enveloping us in the familial warmth that this family deceptively seems to lack. The imagery also plays counterpoint to the events of the film. Eric Gautier's golden-toned cinematography, and the use of what looks like actual childhood photos of the actors, create a nostalgic sense of history and the indomitable spirit that this family has developed in dealing with their fair share of tragedies. The performances are uniformly excellent. Deneuve gives what could easily be her valedictory performance in film, despite still being too young to leave the screen. It is because she imbues Junon with an unspoken regret for the way she's alienated herself from her family. Still, Junon would rather let the cancer take her than deal with the family issues head-on. Mastroianni is charming as Sylvia, wife of Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), the youngest brother. A mother of two, the fading beauty wonders what course her life would have taken had she chosen to marry cousin Simon (Laurent Capelluto), a painter, instead. Amalric's ugly Henri is a man at odds with himself, both seeking to reconnect with his loved ones, while constantly stirring things up when their dust-ups have settled. For instance, he turns out to be one of only two family members (the other is a youngster) whose bone marrow is compatible with Junon. He is happy to oblige, but still can't bring himself to call his mother by anything but her first name. The detestable little Henri is a physical embodiment of the family and their animus. A memorable image comes midway in Un conte de Noël when Elizabeth opens a present from a neighbor, a gold necklace with a heart-shaped charm. As she admires it, there is a cut to the charm spinning in the center of the film frame as the surrounding space dissolves into a snowy exterior of the family home. This central image somehow captures the ineffable feelings that arise when viewing this exquisite film, of a family that may not actually like each other much, but manage to hold deep love for each other nonetheless.