FFF 2008: Bled Number One - review by Sandra Dupuy

Director: Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche
Screenplay : Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, Louise Thermes
Running time: 100 min
Certificate: 12

Released in 2006, Bled Number One justly gathered awards worldwide as well as the “Prix de la Jeunesse” (Youth Award) in the section “Un Certain Regard” (A Certain Outlook) at Cannes the same year. Algerian director Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s second film is an interesting example of how colonial past and metropolitan lifestyle mesh within French contemporary culture. With its documentary aspect, beautiful close-ups and abstract moments of pure “inner time”, Bled Number One is a tribute to early cinema and Algeria, though it doesn’t shy away from criticising the mother country.

An opening tracking shot through a winding alley-way, complete with Cheb Mami’s lament echoing against the white-washed houses, constitutes the start of a strange adventure. The film will leave the location and time indeterminate until the end. The disconcerting structure of Bled Number One shows daily life in the village of Loulouj, mid-way between mountains and sea. In the manner of a North-African Tsai-Min Liang, RAZ’s lingering camera focuses on people and details (gazes, boat wrecks or half-open shutters) rather than action, in long takes, sometimes to the point of discomfort.

Things are happening though. Bouzid (Abel Jafri), a local resident, organises a defence committee to fight roaming fundamentalist youths. Kamel “La France” (RAZ himself), back to Algeria after doing time in prison on the other side of the Mediterranean, wanders around places and people without any defined status. Bouzid’s sister Louisa (wonderful singer/ songwriter Meryem Serbah) can’t flee her abusive husband (famous stand-up comedian Ramzy Bedia) without getting beaten up by her brother in the process. She finally fulfils her forbidden passion for music and performs eerie blues songs in front of the real staff and patients of Constantine’s mental institution, in which she takes refuge after a suicide attempt.

Music plays a key part in the film, some scenes being built around contemplative moments where Kamel seeks solace in the bewitching hills surrounding the village, and listens to an anonymous guitar player’s hyper-saturated and psychedelic sounds. Rodolphe Burger, ex-singer and lead guitar of the 90s indie band Kat Onoma, brings his cult presence and electrifying compositions for a dreamy effect. Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s self-produced family enterprise (most of the village inhabitants are also his relatives) shows a divided Algeria fighting a new rise of fundamentalism while treating women as second-class citizens. Playfully misleading and constantly though-provoking, Bled Number One brings in a fresh outlook on the Franco-Algerian troubled rapport.

FFF Preview: In Your Wake/Nos Retrouvailles – by Joseph Wren

Director: David Oelhoeffen
Screenwriters: David Oelhoeffen & Antoine Lacomblez
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 99 mins

French Film Festival Screening Times:

Cardiff Cineworld: 9 March – 1, 3, & 7pm
Birmingham Cineworld: 12 March – 1, 3, & 7pm
Aberdeen The Belmont: 16 March – 3:45 & 8:45pm
Glasgow GFT: 18 March – 3:15 & 8:15pm

For his first feature-length film, writer/director David Oelhoeffen lends another story to the massive collection of French films about family. Being personal yet universal, family seems to be a safe theme on which a new filmmaker can cut his teeth. Got a story about absent parents? Great! In Your Wake is one of those, about a blue-collar father and son reunited after an undetermined period of time.

Twenty-year-old dishwasher Marco (Nicolas Giraud), is a decent young man, the kind of ordinary guy who likes sports, cars, and women, and doesn’t have a whole lot to say, but knows the difference between right and wrong. He’s happy to be reunited with his father, Gabriel (Jaques Gamblin), whose slick appearance and smooth talking slightly reek of manipulation. The two hang out at clubs and get reacquainted, when Gabriel proposes the great idea of opening a bar with his son. But first, there’s a dubious matter of money that Gabriel is “owed”, and before you know it, Marco finds himself an accomplice to a crime in a desolate warehouse block. The tense and predictable story explains very little about the family, and the mother appears very briefly, offering the viewer few reasons to invest emotionally in these mostly unpleasant characters. It’s a real shame, because the absent parent motif offers so much in the way of emotional discovery, but Oelhoeffen’s ideas of this do not translate successfully.

David Oelhoeffen’s debut feature is tough viewing - an intense, humourless, bleak episode, In Your Wake is held aloft by particularly strong performances by Gamblin and Giraud, who do as much as they can with a weak script. When it comes to films such as this, the opinions tend to go two ways, so take your pick - “gritty social realism” or “hopelessly boring”.

FFF Preview: Boxes - by Robert Duffin

Director: Jane Birkin
Screenwriter: Jane Birkin
Certificate: TBC
Running Time:95 mins

French Film Festival Screening Times:
Glasgow GFT 8th March 6pm
Edinburgh Filmhouse 9th March 6pm
London Cineworld 12th March 1,3,7pm

Jane Birkin, swingin’ 60s London icon, celebrates her 60th year by making her directorial debut with Boxes. Birkin first appeared as a model in Antonioni’s masterful Blowup, and then cemented herself in pop culture history by recording the number one single ‘Je T’aime…moi non plus’ with her then husband, French chanson Serge Gainsbourg. While appearing in films and making music over the next three decades, she has collaborated with a variety of artists from Feist and Franz Ferdinand to Yann Tiersen and Rufus Wainwright.

The loosely biographical narrative of Boxes follows Anna (played by Birkin) as she relocates to her new home in Brittany and literally unleashes the ghosts of her past as she rifles through and unpacks boxes. The film may have been made on the cheap, but Birkin has clearly pulled in the favours, attracting a starry cast including John Hurt, Geraldine Chaplin, Michel Piccoli, Tcheky Karyo, and Lou Doillon who step in to loosely represent everyone from the aforementioned Serge and daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jacques Doillon, and others from her rich and varied life.

Boxes does see Birkin at her most honest, and she doesn’t shy away from criticising herself. The performances of her collected chums are also universally interesting, however her handling of the surreal elements of the plotting leave a lot to be desired. The film is far too self-referential for it’s own good, and Birkin takes a story that could have been a universal tale of familial relationships and turns into a self-indulgent curio. She’s undeniably full of inventive ideas, but struggles to effectively transfer them to her chosen medium. Definitely a film for Birkin diehards only, and even they might find it a chore.

Families, Feuds and Fun: French Film Festival 2008

Glasgow francophones and cinephiles, get thee to the GFT. The French Film Festival is in town. Sandra Dupuy gives us the shakedown on the best of the fest.

The French Film Festival currently taking place all over the UK is coming to our Glasgow screens this afternoon. The 29 films shown at the GFT over two weeks have been split into three main categories, Preview for the forthcoming UK releases, Panorama for classics or works made by well-established directors, and Discovery for first features or successful follow-ups. Boldly starting with Bled Number One and Those Who Remain, the GFT selection’s (and the Festival’s) keynotes are indeed family, love and politics, the ultimate French combination.

The 2008 vintage tackles strong themes such as the Algerian War legacy in France, and politics in general, with the forthcoming 40^th anniversary of “Mai 68”. Bled Number One, Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche’s follow-up to his well regarded 2001 debut Wesh-Wesh (What’s Going On), is the latest in a flurry a French-produced movies dealing with Franco-Algerian cross-currents and questioning the place of a prominent Algerian culture in post-colonial, contemporary French society.

One of the most moving films of the selection is Summer of 62. The French title, Cartouches gauloises, is more polemic and refers both to the famed French cigarette brand and French bullets. Mehdi Charef’s 1987 debut Le thé au harem d’Archimède was a hit tackling the issue of France’s diverse and conflicting cultures. 20 years after, the autobiographical Cartouches gauloises brutally depicts the last days of French colonial occupation in Algeria through the eyes of 11 year old Ali (Hamada).

Two other films, Mon Colonel (directed by Laurent Herbiet and co-written by Costa-Gavras) and Florent-Emilio Siri’s Intimate Enemies are dedicated to the same theme. The first recalls how French soldiers used systematic torture on Algerian civilians and fellaga (freedom fighters) while the second focus on relationships within the French Army at that particular time.

A mini-section entitled Mai 68 Retro gives the opportunity to watch or re-watch Louis Malle’s 1989 classic Milou en mai/ May Fools, centred around a family gathering for their matriarch’s funeral, as well as Mai 68, a rare documentary filmed by Jean-Luc Magneron during the eponymous riots. Other political films are on offer, like Serge Bozon’s unexpected musical war drama La France, beloved actor and FFF guest Jean-Pierre Darroussin’s first directed feature The Premonition or Claude Miller’s highly prized and praised A Secret.

The family and its complex mechanics are also featured, with the Doillon clan strongly present. Boxes, Jane Birkin’s long-awaited directorial debut, is an autobiographical drama in which a menopausal woman, having recently moved to Brittany, leafs through boxes, unleashing ghosts from the past. Veteran director Jacques Doillon’s ex-partner’s theatrical meditation also stars their daughter Lou Doillon.

Lou’s half-sister Lola Doillon hasn’t been outdone, as she will present her first feature Just About Love at the GFT on the 8^th of March at 8.30pm, and will stay for a Q&A session. Her comedy offers a fresh outlook on love, youth and first experiences, well summed up by the French title “Et toi, t’es sur qui?” (literally “What about you, who are you on?”).

Still within the family theme, Hunting and Gathering, a charming comedy drama, celebrates veteran Claude Berri’s return after his 2005 L’un reste, l’autre part, which starred Charlotte Gainsbourg and Daniel Auteuil. Berri has once again gathered an impressive cast ranging from France’s brightest young actors Audrey Tautou and Guillaume Canet to “grandes dames” Danièle Lebrun and Françoise Bertin. Berri’s film has won critical acclaim while being a French box-office success. At the opposite end of the family spectrum is Don’t Worry, I’m Fine, director/actor Philippe Lioret’s intimist drama about a 19 year old girl (amazing newcomer Melanie Laurent) searching for her twin brother.

Let’s not forget Conversation With My Gardener, Jean Becker’s new venture. The veteran and FFF guest is better known in the UK for his riveting psycho-thriller L’Eté Meurtrier/ One Deadly Summer (featuring undisputed 1984 César winner Isabelle Adjani) and his Vanessa Paradis/ Gérard Depardieu drama Elisa (1995). In Conversation…, leads Daniel Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin form an amazing and moving duo at the heart of this bittersweet comedy drama.

Last but not least, a few well-chosen comedies brighten up the selection. Priceless, which premiered at the recent Glasgow Film Festival, is a definite crowd-pleaser, as well as an astute and sarcastic comedy depicting a superficial and wealthy world in which everyone’s for sale. Gad Elmaleh and Audrey Tautou’s unlikely association works well and the two glamorous stars are reminiscent of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in their comedy hey days.

The wonderful Sandrine Bonnaire, whose directorial debut, Her Name is Sabine, is also screened in London for the FFF, reveals her unsuspected comic talent to Vincent Lindon in Pierre Jolivet’s romcom Could This Be Love. And if, unlike one of my revered colleagues, you haven’t had enough of 2008 BAFTA, Oscar and César winner Marion Cotillard, she’s back in Fair Play, directed by FFF guest Lionel Bailliu and also starring heartthrob Benoit Magimel.

All in all the 2008 French Film Festival selection, despite its common themes, is ambitious, challenging and extremely varied. Don’t forget to check out previews of The Story of Richard O, Priceless and Second Wind, as well as reviews of Boxes, La France, In Your Wake, Poison Friends and Before I Forget. Happy Festival! Sport your best beret, grab a glass of wine, and enjoy!

For more details on the FFF 2008, go to

http://www.gft.org.uk/

http://www.frenchfilmfestival.org.uk/