The San Francisco Film
Society presents ten reasons for a cinema night out at Embarcadero Center
(October 28th through November 3rd) with the work of new
directors along with the return of a seasoned old pro: Bertrand Tavernier (The
Princess of Montpensier/10-30 & 31).
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Two in the Wave: Fifty-one years ago a boy my age
(fourteen) had one of the most exhilarating coming out parties (not in the
queer sense of that loaded expression) and began a life long adventure in which
he would be the cinema child of two very different and demanding filmmaker
daddies. The biggest treat in Emmanuel Laurent’s ambitious doc Two in the
Wave is to experience again the remarkable debut of Jean-Pierre Leaud as
Francois Truffaut’s movie alter ego Antoine Doinel, a boy who resorts to petty
theft to escape a most unsuitable life with two neglectful parents. Laurent’s
goal is to let us taste anew the scary freedom that Antoine experiences in the
movie while showing how quickly that freedom was uncorked by two egghead
critics, aspiring directors. Truffaut and his close friend/ferocious rival
Jean-Luc Godard were both in love with American movies, especially the gangster
and film noir “B” variety, and were also determined to dethrone the then
reigning French film establishment in their upstart journal Cahiers de
Cinema. Two in the Wave demonstrates how quickly Truffault’s The
400 Blows and Godard’s Breathless had audiences agog, Cannes in an
uproar and producers lining up to bankroll their new projects. The doc also
reveals how soon two old buddies became mortal enemies during the wave of
strikes and protests that engulfed France in Spring 1968. Among the most
poignant moments is Leaud’s audition interview for Truffaut in which he relates
his actress mom’s decision to send him for the screen test and demonstrates the
anarchic zest for life and comic chops that would make him far more than a one
trick pony. (Embarcadero 10-31)
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A Real Life: For those glimpsing the rakish charm and
volatile talents of Guillaume Depardieu for the first time in Sarah Leonor’s
lyrical tale of a small time thief’s last hurrah, it’s sad to think that this
thoroughly engrossing romantic caper was also the actor’s last finished film.
Depardieu – son of the legendary French film star who he denounced as a bad dad
in a sensational 2004 tell-all memoir -- completely disappears into the role of
Bruno, a small town boy who spends practically every waking moment scamming the
town folks of everything that’s not nailed down. Bruno’s perspective abruptly
changes when he meets up with Isabelle (the emotive and ravishing Florence Loiret
Caille) in an especially awkward moment:
she’s just been hit by a car and while coming to her
assistance Bruno also manages to swipe her bracelet. Through a delightful
series of plot jump- cuts the couple is soon paddling out of town on a stolen
skiff with a runway watchdog as their companion. Really two movies in one: the
minutely detailed portrait of a larcenous, dead end provincial town coupled
with a delicious tale of love on the lam. In his memoir young Depardieu also
revealed his youthful misadventures as a teen prostitute. See A Real Life for
its robust glimpse of a life cut way too short. The film also features a smooth
supporting performance by Jacques Nolot who is better known to us for his frank
tales of Parisian queer life: Porn Theatre and Before I Forget. (Embarcadero
10-30 & 11-2)
Rapt: If you’ve ever had a hankering to abduct a top
rank French playboy/captain of industry, hold him in what amounts to a low tech
but extremely secure S/M dungeon, demand a king’s ransom and engage in a nasty
bit of mutilation just to prove you can’t be toyed with, then writer/director
Lucas Belvaux’s technically engrossing if chilly melodrama is must viewing. As
the opening credits roll Stanislas Graff (Yvan Attal) is at the top of his
game: in tight with the Elysee Palace, an attractive, affectionate mistress
stashed away in a private hideaway, wife, daughters and mom all playing their
assigned roles at home, and then wham! Kidnapped by masked brutes and forced to
discover who loves you, baby. That the answer is the family pooch isn’t the
only disappointment awaiting us in a technically brilliant if emotionally
barren two hours. Yvan Attal is a suitable hero/victim in a scenario that
requires him to go from Al Pacino in Serpico to Al Pacino in Godfather
3, but there’s little relish for the dark humor implicit in such a
meticulously organized undressing. We either need to delve more deeply inside a
character who undergoes truly stressful changes in an impossible bid for
survival (like last year’s sensational The Prophet) or savor a character
who comes to relish his own absurdity as Cary Grant did so entertainingly in
Hitch’s caper masterwork North by Northwest.
(Embarcadero 10-28 & 11-1)