Tag Archives: Paris

FILM REVIEW: Divines (Benyamina, 2016): France

Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of AFIFEST 2016 presented by Audi.

screen-shot-2016-11-18-at-11-01-54-amDivines is the first feature length film by self-taught director Houda Benyamina. Benyamina, Actress Oulaya Amamra, and Divines were AFIFEST 2016 winners of the New Auteurs Audience Award, the Breakthrough Audience Award and a Special Jury Mention for Acting.

The film opens in surreal fashion with an out of focus frame containing a smoke and fog-like effect reminiscent of a meditation and indicative of the filmmaker’s use of dream logic.

Quickly, homage is made to Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, with lead character, Dounia, played exquisitely by Oulaya Amamra, standing in front of a mirror pretending to fire a pistol while asking, “You looking at me?” Later in the film another homage to Scorcese is made from his early work,  Mean Streets, with Dounia on her knees  in the middle of the street pleading with God.

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And, without too much adieu, Benyamina quickly takes us into the inner world of her lead character, Dounia. In a sacred space Dounia sneaks voyeuristically in a low-key lit, high-angle omniscient shot looking down on a theater stage during an audition. She likes what she sees in the form of Djigui, a dancer with moves and passion, played by Kevin Mishel.

A transition is made to a rambunctious classroom. Soon, Dounia is arguing with hyper intensity as Dounia questions her teacher’s values and choice of vocation. The moment culminates with Dounia quitting school vowing to “show them.” Her vocation is to make money.

Another transition is made to a slow motion sequence in a darkly lit dance club playing diagetic music from a singing disc jockey. Here we see Dounia’s troubled mother inebriated and looking for love in all the wrong places – a common scenario throughout Divines for Dounia’s mother.

screen-shot-2016-11-18-at-11-08-25-amBefore long, Dounia witnesses a drug stash in the back of the theater. Dounia seizes the moment and takes the stash to a local dealer with her best friend, Maimouna, an Iman’s daughter, played by Deborah Lukumuena. The circle is complete as the drug dealer, Rebecca, played handsomely by Jisca Kalvanda, rounds out a strong cast of mostly female characters.

Throughout Divines, Dounia is searching for dignity. She lives in a Roma (gypsy) camp on the outskits of Paris and is frequently called Bastard. She discovers drug dealing as a way to gain respect and power. Before long, however, Dounia finds out the price she must pay for her vocation might be too high.

In Divines, Benyamina illuminates an emerging Parisian subculture made up of colorful, fringe characters steeped in Islam highlighting their highly creative, unique, and authentic stories. In furthering her artistic vision to democratize cinema, Benyamina formed a mutual assistance cinematic trade association, 1000 Visages (Faces).

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Possibly quite coincidentally, American mythologist, Joseph Campbell’s tome, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” a seminal work on archetypal heroes and myths shared by world religions and traditions, contains the association’s name in the book’s title. However, I believe Benyamina has dissected the work drawing extensively from its teachings as we witness the transformation of Dounia.

For a first feature, Benyamina’s Divines is polished. Costuming is realistic. The camera work and editing augment the film’s reality well. The musical score sets the mood and aids in pacing. And the acting is quite good. Highly recommended.

The AFI FEST Interview: THE RED TURTLE Director Michaël Dudok de Wit

Japan’s Studio Ghibli has long been the gold standard in animated features, producing revered masterpieces such as GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988), PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997) and SPIRITED AWAY (2001) since its inception in 1985. For Ghibli’s first international co-production, the studio co-founded by legends Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata invited Dutch filmmaker Michaël Dudok de Wit (Oscar® winner for his 2000 animated short FATHER AND DAUGHTER) to create his first feature-length film. The result, after eight years of work, is a breathtaking, original fable about a shipwrecked man’s struggle to escape a deserted island, and the unexpected course his life takes when he’s prevented from leaving by the titular sea creature. The film dispenses with spoken dialogue, instead allowing Dudok de Wit’s vivid, meticulously rendered visuals to guide us through a lush natural landscape that contains both unimaginable hardships and simple, potent truths about family, aging and life.

AFI: What was it like working with Studio Ghibli as a first-time feature director? How were ideas exchanged?

Michaël Dudok de Wit: We had an excellent start, because I adore Studio Ghibli’s films and they expressed their strong appreciation of my previous work. I went to Studio Ghibli from time to time during the development phase of the story to discuss the latest progress and at one point I stayed for a month in Tokyo, working with intensely on storyboard changes. At Studio Ghibli, it is the film director who has the final say on the creative aspect of the film, and though the producers liked sharing their opinions with me, they did not impose them. I in return asked them a lot of questions, and we generally had fruitful, non-competitive conversations. To me, that was ideal.

AFI: Describe your collaboration with large teams of animators.

MDDW: There was a striking bond between us all and I felt nourished by that. The artists were all European freelancers, mostly French, selected carefully during a long recruiting period. Actually, the selection process was not unlike the selection of the samurais in Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI.

I’m an animator, background artist and designer myself, so my colleagues and I often understood each other intuitively. The main team worked in Angoulême, a small town in France, and most of us lived at walking distance from the studio, also from our favorite bars and from the local food market.

The idea was to have all artists working in the same building, but we needed extra help, so we also collaborated with an animation studio in Hungary, Kecskemètfilm. To my relief that worked really well, because the Hungarians were excellent animators and their team had a strong team spirit. The exchange of animated scenes between France and Hungary was done instantaneously via the internet.

As I was both directing and exploring, I had to learn how to cope with many tasks all at the same time. That was new and extremely challenging for someone who is used to concentrate uninterruptedly on one or two tasks per day.

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AFI: You spent five years working on the story of this film. What aspect of the story changed the most from the first draft of the script that you presented to Studio Ghibli?

MDDW: The ending. The first draft had a fine ending, the story felt complete, whole, but one day, actually while I was walking on the street, I suddenly imagined the new, current ending. I was immediately moved to tears by the beauty of the new ending.

AFI: What was your biggest challenge in developing the lush soundscape and intricate sound mixing for the film?

MDDW: Amazingly, there was no big challenge. The sound was created and mixed by a well-established sound studio, Piste Rouge in Paris. They understood right away that this film did not need cartoony sounds and that the noises of nature had a striking presence throughout the film. The sound artists also worked closely with the music composer Laurent Perez del Mar to create the right chemistry between the music and the nature sounds.

AFI: Since THE RED TURTLE is dialogue-free, what was your technique for ensuring the animated characters could clearly communicate thoughts and feelings with one another, as well as with the audience?

MDDW: The sensitive scenes, I mean the scenes where the absence of dialogue was a real challenge, were animated quite late in the animation phase, to ensure that the animators would feel really at ease and intuitive with the characters. These scenes also took much longer to animate than usual. Moreover, we had filmed live actors who played those scenes, and the live footage was used by the animators, not for rotoscoping of course, but to use for inspiration. And the human sounds were important. Absence of dialogue can mean that the spectator has less empathy with the characters, but in the sound phase all the human characters were given natural breathing sounds, and that made a huge difference, we found.

THE RED TURTLE screens at AFI FEST 2016 on Tuesday, 7:00 P.M. November 15, at the Egyptian Theater and Wednesday, 1:15 P.M. at the TCL Chinese Mann 4, November 16, as part of the World Cinema section of the festival.

The AFI FEST Interview: DIVINES Director Houda Benyamina

Disenchanted and unimpressed by the parameters of life in the slums of Paris, a fearless and ferocious teenager named Dounia unabashedly dreams of prosperity, not only for herself but also for her charismatic best friend and alcoholic mother. In her audacious pursuit of money, power and respect, she aligns herself with a ruthless gangster who uses her as a pawn to exact revenge on a rival drug lord. When their plan goes off the rails and escalates into violent territory, Dounia is forced to reconcile the allure of quietly escaping to the life of her dreams with the reality of the ramifications of her actions. Shot in a style that is at once melodic and discordant, DIVINES is a cinematic haiku of empowerment, youthful angst, racial inequality and the consequences of poverty.

Winner of the Camera d’Or prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, DIVINES is the feature film debut of director Houda Benyamina.

AFI: Oulaya Amamra gives an intense performance as the raw and uninhibited protagonist Dounia.  How did you develop that character?

Houda Benyamina: One year of physical training was necessary. Dounia is a fighter whoscreen-shot-2016-11-06-at-10-20-16-am develops an incredible lust for life and you had to feel it through Oulaya’s body. Her body had to embody this strength and this lust for surpassing herself; that is why Oulaya took boxing and parkour lessons. Apart from that, the character had to be in peak physical condition to keep up with the pace of the rehearsals and of the shooting. This was long and intense, and needed stamina.

Dounia has a cat-like side, she slides in and out of underpasses, passageways; she is at the same time deep down and high up. So Oulaya’s task was to watch documentaries on felines to grasp their way of being and moving. She also viewed a lot of gangster films and films in which the hero is transforming. We were looking for an organic transformation and this required an important identifying process. Oulaya suggested lots of ideas of clothing. During a whole year she wore Dounia’s clothes, she ate, slept and lived like Dounia. She even went sleeping in a gypsy camp because she had to understand her character’s rage due to a feeling of injustice, and to be able to find in herself Dounia’s anger for being ostracized.

AFI: What was your rehearsal process?

HB: During the shooting I developed a sort of safety line around the actors to protect them from any lapse in concentration. The camera, for instance, was on all the time so that the crew did not have to care about it and could keep focused on the actors. To me the film set is like a sanctuary, a holy place. I ask everybody to be extremely concentrated, full of solemnity toward the actors acting. And it is very important to me.

AFI: Questions of race and class inequality come up in the script. How did those themes shape the characters and plot?

HB: DIVINES is a film on spirituality and holiness. What was important to me was the apocalyptic ending. How does one rise from the ashes? How does one learn [that] there are so many things which shape us: family, social class, education, politics — but through these primary determinisms, I wanted to raise the question of free will and how it appeared in these characters looking for appreciation and dignity. Injustice is my driving force to creation. I feel close to my characters, who oscillate between darkness and light; I like exploring the two sides of human beings. Social inequality and the hunger to overcome are present for sure, but they are elements of the characters and not their essence. The essence centers on them and their inner lives.

Most important was to arouse emotion, because it makes us think and allows us to understand and question society. I intended to make a universal film with universal issues of love, friendship, the quest for recognition and dignity, and ambition.

AFI: You’re a celebrated short filmmaker. What made you want to make the transition to feature film?

HB: It was important to find someone who understands me and has the same artistic and human values, and I found him: my producer, Marc-Benoît Créancier. Once we had made my medium-length film SUR LA ROUTE DU PARADIS together, it was obvious to me to make a feature film. As a film director and a great believer I have lots of doubts and I ask myself lots of questions. My producer helps me overcome them; he encourages and guides me and he trusts me so much that making a feature film with him was a foregone conclusion.

AFI: In one sentence, what statement or question would like to linger with the audience following the screening?

HB: What do I really need to succeed?

DIVINES screens at AFI FEST 2016 on Saturday, November 12, and Monday, November 14, as part of the New Auteurs section of the festival.

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(Source: afi.blog.com)

FILM REVIEW: Holy Motors (Carax, 2012): France

Reviewed by Larry Gleeson.

mv5bodk2mdc4mdk2of5bml5banbnxkftztcwmtcyody1oa-_v1_uy268_cr00182268_al_Viewed at the AFI Fest 2012 at the Egyptian Theatre. Holy Motors, winner of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival’s Award of the Youth and the Hugo Award for Best Feature at the 2012 Chicago International Film Festival, directed by controversial Frenchman Leos Carax of Tokyo! fame, tells a beguiling tale of one Monsieur Oscar, a master of disguise, as he journeys from one appointment to another through the course of the dark hours of the night in Paris.  He is, in turn, a beggar,  captain of industry, an assassin, a bizarre reptilian-like virtual sexcapade participant, a sewer-dwelling, underground railroad member resurfacing as a  cemetery-robbing monster gorging himself on flower bouquets and eventually kidnapping a famous model (played stunningly by Eva Mendez) complete in accompaniment with accordion players and more bizarre culinary choices with Ms. Mendez’s hair and paper Euros.

The film opens with a beautiful shot of the night sky. From there the unusualness begins. We see a sleeping audience. Then, the “appointments” begin with the old woman without a care begging on the sidewalk.While his stretch limo motors from locale to locale Monsieur Oscar utilizes the commute time to change his appearance through elaborate forms of  make-up and disguise techniques. Carax gives the viewer an eyeful with a frontal nudity scene while paying tribute to American Beauty with rose petals and in a more human form with the camera presence of beauty Mendez. Throughout Holy Motors Carax allows famed cinematographer, Caroline Champetier (Of Gods & Men ) the camera ample time in the limo itself. This choice amplifies the effects of Monsieur Oscar’s ability to metamorphisize while on the go from appointment to appointment lending a genius effect that Monsieur Oscar is involved in transacting business, of sorts.

I initially was excited to see Parisian scenes and the River Seine. And while I did get to see these, I also got to see a lot more in the way of artistic license as Carax pushes the limits of normalcy through the antics of Monsieur Oscar through the dark of night in an unseen before Parisian form. Finally, towards the end of the night the viewer is returned to a sense of normalcy as Monsieur Oscar plays a caring family only to be trumped by a surprise ending

I do recommend this film. It has a most interesting style of storytelling. While it may or may not be mainstream, it has unusual artistic value in the subtlety Carax implements to drive home his point that in the end French cinema is all about business in one form or another. Well done, Mr. Carax.

FILM REVIEW: GIGOLA (CHARPENTIER, 2011)

Reviewed by Larry Gleeson. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2011.

Gigola, directed by Laure Charpentier, is a French film with subtitles set in the early 1960’s Paris containing themes of adult sexuality and gender issues. The film made it’s debut at the Cannes Film Festival. From there Gigola was shown at the Hamburg Film Festival in Germany and finished out the year at the Paris Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, in Paris, France. The mise-en-scene is in Gigola is remarkable. The costumes, make-up, and lighting are spectacular conveying images reminiscent of That’s Entertainment (1974), and Moulon Rouge (2001).

The film opens with a teenage school girl named George, played by Lou Dillion, as a  young and slender coming of age debutante, and her teacher, an attractive mid 30ish woman. Playful background music provides energy for a highly sexually charged, sensual transaction between George and her teacher.

Charpentier jumps ahead to 1963 Paris nightlife scene. George’s boy friend has committed suicide. George has decided to withdraw from school and announces to the night-time partiers that she has flunked out of medical school seemingly intentionally.

Next time we see George she is in a Parisian bistro and we are introduced to a Carol Channing like character. George has reinvented herself.

A comment is made  to George, “You look like a gigolo.”

George coolly replies, “Gigola.”

We now see George as Gigola, the name she has given her new self. A well-to-do matron comes to the bistro and Gigola is into action. Dressed in a black tuxedo, Gigola escorts the matron onto the dance floor for a spin. Soon the pair leave the bistro together and head to the matron’s estate. With grace, elegance and a touch of class Gigola seduces the matron in an erotic bedroom scene with a snake-headed cane and white gloves.

Gigola, if nothing else, knows what she wants and she goes after it. She threatens to leave her new found matron unless she receives more money. The matron has already given Gigola a signet ring and a red MG convertible. The matron capitulates handing over to Gigola a large cache of currency. We now witness Gigola expanding her “business” with new girls working under her discretion.

Meanwhile, Gigola’s father, an opium addict, is squandering away the family’s estate as he cogently leads the life of a Parisian gentlemen. Eventually Gigola confronts her father brandishing a loaded revolver after repeatedly warning her father to stay away and, in turn, pleading with her mother to cut him off.

After an attempted suicide, Gigola finds herself under the care of a psychiatrist who bears a striking resemblance to her former teacher. She suggests having a baby to Gigola. Gigola is less than optimistic but the psychiatrist is able to connect with Gigola. Never one to miss an opportunity, Gigola deftly makes clear her intentions to the attractive psychiatrist. When the psychiatrist makes a “house call” Charpentier uses a wrestling take down move to portray the mixed emotions the psychiatrist has – she is attracted to Gigola but she is married and lives according to her principles as a married woman – a defining characteristic of the times. The psychiatrist cares about Gigola and they have dinner together where she tells Gigola that Gigola needs to let go.

Again without missing a beat Gigola moves deeper into the nightclub scene in Paris meeting a Mr. Tony Pasquale, a Sicilian. The two gain a mutual respect for each other and Tony ends up impregnating Gigola. Gigola has the baby and it seems as though Gigola has accepted normalcy and is conforming to societal norms. Gigola has left and George has come back.

However, before a sigh of relief can be expressed, in tromps the cast from the bistro. A raucous scene ensues in the hospital room with Gigola consenting to have her locks cut – a symbol of Gigola’s re-emergence.

The film closes with Gigola adhering to her somewhat circular, misguided idealism. She has turned over the care of her child to her mother and she is shown in tuxedo walking down a Parisian cobblestone alley way with her back back to the camera just before sunrise.

Amazing Friday night film for the right audience. Gigola is currently available on Amazon Prime.