#15
Post
by skilar » Wed Mar 10, 2021 5:27 pm
I've been slowly working my way through. I've watched up through Margaux Hartmann, save for Little Girl (I learned the hard way that you only have twenty-four hours to watch after pressing play).
I am perhaps not the best person to comment on what to prioritize. I've been hiding the subtitles in an attempt to learn French through immersion, so my understanding of the films isn't what it'd be if I was fluent or if I actually read the subtitles. That said, I'll attempt a quick write up of each film I've watched so far.
My Donkey, My Lover, and I is a lighthearted trip through Cévennes in southern France. Antoinette, a schoolteacher, is in the midst of an affair with the married father of one of her students. He rebuffs her, and she follows him and his family on their trip to the countryside. Of everything I've watched, this was the easiest to understand, perhaps because of its rather straightforward plot. It is fun and charming, particularly Antoinette's interactions with the donkey she's rented for the trip.
Red Soil features Zita Hanrot, who I've come to know through Netflix's Plan Coeur. She plays a nurse who takes a position at the chemical factory where her father has worked for thirty years. It is well assembled, and the cast offers good performances throughout, but it is nothing groundbreaking in terms of eco thrillers. It was interesting to see Hanrot in something so different from Plan Coeur, which I likely would've given up on after the first couple episodes if it weren't for this French immersion quest I'm on. I wish I had more to say about this one.
Faithful is the first time I've seen Vicky Krieps since Phantom Thread. Vincent Lacoste's role is much different than the others I've seen him in (Les Beaux Gosses, Victoria). Krieps plays a Polish woman in France who meets Lacoste, a French-Algerian communist. Lacoste fights for the rights of Algerians, and we see their relationship filtered through this struggle.
Of everything I've watched, this one is the most difficult to evaluate, given the language barrier. It felt thematically aimless. It is not as interested in the love story as much as it is with the politics of the time, but it also does not feel all that interested in an investigation of the French occupation of Algeria. A sympathetic viewer might say it is concerned with what it's like to be an outsider, but it does not go that deep here, either. There are several compelling, memorable scenes, though unfortunately I felt they did not add up to much in the end. Still, my impressions of this one are shaky. I'd be interested in hearing what someone else has to say about it.
And now I recall that I watched only the first third of Gagarine, though not for any fault of the movie. I was simply tired and did not pick up in time the next evening.
Margaux Hartmann is perhaps the greatest disappointment of these. It attempts a sparse portrait of a woman's pain and emptiness after the death of her husband. Unfortunately it leaves too many opportunities on the table, deciding to take a rather typical path. There are not many cinematic flourishes, and we follow Emmanuelle Béart's character with an often handheld camera. This approach might have worked with a less expected script, but given what we have, it does not bring out the best in the material.
