The legendary French director Robert Bresson had a profound relationship with spirituality that ran through his films, which often explored themes of redemption and hermeneutical struggle, all the while reflecting his Catholic upbringing and experiences as a prisoner of war. Bresson's highly austere work conveyed a deep sense of faith and a near-pantheistic belief in the presence of God in nature; his singular cinematic style, which favoured minimalism and the use of non-professional actors, aimed to decode the mysteries behind quotidian life. All of which feels very relevant when viewing the stark, ascetic documentary Mother Vera, which was mainly shot on the wintry outskirts of the Belarusian capital Minsk.
Mother Vera is a poignant, visually arresting work that follows the life of a young Orthodox nun, tracing her journey from a tumultuous past to an uncertain, if hopeful, future. Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson's stately film opens in the thick snow of a Belarusian forest, an icy monochrome setting that immediately nails down the tone for the story of seclusion and redemption that follows; soon, we are introduced to the remote monastery that houses the Vera of the title. A former addict once known as Olga, Vera has a keen affinity for horses, a calling which will eventually take her far from brumal Belarus to the sun-kissed Camargue, the southern French region known for its eponymous, striking equine breed.
The directors have crafted a documentary that frequently feels like a piece of narrative cinema, one whose Bressonian pace allows the audience to immerse themselves in the depiction of cloistered life. The decision to shoot primarily in black and white lends an oneiric quality to the film, although a jarring coda in colour comes close to breaking the spell cast by what's preceded it. Mother Vera is not just about Vera's inner world—it also explores the community that played a crucial role in her rehabilitation, and delves into the wider themes of recovery and the search for meaning. The cinematography (by Embleton) is particularly impressive, with the camera often training on details such as a horse's hooves.
These stunning, sensorial shots help deepen our understanding of Vera's place in her environment (Bresson's spiritual heir Bruno Dumont pulled off a similar feat in his startling debut feature The Life of Jesus). The influence of classic Soviet cinema is very much in evidence here, with the film's visual language echoing that of Tarkovsky; languid scenes allow the imagery to seep into the viewer's consciousness, creating a rhythm that dictates the pace of the storytelling. Mother Vera is a meditative exploration of both the mysteries of faith and the depths of the human condition; this haunting film manages to be at once probing and reticent as it challenges the viewer to evaluate their own place in the world.
Having strayed from his home turf for 2021's largely Paris-set France, director Bruno Dumont once again finds himself on the familiar territory of the Opal Coast with The Empire (curiously, Dumont's Outside Satan was filmed under the same working title). As with Outside Satan, The Empire is concerned with the age-old battle between good and evil. Yet despite sharing the same broad theme and setting, the two films are very different from one another, with Outside Satan's Bressonian austerity nowhere in evidence as The Empire firmly aligns itself with the absurdist comedies Dumont has been making for the past decade. Out of Dumont's post-Camille Claudel 1915output, only 2019's Jeanne can be classed as a mostly "straight" film, but even that punishing, rigorous exercise was the sequel to a deranged heavy metal musical centring on Joan of Arc.
Dumont's shift into comedy began with the 2014 miniseries Li'l Quinquin, which kicked off a loose trilogy that is now capped with The Empire (in between came a second TV series, Coincoin and the Extra-Humans). These three works are linked by a pair of bumbling cops, Van der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost) and Carpentier (Philippe Jore), who over the course of the past ten years have been investigating increasingly bizarre crimes. Coincoin and the Extra-Humans introduced a sci-fi element to proceedings, and The Empire sees Dumont make the leap to full-bore science fiction, with his latest film playing as a Ch'timi take on Star Wars, lightsabres and all. As far as Dumont's oeuvre is concerned, it has been posited that The Empire is a mix of Ma Loute and The Life of Jesus, but it is difficult to see much of the latter—barring the general locale—in this light divertissement.
At its most basic level, The Empire pits two alien factions against each other as they vie to take control of Earth. The Queen (Camille Cottin) spearheads the benevolent 1s, while Beelzebub (Fabrice Luchini) is the leader of the nefarious 0s; each side has taken a foothold in a small fishing village by inhabiting the bodies of locals. Thus, 0-fuelled fisherman Jony (Brandon Vlieghe) has fathered a baby who, it is foretold, will lead the dark side to triumph—sound familiar? Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei) works on behalf of the 1s, and is devoted to preserving mankind; she has a sidekick in the form of Rudy (Jeanne's Julien Manier), while Jony is backed up by Line (Lyna Khoudri). Although these otherworldly beings should have loftier matters on their minds, their earthly bodies serve as a major distraction—particularly when opposing numbers Jane and Jony develop a mutual attraction.
Just as France saw its male lead replaced prior to the start of filming, Dumont was forced into recasting no less than three of The Empire's main roles, with Vartolomei, Khoudri and Cottin replacing Adèle Haenel, Lily-Rose Depp and Belgian actress Virginie Efira, respectively. While Vartolomei is the standout performer here, it is a pity that the film gives Pruvost, Jore and Cottin so little to do, especially as Luchini has way too much screen time as the tiresomely unfunny Beelzebub. The Empire marks Luchini and Dumont's third collaboration together, but there's a sense that this time the director has indulged his star to the point of the film's detriment. As a coda to the Quinquin cycle, The Empire possesses a sloppy charm, and while it's certainly the slightest entry in the trilogy, there is nevertheless some fun to be had from its splicing of the fantastic with the workaday.
With films such as Danton's Death,On Calland We, Alice Diop has carved out a formidable reputation as a documentary filmmaker, and with Saint Omer she takes her first step into narrative cinema. Yet to call Saint Omer a work of fiction is something of a stretch, as the film reconstructs the trial of Fabienne Kabou, who in November 2013 left her baby daughter to drown on a beach in northern France. Intrigued by the case, and with an eye on making a film about the proceedings, Diop herself attended Kabou's 2016 trial, with the experience leading to a feature that is a very different work from the essay film one might have expected from the director. Alice Diop's presence at the actual court sessions further blurs the boundary between verity and fabrication, and as a result Saint Omer occupies an unusual space, one that's somewhere between Diop's previous work and a more orthodox ripped-from-the-headlines drama.
Saint Omer opens with novelist Rama (Kayije Kagame) presenting a lecture on Marguerite Duras, in which an excerpt of Alain Resnais' Duras-scripted Hiroshima Mon Amour is used to help illustrate the point being made; Hiroshima was the feature debut of Resnais, who—like Diop—moved into fiction film after many years of directing documentaries. Explicitly referencing Resnais' immense work is a bold stroke by Diop, one that could easily backfire if the audience's attention is distracted by the clip of a film widely regarded as a classic of 20th-century cinema (even if it is slightly inferior to its immediate successors Last Year at Marienbad and Muriel). But to its credit, Saint Omer survives this risky move and proceeds to follow Rama as she travels to the town of the title to observe the infanticide trial; the writer—who has already identified strong parallels between the case and Euripides' play Medea—plans to use what she witnesses in the court as the basis for a novel. Rama is clearly a stand-in for Diop, and for the purposes of the film the accused, played by Guslagie Malanga, goes by the name of Laurence Coly.
The extremely intelligent, well-educated Coly does not deny leaving her 15-month-old baby to the mercy of a rising tide in wintry Berck-sur-Mer, but she stops short of accepting full responsibility for the crime, instead insisting that witchcraft was the driving force behind the murder. As the judge (Valérie Dréville, terrific) examines the defendant, Coly responds in a calm, measured tone, but there's something about the delivery of her answers that makes her seem less than credible; are those in the court—and by extension the audience—really expected to believe that this highly articulate academic is convinced that she was placed under a curse? As the trial progresses, Rama becomes acquainted with Coly's mother Odile (Salimata Kamate), a patient, kind woman, albeit one who appears resigned as far as her daughter's fate is concerned. In one almost surreal scene, Odile, in a display akin to that of a proud parent, visits a newsagents to purchase a copy of each paper covering the trial
While Rama may have made the connection between Coly and Medea, the young novelist is clearly rattled by some similarities between herself and the woman in the dock: both are black women made pregnant by white men—although Rama's caring, devoted partner Adrien (Thomas de Pourquery) stands in stark contrast to Coly's weaselly ex-lover Luc Dumontet (Xavier Maly), whose testimony appears designed to achieve little beyond extricating the baby's father from this tragic case. All of this is presented in a manner that recalls another film centring on a real-life trial in northern France: Bruno Dumont's Joan of Arc. As with Dumont's film, Saint Omer features a series of long, static takes that will test the patience of many a viewer, but once you tune into the film's highly unusual rhythm it becomes a haunting, hypnotic spectacle. It takes a good while for the full effect of Saint Omer to sink in, and I suspect that this daring, exacting film will reward multiple viewings.
Festival edit From Venice to London—which runs from Friday until Monday—takes a selection of titles from the Venice Film Festival and showcases them in London's Curzon Soho (click here for tickets). This special season includes five films which played at the 79th edition of the world's oldest film festival, with all titles presented as UK premieres. The first From Venice to London—which took place in late 2021—featured the likes of Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God and Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Daughter, and the lineup for this second edition includes an equally impressive clutch of titles, one of which is Susanna Nicchiarelli's Chiara. Incidentally, Chiara is one of three films in the festival with a woman's name as its title—the other two being Carolina Cavalli's Amanda and Andrea Pallaoro's Monica; From Venice to London 2023 is rounded out by Benedetta Argentieri's documentary The Matchmaker and Pippo Mezzapesa's Burning Hearts.
Like Nicchiarelli's fine 2017 film Nico, 1988and her follow-up feature Miss Marx, Chiara is both a biopic and a Belgian co-production; also as with the two earlier films, Chiara sees Nicchiarelli draw a knockout performance from the actress playing the title character, with My Brilliant Friend star Margherita Mazzucco delivering a mesmerising turn as the eponymous Italian saint. Chiara charts the life of Clare (Chiara) of Assisi, follower of the substantially more famous Francis of Assisi and founder of the religious order we now know as the Poor Clares. As far as anyone knows, Clare was the first woman to write a set of monastic guidelines, and her egalitarian nature is very much at the forefront of Nicchiarelli's film. It's a strange, beguiling work, one which recalls Bruno Dumont's Jeannette as the religious austerity that is the film's stock-in-trade is punctuated by the occasional musical number. While not without humour, Chiara leans away from the kind of tropes familiar from other, more excitable films detailing cloistered life, such as Paul Verhoeven's Benedetta and Ken Russell's The Devils, and is all the better for it.
Behaviour that is light years away from Chiara's saintly conduct is dissected in Argentieri's absorbing The Matchmaker, which attempts to fathom the strange case of young student Tooba Gondal. In 2015, Gondal left London to join ISIS in Syria, from where she allegedly worked on persuading Western women to marry jihadist fighters. Argentieri's film begins in 2019 with Kurdish-led coalition troops completing the rout of ISIS, a development which led to thousands of women and children being detained in refugee camps—such as the one on the outskirts of the Syrian town of Ayn Issa, which is where the filmmaker finds Gondal and her two infant children. Most of the film takes place in this camp, where Argentieri observes Gondal's daily routine and quizzes her subject on the events of the previous few years. Gondal is quite happy to answer these questions, and she comes across as affable and repentant—but it is hard to reconcile this person with the one who, inter alia, rejoiced in the aftermath of the Paris Bataclan attacks. The film frequently highlights Gondal's highly incriminating social media past, and it is left to the viewer to decide if The Matchmaker's subject has fully turned her back on extremism; as with all good documentaries, Benedetta Argentieri's film is certain to spark debate.
At the beginning of Claude Schmitz's beguiling debut feature, which is currently screening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, more than half of the film's original French title—Lucie perd son cheval—fades away, leaving the name "Perceval" on the screen. This neat touch is much more than a gimmick, though, as Schmitz's film strongly recalls Éric Rohmer's Perceval le Gallois, along with the work of a clutch of other French masters; beyond its debt to Rohmer's singular take on the Arthurian legend, some of Lucie Loses Her Horse's DNA can be traced to the likes of Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac and Bruno Dumont's Joan of Arc. But perhaps more than any of these fine influences, Lucie Loses Her Horse owes a great deal to the work of Jacques Rivette, a director who frequently incorporated the world of theatre into his films.
Like Dumont, Rivette took a tilt at the Joan of Arc story, and while his two-part epic Joan the Maid's influence can be seen in Schmitz's film, it is actually Rivette's more overtly theatre-centric works such as L'Amour fou and Va savoir that inform Lucie Loses Her Horse's exploration of the slippery relationship between theatre and cinema. Even the title of Schmitz's film is positively Rivettian, although if you waited around three hours to see Celine and Julie Go Boating's title characters finally jump in a vessel and take to the water, rest assured that Lucie (Lucie Debay, terrific) and her equine companion are parted in the early stages of Schmitz's sly, playful work. Upon losing her not so trusty steed, Lucie—kitted out in a fine suit of armour—promptly begins searching for the animal, in the process encountering two other female knights (Hélène Bressiant, Judith Williquet), both of whom have also managed to become separated from their horses. To lose one horse may be regarded as a misfortune, etc... actually, that quote doesn't quite fit this scenario—but hopefully you get the idea.
This medieval-themed episode comes wedged between two very different sequences: in the prior one, we witness Lucie the actress saying goodbye to her young daughter (Nao Wielemans-Debay) before she heads off to work; in the second, Lucie and the other two horseless knights—who, as it turns out, are fellow actresses—wake up in a theatre in which they're playing in a production of Shakespeare's King Lear. In case you don't count this as sufficiently meta, consider that Lucie's child is played by Lucie Debay's real-life daughter (Debay's partner is musician Antoine Wielemans, of Belgian indie act Girls in Hawaii), and also that Lucie Loses Her Horse morphed out of one of Schmitz's theatrical productions, Un Royaume, whose performances were truncated on account of the coronavirus pandemic. That one of the film's production companies is Le Théâtre de Liège, who staged the play on which the film is partly based, demonstrates how blurred the lines have become between the two works (and, by extension, the two media).
Before we get to thinking of where the MacGuffin that is Lucie's horse may have wandered off to, is it at all possible to establish which if any of these incarnations is the real Lucie? Is all the knights and horses stuff part of a fugue state, or simply another performance by the actresses? And does it really matter? Much of the film focuses on the increasingly chaotic backstage drama that unfolds at the theatre, most of which is fairly inconsequential yet oddly compelling. What we have here is essentially a shaggy dog story, one which remains completely absorbing should you allow yourself to go along with the joke. With Lucie Loses Her Horse, Claude Schmitz has planted one foot firmly in cinema and the other in theatre, resulting in both a deeply strange hybrid work and an alluring twilight world; it's a film as mischievous as it is haunting, and one strongly suspects that the late M. Rivette—Saturday past marked the sixth anniversary of his death—would have greatly enjoyed this unique meditation on theatre and cinema.
Back in 2015, Sam de Jong made quite a splash with his debut feature Prins; four years later, he moved into English language cinema with New York story Goldie. Although de Jong's irreverent take on Dumas' De drie musketiers—a TV movie shot in a mere ten days in German-speaking Belgium—premiered on NPO 3 just last month, his third and latest theatrical feature, the Dutch language Met mes, has already been unveiled. Marrying an eye-popping colour scheme with inventive sound design, de Jong's new film successfully navigates several tonal shifts before arriving at its conclusion, and it is to the writer–director's credit that proceedings never become too predictable. With any luck and the right marketing, Met mes should find an audience beyond those who encounter it at the 51st International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it's currently screening.
Met mes focuses mainly on two characters: Eveline (Hadewych Minis) is a television presenter who has just quit her job in order to make a hard-hitting documentary exploring various social issues, and it is while shooting this that she crosses paths with teenager Yousef (Shahine El-Hamus), who acts as a distraction so his friend can steal Eveline's expensive VHS camera. When her insurance company refuses to pay out on the grounds that the crime hasn't been reported, Eveline goes to the police station; there, she proceeds to give a statement, and as Yousef was the only one of the thieves that she actually saw, she describes the young man as best she can, but embellishes her story—as per the film's title—to include the detail that she was threatened at knifepoint. Naturally, the mention of such a weapon sees the matter escalated, and the police soon track down Yousef who, while not exactly innocent, certainly isn't guilty of a crime of this nature.
Amidst all the garish visuals and witty sight gags (the one involving the police officer who takes Eveline's statement is a real standout), de Jong hands his audience an interesting dilemma: while we're presented with a victim and a perpetrator, the hard truth is that both of these characters are in the wrong—so who should we side with? Despite his ill-judged involvement in the theft of the camera, Yousef comes across as a reasonably steady character, although the same description could equally apply to Eveline if we overlook her dishonesty when it came to filing the police report; neither Eveline nor Yousef are the worst people one might encounter, yet the viewer is forced to constantly reevaluate the pair's actions (and their consequences) as the situation grows more serious.
Curiously, Met mes recalls another IFFR 2022 title in the form of Bruno Dumont's France; each film sees a famous TV personality—one who is quite happy to manipulate real events to make for "better" television—begin to unravel in the wake of an unfortunate encounter with a young man of north African heritage. Just as France's eponymous news anchor eventually seems to lose her bearings as far as the line between verity and fabrication is concerned, Met mes' Eveline attempts to absorb Yousef's crime and its aftermath into the documentary she was making when her camera was stolen. But no matter what is going on at any given point in Met mes, Sam de Jong's audacity and energy go a long way towards sweeping the audience along for what proves to be a highly entertaining diversion, one that displays a fine sense of the absurd.
In Christophe Honoré's superb 2007 film Love Songs—arguably its director's finest work—Louis Garrel, in a scene as moving as it was unusual, employed the NATO phonetic alphabet to convey the death of his girlfriend. In a remarkable coincidence, and for very similar reasons, Garrel also uses the same code, "Delta–Charlie–Delta" ("décédé", meaning deceased), in Rachel Lang's Our Men, where its use is no less haunting. In Our Men, Garrel stars as Maxime, a French foreign legion commanding officer who's leading a tricky mission in Mali; when one of his men is killed during an ambush by Islamic insurgents, it's down to Maxime to report the death and here, as in Love Songs, Garrel puts his intense features to good use as he grimly relays the news.
Garrel's turn in Our Men provides a reminder of both the sort of part he's been offered in recent times, and how these roles differ from his work as a younger man; his early appearances in the likes of Honore's Ma Mère and Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers saw the actor cast as louche, erratic types, but more recently the tendency has been to match him with relatively upright roles, such as when he played Alfred Dreyfus in Roman Polanski's absorbing J'Accuse. The steady Maxime is a fairly typical part for the Garrel of today, even if the actor can still rise to the challenge when tasked with channelling his inner weasel, as evidenced in Woody Allen's most recent film, Rifkin's Festival. But Garrel has done well to avoid the sort of typecasting that once seemed inevitable, and he's always an engaging, watchable presence. Maxime's wife, Céline, is played by the excellent Camille Cottin, a performer who, like her co-star, has worked with Christophe Honoré; also as with Garrel, Cottin has successfully edged away from her earlier roles, with a recent string of dramatic parts demonstrating a range beyond comedy.
While Garrel and Cottin are the two biggest stars in the film—which also features Lucie Debay and Claire Denis mainstay Grégoire Colin in supporting roles—their characters make way for a younger couple, Ukrainians Nika and Vlad (Ina Marija Bartaité, Aleksandr Kuznetsov). The taciturn Vlad is under Maxime's command, and Nika, who has only recently arrived on the army base in Corsica, soon befriends busy, affable lawyer Céline, who asks Nika if she would be interested in babysitting her and Maxime's son; it is through this job that Nika gets to know some of the other legionnaires' wives. With Vlad away on duty, Nika cuts a rather lonely figure, and even on the few occasions when Vlad returns home, he seems distant and is reluctant to discuss Nika's hopes of starting a family. Vlad does buy a puppy, however, and this very cute canine does provide good company for Nika as she fills her long days. But Nika still feels rejected by the absent Vlad, and the welcome attention she receives from another man leads to a rather predictable complication.
With its focus on the soldiers' partners in general and Nika in particular, Our Men may surprise those expecting to see wall to wall scenes of warfare; while the film does indeed spend some time "over there", the combat never feels especially authentic, so it's probably just as well that the real meat of the story takes place away from the warzone. Our Men, which screens this weekend at the London Film Festival, is a strong film, but sadly it seems inevitable that its release will be overshadowed by the death of its young star: six months ago, Ina Marija Bartaité was killed when a drunk driver knocked her off her bicycle. This tragedy occurred ten years on from the untimely death of Bartaité's mother Yekaterina Golubeva, who, as well as starring in Bruno Dumont's Twentynine Palms and her partner Leos Carax's Pola X, appeared in two films by the aforementioned Claire Denis. It is not inapt to suggest that Denis' Colin-starring Beau travail—one of the most memorable films about life in the foreign legion—would form a fine double bill with the engrossing, affecting Our Men.
Some months ahead of the autumn 2019 theatrical release of Bruno Dumont's Joan of Arc, the director declared that his next project, On a Half Clear Morning, would star Léa Seydoux and Benoît Magimel. Obviously, much has happened in the world since that announcement was made, and while Seydoux remains at the heart of Dumont's latest, both the film's original title and male lead were jettisoned along the way; the movie now carries the somewhat inferior title of France, while Magimel has been replaced by Benjamin Biolay. In case you've somehow managed to avoid the news, Seydoux has seen another of her films fall victim to pandemic-induced delays; by this time next week, we should know whether the 25th entry in the James Bond series has been worth the wait—or if it's much like the previous 24. With her casting in France, Seydoux joins the handful of big-name stars who have topped the bill in a Bruno Dumont film; while Dumont's previous ten feature films (and two miniseries) have largely featured non-professional performers drawn from his native Flanders, he has diverged from this tradition on a few select occasions—most notably in his work with Juliette Binoche and Fabrice Luchini, both of whom have two appearances for Dumont in their sparkling filmographies.
As France begins, Seydoux's eponymous news anchor is attending a press conference given by French president Emmanuel Macron, while her producer Lou (Blanche Gardin) cheerfully mugs away in the hope that these antics will tickle France (spoiler: they do). This opening quickly establishes France's lofty status: she's a very big deal in the world of journalism, and even Macron knows her name. There are some awful chroma key effects here, and it is doubtful that many will be convinced that Seydoux and Gardin are in the same room as Macron. As it transpires, this isn't the last example of terrible greenscreen to feature in France, and the penny soon drops that known perfectionist Dumont is deliberately employing sub-par process shots, presumably in order to illustrate how so much that is fake is assumed to be real. For France is about how news is presented, and we witness the title character's efforts to stage situations so that they make for the best TV—irrespective of whether she's reporting on migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean or the plight of Tuareg rebels. As someone who manipulates stories that are subsequently broadcast as straight reportage, France is clearly not viewed with any sympathy by Dumont, and this same disdain extends to those who eagerly lap up crass journalism. Here, such consumers are symbolised by the gaggle of adoring fans who continually tail France in the hope of a selfie or an autograph; while France usually obliges with such requests, she's quick to mock her followers once they're out of earshot.
Although much of the film focuses on France's professional life, we do get to see both her opulent apartment and her family: husband Fred (Biolay) is a novelist, and although he's someone who has enjoyed some success in the creative arts, he's much less famous than his wife. Fred and France have a young son, Joseph (Gaëtan Amiel), and it is while on the school run one morning that a distracted France is involved in a minor collision with Baptiste (Jawad Zemmar), a young man on a moped. France makes a real effort to befriend and compensate Baptiste and his family, and something seems to have shifted in the presenter's demeanour; she decides to take some time out from her glittering career, and checks into an exclusive Alpine retreat. There, France meets fellow guest Charles (Emanuele Arioli), and it is an indiscretion with this seemingly charming young man that will prove to be very costly for her. Having engineered countless news reports of her own, France now finds herself at the centre of a contrived scandal, and the outlook is bleak; live by the sword, die by the sword, etc. Yet even worse is to come for France, and a queasy, showstopping scene slyly illustrates the ghoulish sensationalism so prevalent in bottom-rung news reporting.
While it may not be particularly accurate to describe France's title character as a straw target, there's a seeming obviousness to the film that will initially wrongfoot viewers accustomed to Dumont's work; it all feels a bit on the nose. Yet as the film progresses, it becomes apparent that there's something else at work behind the superficial, garden-variety swipe at the media; France is used to both playing to the camera and crying on demand, but as the post-accident version of her becomes more prone to moments of introspection, her tears appear to be genuine. Not for the first time in a Dumont film, the director films his star in striking close-up as they look skyward; while this moment explicitly recalls Joan of Arc, it also has much in common with the closing scene of Dumont's very first feature film, The Life of Jesus, in which the main character stared at the heavens with a newfound awareness. Given all that's preceded this shot, it seems almost unthinkable that France might entertain the notion that there's something more important than herself, yet, although this isn't what could be described as a Damascene conversion, it appears that something inside France has changed for good.
Seydoux, clearly aware that she's playing a caricature for much of France's lengthy running time, is good value in her role, and her presence no doubt contributed to the wide distribution the film enjoyed on its domestic release in late August. Biolay isn't given a great deal to do—although he is involved in one huge scene—and largely appears to be channelling his part in On a Magical Night. As France progresses, it becomes increasingly Dumontian, and Jawad Zemmar gives the sort of performance so typical of non-professionals in the director's films—as does Fabian Fenet, who was so good in his substantial role in Joan of Arc. Fenet has a smaller part this time around, yet he features in a pivotal scene, and his presence—alongside Léa Seydoux and Blanche Gardin, no less—provides a welcome reminder of how adept Dumont is when it comes to getting a tune out of these untutored actors. With much of France set against the backdrop of the big city, there's a welcome change of scenery in the final reel as Dumont moves the action to the Opal Coast he knows so well, and it is here that we experience the film's most moving scene. For this brief stretch, Dumont is both literally and figuratively on home ground, and as France takes in the windswept landscape, she states simply: "It's beautiful here". Indeed.
Following the second series of Li'l Quinquin, Bruno Dumont immediately set about making another sequel with Jeanne, or Joan of Arc, which continues his retelling of the Maid of Orléans' story which began with 2017's demented musical Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (which, incidentally, was the very first film to be reviewed in this incarnation of Holland Focus). As with its predecessor, Jeanne is an adaptation of Charles Péguy's 1897 play Jeanne d'Arc, but this time around Dumont mixes it up a bit and opts for much gentler musical accompaniment in the form of the variété française of 70s pop star Christophe (who cameos here), whose distinctive falsetto replaces the much harsher sounds of Jeannette composer Igorrr. There's another key personnel change in the form of cinematographer David Chambille, who comes in for Dumont's longtime DP Guillaume Deffontaines. Chambille, who lensed last year's smash hit Invisibles, steps into Deffontaines' shoes without missing a beat, and his work here on the interiors (of which there were none in Jeannette) proves to be particularly impressive.
But perhaps the biggest surprise in Jeanne - which earned a Special Mention from the jury at Cannes - comes in the form of the casting of its leading actress. While you may have been expecting to see Jeanne Voisin continue in the role she played in the second half of the earlier film, it's Lise Leplat Prudhomme - the younger Joan in the previous instalment - who returns from Jeannette to play a much older version of the character in Jeanne. Apparently Voisin was lined up to play the part but eventually bowed out, leaving Dumont to turn to his other Joan from Jeannette. As a result, watching the two works as a double bill (or simply one very long film) will no doubt be rather jarring in terms of continuity - Joan will apparently get older then younger, perhaps leading viewers to think that Jeanne Voisin's scenes are some sort of flash-forward. But any such issues shouldn't detract from the work of Prudhomme, who gives another terrific performance here, despite playing a character who, by the end of the film, is nearly twice the actress' age. Jeanne is a long, hefty and frequently taxing film, and this talented ten-year-old carries it quite brilliantly.
Jeanne begins with things going very well for the title character as the Hundred Years' War between France and England rages on; with her famous victory at the Battle of Orléans in the bag, Joan is delighted to see the Dauphin crowned king of France. However, after Charles VII (Fabrice Luchini) is installed as monarch (thanks in no small part to Joan's help), he takes a position very different to that of Joan regarding how events should proceed: Charles favours diplomacy, while La Pucelle wishes to continue fighting. As Joan's military luck eventually runs out, she's captured then delivered to the English, for whom she's proved to be quite the fly in the ointment. The rest - indeed, the bulk - of the film is dedicated to the exhaustive, and exhausting, ecclesiastical interrogation which this young woman is subjected to in Rouen (actually Amiens) Cathedral. Needless to say, King Charles is nowhere to be seen as Joan is tried and sentenced. Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll be painfully aware of the horrible, fiery fate which awaits the protagonist, and in Jeanne - as in every other screen version of this story - her inevitable untimely death hangs over the entire duration as events stick to their terrible course.
Movies about Joan of Arc are nearly as old as cinema itself and, of the many films of Joan's story, the one Dumont's take has most in common with is Jacques Rivette's Joan the Maid - although the parallels are only fully obvious now Dumont has made this second film. Rivette's version likewise cast an actress whose age (27) was some way off that of the real Joan, and was also released as two separate films (carrying the sub-titles The Battles and The Prisons), each of which documented a different stage of Joan's short life. Equally perversely, both projects disregard significant events: Jeanne neglects to show the capture of Joan by the Burgundians, while Joan the Maid - which totals a running time of well over five hours in its unexpurgated version - omits her entire trial, slapping up a solitary title card to account for months of what Jeanne depicts. And Dumont, just like Rivette before him and no doubt for similar (i.e. budgetary) reasons, populates his Joan of Arc films with just a few characters at any given time; those coming to any of these films expecting to see hundreds of extras battling it out, Lord of the Rings-style, at Orlèans or Compiègne will be sorely disappointed, and may be better served by Luc Besson's unfairly maligned The Messenger.
While such a constraint could easily have seen all four of the Rivette/Dumont films succumb to an unwelcome staginess (not that Rivette was averse to a bit of theatricality in many of his other films), in Dumont's case this has been resolved via some huge, wide shots of both the windswept Opal Coast and the interior of Amiens Cathedral; both directors' films on Joan - which share a distributor in Les Films du Losange - certainly feel grand (Rivette also used the landscape to let his film open up and breathe). In Jeanne it's actually the cathedral scenes which are the more effective, as the exteriors feature a number of abandoned WW2 blockhouses - one of which serves as Joan's prison - which are far too recognisably 20th century to really aid suspension of disbelief. While these buildings make for an atmospheric backdrop to some of the scenes in the quite contemporary Li'l Quinquin, their presence in Jeanne is most distracting - even if Dumont claims to be aiming for a "timeless" accuracy, as opposed to a historical one. Of course, if you're not familiar with the area where Jeanne was filmed, then this may not present too much of a problem.
In many ways, the main purpose of Jeanne appears to be to replicate the gruelling nature of Joan's trial - that is to say, to make the audience feel as drained, weary and bewildered as our young heroine as she endures endless rounds of arcane questions from the parade of clerics that lines the cathedral's benches. The clergy's attempts may be futile vis-à-vis wearing down the accused, but they prove to be quite effective when it comes to getting the viewer to crack: the screening I attended saw numerous walkouts - apparently a not uncommon occurrence during Jeanne's theatrical release (and festival showings). It's certainly an endurance test, and if the dry theological debates don't get you, chances are the long static takes will. In employing such a daring, unusual film grammar, Dumont has created what is by far his most challenging work; not only is the pacing very slow and deliberate, but at 138 minutes this is the second longest of the director's films (1999's Humanity - which positively flies by in comparison - exceeds it by around ten minutes). Jeannette may have been niche, but its sequel will appeal to far, far fewer. Which is not to say that the film isn't worthwhile; here, Bruno Dumont presents a real cinema experience in which those with sufficient patience (say, of a saint?) will be rewarded - although the austere Jeanne has no intention of giving up its mysteries without a fight. You have been warned.
There wasn't much time available in which to put this together, and ideally I would have liked to have scribbled a little bit about each entry. Instead, if I've written about a film on either this site or Letterboxd, then the film's title will be a clickable link which will take you to the relevant review. I have a terrible feeling I've forgotten at least one really important film in this list, and I'm also slightly annoyed that I couldn't squeeze in Robert Rodriguez's Alita: Battle Angel, which nonetheless deserves a mention as the best of the rest. So, in no order other than alphabetical, here are my picks of 2019:
Bruno Dumont's 1997 debut feature The Life of Jesus has recently been treated to a 4K digital makeover, with this restoration enjoying a release both in cinemas and on home video. Sometimes too much is made of restored versions of films, and most of us have at some stage been burned by this marketing tool, with many a much-trumpeted release failing to produce a noticeable difference between prints old and new. However, in The Life of Jesus' case there is a huge gap in quality between this release and those which preceded it; over the years, the film hasn't always looked in the best of shape, but this pristine new version really does look like it was shot yesterday. There's an added poignancy to this re-release in that the film's star, the charismatic David Douche, died in a house fire four years ago today. The Life of Jesus was Douche's sole acting credit, which is a not uncommon statistic among the non-professionals who populate much of Dumont's work. On hearing of Douche's death, some who knew him were surprised to learn of his big-screen adventure; he apparently never spoke of his starring role in a film which had wowed audiences at Cannes.
If you've never seen the film, it's worth mentioning now that The Life of Jesus isn't actually about the life of Jesus. It's an oblique title (which does become slightly clearer after multiple viewings), one shared with a book by Breton writer Ernest Renan. In Renan's 1863 bestseller, Jesus was portrayed as a great leader, yet one who was categorically human - thus, acts such as his miracles were rejected outright; Renan didn't do this out of disrespect, but rather felt that his take on Jesus would improve Christ's standing as an important historical character, albeit one who should be subjected to the same biographical scrutiny as any other notable person from the past. Naturally, this approach ruffled a few feathers, but Renan sincerely felt that, in humanising Christ and stripping away the supernatural aspects of the gospel, he was affording greater dignity to Jesus and his achievements. While Dumont's film is not an adaptation of the book, the use of Renan's title does feel strangely apt: just as Christ's feats - as according to Renan - required no superhuman powers, acts of evil in the film aren't rooted in the diabolical. In Dumont's films, the spectrum of good and evil is usually somewhat narrower than is generally accepted, yet there's often a yearning for spirituality, too; since The Life of Jesus, Dumont has explored these themes on more than one occasion, most prominently in Outside Satan.
Now you know what the film isn't about, here's the gist: Freddy (Douche) and his friends while away their days in a small provincial Flanders town, with their go-to activity being to race their mopeds through the streets and around the surrounding countryside. None of these aimless young men appears to be gainfully employed; beyond motorbikes, the only shared pastime of note they have is playing in the local marching band. That said, the epileptic Freddy owns a pet finch which he takes great care of, and he does have a girlfriend in Marie (Marjorie Cottreel), who works as a cashier in the local supermarket. Marie and Freddy's relationship is tested by the latter's erratic behaviour, and once Kader (Kader Chaatouf) - a young man of North African heritage who's been subjected to the casual racism of Freddy et al. - enters the fray and begins to vie for Marie's affections, you just know that this isn't going to end well. On account of his epilepsy, Freddy is no stranger to hospitals, but it's actually when he's attending one as a visitor that we get the film's sole explicit biblical reference: as the brother of one of Freddy's friends lies dying of AIDS, we see a picture on the wall of the raising of Lazarus. But, in line with Ernest Renan's theories regarding Jesus' abilities, there will be no resurrection for this unfortunate patient.
Even after a dozen films - and we'll be reviewing his latest next month - The Life of Jesus still stands as Dumont's most accessible work, with only Hadewijchand Flanders mounting a serious challenge to that title. While it occasionally flirts with the transgressiveness which would turn full-bore with Dumont's next two films - Humanity and Twentynine Palms - The Life of Jesus plays as a direct and engrossing work, one which at no point feels like a first film; the fluency displayed in much later works such as Camille Claudel 1915 is fully evident here. In his films, Dumont has seldom strayed from his own back yard, using the backdrop of the Flanders he knows to great effect. It has often been said that he frequently uses the landscape as a character in its own right, and nowhere is this more apparent than in The Life of Jesus, in which we see Dumont's home town and its environs in different seasons. But, regardless of whether it's a stifling summer or a snowy winter, Freddy's life never changes very much - until the final reel. Late on in the film, we glimpse an ant running along Freddy's bare arm, while he in turn looks to the sky - seemingly newly aware that he, just like the insect, is part of something much bigger.
Police captain Van der Weyden is one of the more memorable characters in recent television history (OK, I must admit I don't watch much TV), and since this character - played by the untutored Bernard Pruvost - first appeared in Bruno Dumont's Li'l Quinquin, I've been itching to see more of him; that show, which ran to four episodes (and also played in cinemas as one long film), was always ripe for another series. A sequel is now finally here in the form of Coincoin and the Extra-Humans and, happily, second time around proves no obstacle for the director and his fine cast of non-pros who, four years on, effortlessly slip back into this surreal and occasionally very troubling world. Bruno Dumont has been no slouch between these two series, pumping out both Slack Bay and Jeannette, the latter of which, like Quinquin, enjoyed near-simultaneous big and small screen releases.
As with Li'l Quinquin, this latest endeavour consists of four episodes of around 50 minutes each. Pretty much everyone from the first show is back for this caper - even Lisa Hartmann's Aurélie, and if you saw the first series and are wondering how this can be possible, just watch and you'll see - oh, you'll see. Whereas Van der Weyden's bizarre investigation last time around was at least rooted in reality with its hunt for a murderer (who, predictably enough, was never revealed nor apprehended), this series jumps off the deep end from the start as a strange black magma is splatting down from the skies. This substance proves mystifying enough to both police and civilians, but its true menace is only revealed each dusk as it releases a floating light which proceeds to invade an unfortunate, seemingly random local resident, who then spawns a doppelgänger; rinse and repeat.
In addition to the antics of Van der Weyden and his sidekick Carpentier (Philippe Jore) - who spends much of his time stunt driving their Citroën C4 police car - there is of course plenty of screen time for the title character, played by Alane Delhaye. As you may have noticed, he now goes by the name Coincoin - presumably as he's no longer a quinquin, or small child. While many of the returning cast members look pretty much the same as they did before, the biggest change, predictably, comes in the appearances of the child actors, who in the space of four years have gone from kids just out of primary school to teens on the cusp of adulthood. In these intervening years, Coincoin has separated from Eve (Lucy Caron) and over the course of the new series gets romantically involved with the flighty Jenny (Alexia Depret), daughter of the regional leader of sinister political party the Bloc. Like Coincoin, Eve has also moved on to another partner, but it's clear that these childhood sweethearts still harbour some feelings for one another.
Although Coincoin and the Extra-Humans has one foot planted in slapstick, it does take the time to touch upon some serious concerns, such as the European migrant crisis and the rise of the far right - the Bloc clearly a proxy for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement national, much like the fictional RNP were in last year's Chez nous(when Le Pen's party were still known as the Front national). A disconcerting development occurs when some of the Bloc's foot soldiers talk about travelling to Calais for a "bonfire"; thankfully, this appears to be little more than bravado, although the group's walk through a tunnel which plays home to some migrants makes for a tense couple of minutes. But these darker aspects are largely kept in the background, never getting in the way of an investigation which, if you know this director, is never likely to lead to much of consequence. Rather, Dumont is fixed on his characters and their interactions, and the forensics of police work - just as in Slack Bay, Humanity or indeed Li'l Quinquin - prove to be of no real interest to the director. As is usual for Dumont, the landscape of his own back yard here proves to be a character in its own right, and DP Guillaume Deffontaines - in his fifth collaboration with the director - serves up some wonderfully evocative widescreen cinematography.
While the vast majority of the actors seen here were in the first series, there are a couple of additions to the cast which will arouse interest among Dumont scholars: Nicolas Leclaire, whose performance in Jeannette was a comic highlight, turns up here as Jenny's uncle, but the real shock comes in the form of an appearance by Humanity's Emmanuel Schotté who plays, er, another of Jenny's uncles (or should that be "uncles"?) Schotté's only screen role prior to Coincoin was in Humanity, for which he won the best actor prize at Cannes; you can't help but feel that he went into exile on account of the backlash afforded to the controversial Humanity, on which Cannes' David Cronenberg-led jury bestowed two other prestigious awards. There's something quite touching about his reappearance here after nearly 20 years away from acting, and it seems only fitting that his second (final?) role is in something directed by Dumont.
Needless to say, Coincoin and the Extra-Humans comes highly recommended, and it's amazing how it follows Li'l Quinquin so seamlessly. It's hard to pick which of the two series is better, but that all eight episodes could play as a single, fluid work is testament to the remarkable consistency on display here. While the cast will all, presumably, go back to doing whatever it is they normally do (Pruvost is a gardener at a centre for disabled people), a third adventure with these characters would be extremely welcome, so let's hope it eventually materialises. With much of the dialogue presented in undiluted ch'timi, Dumont proves to be as intransigent as ever; that said, who would have thought that the director and star of the bleak, severe and austere Humanity would one day reunite for a knockabout TV comedy?
