BFI Flare 2024: The Blue Shelter

Today marks the start of this year's BFI Flare, which gets underway with two screenings of Amrou Al-Kadhi's debut feature Layla—a film that serves as the festival's opening night gala.  But tomorrow is when the event gets properly up and running, with Flare 2024's first full day offering up films such as the eagerly anticipated Dutch-British co-production Silver Haze, Sav Rodgers' uplifting documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, Orthodox feature Unspoken, and Elliot Page-starrer Close to You.  While feature films are very much the festival's bread and butter, shorts are by no means neglected by Flare; indeed, short films have their own dedicated strand—where, typically, several thematically linked works are combined to form a programme which lasts roughly the equivalent length of a standard feature. 

One such programme—and there are 11 in total at this year's festival—is Cosmic Dreams: Through the Looking Glass, which screens tomorrow evening in BFI Southbank's NFT3; this particular collection is one of three shorts programmes playing on Thursday, the others being A Taste of Spain and Methods for Facing a Hostile World.  Cosmic Dreams plays home to Jérémy Piette's dreamy, elegiac The Blue Shelter (Le Garçon qui la nuit), which takes its place alongside Joana de Sousa's Between Light and Nowhere (Entre a Luz e o Nada), Alden Peters' Friends of Sophia (see trailer below), Jeanette Buck's Safety State, Antonia Luxem's On Falling, and Frankie Fox's Goodbye Python.  With a running time of 26 minutes, The Blue Shelter is fractionally the longest of the half-dozen films included in Cosmic Dreams: Through the Looking Glass, and certainly the most memorable.

Piette's film centres on Arthur, a young man quietly dreading the end of summer.  Arthur and his friends are enjoying a languid day at a sun-kissed Breton beach, where they spend their time reading, drinking and taking occasional dips in the sea.  Not far from the group, a lone sunbather proves somewhat distracting for the pensive Arthur, who attempts to take a beer over to the man until he's talked out of it.  As the day wears on, the friends join in a mass singalong to Robi's "On ne meurt plus d'amour", a rendition as joyous as it is wistful.  The Blue Shelter subsequently takes a left turn into magical realism as Arthur is separated from his friends and enters a vaguely unsettling crepuscular world; this surreal closing sequence is soundtracked by a haunting interpretation of another well-known song: Brigitte Fontaine and Areski's "J'ai 26 ans".  

Given the two very different halves of this film, Jérémy Piette proves most adept at stitching them into a cohesive whole, and his skill in doing so should not be underestimated (cf. Boléro, another short from this year's Flare, which founders in its attempt to change tack midway through).  Parallels have been drawn between The Blue Shelter and the sweaty, leery films of Abdellatif Kechiche, but such comparisons seem both wide of the mark and lazy.  Rather, Piette's film appears to be more influenced by the work of François Ozon and Jacques Rivette, with a splash of Steven Arnold's Luminous Procuress thrown in for good measure.  The Blue Shelter—whose warm, tactile Super 16mm cinematography recalls that of Christian Avilés' similarly lengthed La herida luminosa—is a fine, ambitious debut, one which captures the essence of a summer that is anything but endless.     

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

Peter von Kant (François Ozon, 2022)

François Ozon is nothing if not prolific, and Peter von Kant, which screens today at the London Film Festival, marks his 21st feature film; an impressive tally, given that his first full-length effort, the singularly unpleasant Sitcom, was released a mere 24 years ago.  Ozon's next feature but one after Sitcom, Water Drops on Burning Rocks, was an adaptation of a work by Rainer Werner Fassbinder—a filmmaker who cranked out films at a rate that makes even Ozon look like a slouch.  For his latest feature, Ozon again looks to Fassbinder, whose 1972 film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is given a makeover in which the title character, as evidenced by the slight tweak to their name, is now male.  Fassbinder's film was an all-female affair, and although Ozon doesn't go as far as to completely invert this setup, his take on the story primarily focuses on male characters.  

It appears that much of the reasoning behind this bold decision is so that Petra can be conflated with Fassbinder, with the resulting Peter played by the superb Denis Ménochet.  Ménochet has given many fine performances in recent years, including his turns in both Custody and Ozon's outstanding By the Grace of God.  He appears to be having a great deal of fun as the main character in Peter von Kant, who is a monstrous, cruel and self-centred filmmaker ostensibly intent on turning Amir (Khalil Gharbia) into a movie star—although it is quite clear that his interest in this young man is more personal than professional.  A mainly silent witness to the drama that unfolds between Peter and Amir is present in the form of the director's factotum, Karl (Stefan Crepon), who observes the histrionics in a calm, detached manner while attending to the whims of his waspish boss.

Peter, Karl and Amir are counterbalanced by three female characters, all of whom are related to Peter: his cousin Sidonie (Isabelle Adjani), his daughter Gabrielle (Aminthe Audiard), and his mother Rosemarie (Hanna Schygulla).  All three have an impact on the increasingly drink-addled filmmaker, who appears to have no line of demarcation between his work and home lives.  That said, virtually the entire film sees Peter camped out in his apartment, which is perhaps to be expected when you consider that the film(s), like Water Drops on Burning Rocks, started out life as a Fassbinder stage play.  But Ozon is too savvy a filmmaker to allow Peter von Kant to carry the air of a filmed theatrical performance; rather, in what might appear to be a counter-intuitive move, he leans into the artifice, in the process creating a compelling, claustrophobic work, one that replaces both the staginess and iciness of Fassbinder's film with the keen sense of mischief prevalent in many (but not all) of Ozon's previous works.

In a film which is about, inter alia, blurred boundaries, Ozon gets considerable mileage from the slippery relationship that exists between his film and Fassbinder's, even going so far as to cast one of the original film's stars—Fass regular Schygulla—in a supporting role.  It is difficult to work out if Peter von Kant is a remake, companion piece, reboot, homage, or palimpsest, and in some ways its unusual connection to its source material puts it in the same sphere as both Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria—a film that also cast a Fassbinder favourite (Ingrid Caven) in a small part—and Jerzy Skolimowski's EO, the latter of which also plays at this year's LFF; in a move that parallels Peter von Kant's use of Adjani, Skolimowski's film also features a member of French acting royalty, Isabelle Huppert, in an extended cameo.  Regardless of your level of familiarity with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and/or The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, there is a great deal to enjoy in the taut, spiky Peter von Kant, which runs to a crisp 85 minutes.  François Ozon's ability to change style from one film to the next is really quite remarkable; fortunately, given his track record, we shouldn't have to wait too long to see what he does next.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

Films of the New French Extremity (1–31/5/22)

The BFI have announced full details of CRUEL FLESH: FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY, a season of brutally compelling films that explore intimacy in a violent world. Running throughout May at BFI Southbank, the programme explores the unique moment in cinema history that sent shockwaves through arthouse sensibilities. This season will feature the work of filmmakers such as Claire Denis (TROUBLE EVERY DAY), François Ozon (CRIMINAL LOVERS), Leos Carax (POLA X), Marina de Van (IN MY SKIN), Lucile Hadžihalilovic (LA BOUCHE DE JEAN-PIERRE, with Hadžihalilovic attending in person), and Gaspar Noé, the latter of whom will also be subject of a special focus in May. 

FOCUS ON: GASPAR NOÉ coincides with the release of the filmmaker’s new work VORTEX (2021), and will include in person appearances from the director. The centrepiece event of the focus will be Gaspar Noé in Conversation on 10 May, during which the one-of-a-kind filmmaker will reflect upon his work so far, including VORTEX, which will be on extended run at BFI Southbank when it is released in cinemas UK-wide on 13 May. IRREVERSIBLE (2002) is built around Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci, trading on their popularity and charisma as a real-life couple to make their violent descent even more assaulting. In 2019, Noé returned to the film to tell the story in chronological order; IRREVERSIBLE: THE STRAIGHT CUT (2002) goes beyond a linear reassembling of the narrative.

Contextual events during the NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY season will including opening event SEX AND DEATH, BUT MAKE IT ARTHOUSE, a richly illustrated talk on 3 May that will introduce the key titles, filmmakers and thematic preoccupations of this distinct film movement. There will also be an online panel discussion – HORROR À LA FRANÇAISE – available for free on BFI YouTube from 11-31 May. As part of the season a four-session course running every Tuesday – CITY LIT AT THE BFI: NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY – will consider the historical, cultural, social and political context for this phenomenon and seek to examine a number of these films in detail. There will also be a NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY collection on BFI Player, available concurrently with the BFI Southbank season.

The closest thing to a comedy to be found in this programme, MAN BITES DOG (Rémy Belvaux/André Bonzel/Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992) is a Belgian mockumentary that follows a crudely charismatic serial killer who is delighted to be the subject of a documentary that will cover his thoughts on the ‘craft of murder’ and classical music. In the exceptionally creepy Belgian horror THE ORDEAL (Fabrice du Welz, 2004), a traveling entertainer becomes stranded in a remote mountain town and is taken in by an affable local, who nurtures a dangerous obsession. Without any women or music, Fabrice du Welz deliberately avoids horror clichés to make something truly strange.

Source/images: BFI

I Want to Talk About Duras (Claire Simon, 2021)

The renowned writer Marguerite Duras enjoyed both a successful career and a highly eventful personal life, and it is the latter that forms the focus of Claire Simon's I Want to Talk About Duras.  Simon's new film is not concerned with the author's teenage escapades in Indochina—that much-publicised period was covered in Jean-Jacques Annaud's eponymous screen adaptation of Duras' The Lover—but rather examines the relationship between the writer and youthful Breton Yann Andréa, a Duras überfan who, after many years of correspondence, found himself in the rather surreal position of sharing a home and bed with his idol.  There was an age gap of nearly half a century between Andréa and Duras, both of whom are now deceased, and their unlikely union could be compared to the one experienced by the title characters in Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude.  Simon's film, which screens as part of this year's BFI Flare on March 20 and 22, concentrates on Andréa's 1982 interviews with Marie Claire journalist Michèle Manceaux, during which the subject spoke candidly about his then-ongoing relationship with Duras.  

I Want to Talk About Duras isn't the first film on this subject: 2001's Cet amour-là, which starred the legendary Jeanne Moreau as Duras, also set about telling this most atypical of stories; coincidentally, Moreau served as the narrator for The Lover.  I Want to Talk About Duras differs from Cet amour-là in a key sense: Duras herself is largely absent from Simon's film, although the author does appear via archive footage that underlines some of the points being made in the interviews.  Instead of focusing directly on the author, I Want to Talk About Duras places Swann Arlaud's Andréa and Emmanuelle Devos' Manceaux front and centre, although Duras' presence is still keenly felt; not only is the writer the main topic of discussion, but we can hear her clumping around on another floor of the home she shares with Andréa.  What's more, she frequently resorts to a disruptive tactic in the form of calling the telephone which sits just next to her partner.  As such, Duras is a ghostly, unnerving presence, one who always seems to be hovering around the edges of the action.

For a film centring on Marguerite Duras to relegate the title character to the periphery seems rather perverse—doubly so when it stars the incomparable Emmanuelle Devos, whose casting here tantalisingly hints at what she could have done if handed the role of Duras (anyone who doubts Devos' suitability for such a part need look no further than her terrific turn as Violette Leduc—another author who was no stranger to scandal—in Martin Provost's excellent biopic Violette).  It is to Simon's great credit that I Want to Talk About Duras survives both this daring move and the equally bold stroke of splicing in a sequence from Duras' 1975 film India Song, which practically invites the viewer to think about which film they'd rather be watching.  Devos' Michèle Manceaux doesn't have to say a great deal while her tape recorder absorbs Andréa's thoughts on Duras, but there are numerous occasions when the camera remains fixed on her face as she listens intently; Simon clearly understands how best to use Devos' wonderfully expressive features.  

Much of what Andréa has to say conjures up a most unflattering picture of Duras, who is painted as a domineering control freak, one who dictates virtually everything in the relationship, ranging from Yann's diet to his sexuality.  It's a disturbing arrangement, yet one in which Andréa seems to have found some sort of contentment—even if he fails to truly comprehend the setup's unwholesome nature.  With this film, Simon has set herself several stiff challenges—in this sense, it recalls Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth's The Five Obstructions—but what is perhaps the biggest potential pitfall of all comes in the form of the film being a two-hander, a format which may be fine for the stage yet often founders in the far less forgiving medium of cinema.  Simon sidesteps this by opening the film up whenever a flicker of staginess threatens to creep in; in addition to the aforementioned extract from India Song, there's a mesmerising crepuscular scene detailing Mancieux's walk home after a long day of interviewing.  Of course, much can be overlooked in a film starring these two fine actors, and Swann Arlaud exudes the same sort of sensitive fragility he channelled so effectively in François Ozon's outstanding By the Grace of God.  Despite the myriad obstacles Claire Simon places in her own path, I Want to Talk About Duras is an engaging, invigorating work.

Darren Arnold

Images: BFI

The 20 Best Films of 2019: An Alphabetical List

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:

La Belle Époque (Nicolas Bedos)

By the Grace of God (François Ozon)

Capernaum (Nadine Labaki)

Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan)

For Sama (Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts)

Ghost Town Anthology (Denis Côté)

The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman)

Jeanne (Bruno Dumont)

Joker (Todd Phillips)

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

Monos (Alejandro Landes)

On a Magical Night (Christophe Honoré)

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (Martin Scorsese)

Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (J. J. Abrams)

La vérité si je mens! Les débuts (Michel Munz, Gérard Bitton)

Zombi Child (Bertrand Bonello)

That's it for this year!  See you in 2020 - have a great Christmas! 🎄

DA

Images: image.net

By the Grace of God (François Ozon, 2019)

François Ozon is a filmmaker who almost always comes up with something interesting.  Some of his earlier works were associated with the New French Extremity, and for many years this prolific, mischievous director has seesawed between high frivolity (8 Women, Potiche) and more sombre concerns (5x2, Time to Leave).  While sitting down to watch an Ozon film, you're pretty confident you'll find him working in one of these modes - or maybe even both, as in In the House and Young & Beautiful.  His most recent film prior to By the Grace of God was Double Lover, which played almost as a self-parody: borderline transgressive, trashy and sloppy, it was a film which saw Ozon treading water as he went through the motions of adapting Joyce Carol Oates' 1987 novel Lives of the Twins.  While admittedly rather fun, it was cookie-cutter Ozon which presented nothing especially new.  But the throwaway Double Lover provided no hint as to what Ozon would do next: his latest film is a truly staggering work, one quite unlike anything else in the director's filmography.

As with the terrific Oscar-winner Spotlight, By the Grace of God is concerned with the Catholic Church abuse scandal, and Ozon is quite open about the similarities between the two films.  However, By the Grace of God does differ from Tom McCarthy's movie, not least in that Ozon's film was made as the trial of one of its characters was still in progress; an unusual move, certainly, yet one which imbues the film with a sense of freshness and immediacy which is almost palpable.  By the Grace of God was not only made while these court proceedings were underway, but the film itself was dragged into the courts as Bernard Preynat, the priest depicted in the film, attempted to block its release.  Incredibly, this €6 million production was only cleared for release the day before it was due to hit cinemas.  Indeed, the story of By the Grace of God's production would make for a gripping film in itself.

Ozon's film follows three grown men, all of whom were childhood victims of Preynat (Bernard Verley).  The first chunk of the film is devoted to Alexandre (Ozon regular Melvil Poupaud), a calm family man who's shocked to learn that Preynat, under the Cardinal's protection, is still working with children.  As a result of this discovery, Alexandre decides to take action, and a church psychologist arranges a meeting between victim and abuser, which is intended to aid the healing process.  Preynat doesn't deny what happened, and while he seems pleased to see that Alexandre has grown up to be a well-adjusted member of society, the priest doesn't seem especially sorry for the crimes he committed, merely stating that they were the symptom of an illness; he's certainly not looking for forgiveness.  The slightly surreal meeting ends with the truly sickening, horrifying sight of Alexandre being persuaded to take Preynat's hand as a concluding prayer is recited.

The more cautious Alexandre then gives way in the narrative to the headstrong François (Denis Ménochet), another victim, yet one who wants to cause maximum damage to the Church.  Like Alexandre, François has grown up to become a content and fulfilled adult, yet his atheism drives him in a way which Alexandre - who still attends church with his young family - can't fully relate to.  Nonetheless, Alexandre and François have more than enough in common as they look to take on Cardinal Barbarin (François Marthouret), who seems chiefly concerned with putting his institution's reputation ahead of its victims.  The film's title comes from a quote from the Cardinal, who stated that it was "by the grace of God" that the statute of limitations precluded most of the abuse cases making it to court.  Make of that what you will.

Emmanuel (Swann Arlaud), the third and last of the film's main characters to be introduced, is by far the most damaged of the Church's victims.  Prone to seizures which are linked to the trauma of his abuse, the unemployed Emmanuel appears to have spent his entire adult life on his uppers, and lives in a shabby apartment with a girlfriend he constantly argues with.  But through meeting Alexandre, François and other victims, Emmanuel gains a sense of purpose as this trio of very different men join forces in order to seek justice.  While the three main actors are all terrific here, it's Arlaud who steals the film with a truly incendiary performance, with his Emmanuel representing the impact of the Church's crimes at its worst: for every Alexandre (or François) who managed to get on with their life, there are many Emmanuels out there, stuck in a rut, broken and forgotten - if they're still alive.

By the Grace of God is an immaculate, quietly devastating work which continues telling a story the world needs to hear.  While someone might suggest you should just watch Spotlight instead as it covers a lot of similar ground, By the Grace of God's existence is hugely important, as it serves as a European angle on a problem which has affected many parts of the world; hopefully, there will be more films which highlight the Catholic Church abuse scandal in other territories.  While it may well be Ozon's best film, By the Grace of God is also the least typical of the director's works, and his fingerprints are nowhere to be found here; it provides final proof, if any were needed, of this genre-hopping filmmaker's versatility.  While normal service will most likely be resumed with his upcoming Eté 84 (which also stars Poupaud and has already finished shooting), this welcome departure for François Ozon is a vital, urgent work, and one of 2019's best films.

Darren Arnold

Images: image.net