. . . . March 6 – 16, 2014

Rating Rendez-Vous 2014

Time for a quick look at the Rendez-Vous now the two weeks of press screenings are over and I've seen all 24. In the first week definitely the opening night Catherine Deneuve vehicle, On My Way/Elle s'en va was worth seeing, and also the clever mashup of a couple battling over visitation rights and the Hollande election on the same day, The Age of Panic/La bataille de Solférino, is energetic and quite original. One might have time for the nuclear plant love affair Grand Central, since it has some good actors and a realistic atmosphere, though it's not that great a movie (Ben Nacir's The Marchers/La marche is in a similar category). I was very intrigued by Going Away/Un beau dimanche, Nicole Garcia's film about a mysterious young aristocrat; and (everybody agrees) Ozon's in fine form in Young and Beautiful/Jeune et jolie, his new movie about a well-off young lyçée student who has a fling as a high-paid call girl at 17.

The second week of press screenings started off with the splendid and touching documentary about immigrant kids in a Paris school, School of Babel/La cour de Babel. Apaches/Les apaches, about the class divide on the island of Corsica, is a neorealist noir worth a patient look. Eastern Boys, about a man who gets into trouble when he negotiates for sex with a youth met in the Gare du Nord, was surprisingly fine, with several remarkable set pieces. Suzanne, with the bold Sara Forestier, the saga of a young woman's mad love for a sexy young criminal, is thoroughly involving. Agnès Jaoui is reliably polished and entertaining even if her fairy tale series of resolutions Under the Rainbow/Au bout du conte is a bit too much on the soft and sweet side for her. The closing night film about being a speechwriter for Doninique de Villepin, The French Minister/Quay d'Orsay (Bernard Tavernier) is fun and a bit strange. Some might like Michel Gondry's super-surreal Boris Vian adaptation Mood Indigo/L'Écume des jours; I and others found it unbearably high-concept from the get-go. Links to all my reviews are below.


Links to the reviews on FILMLEAF:

2 Autumns, 3 Winters /2 autunnes 3 hivers(Sébastien Betbeder 2013)
Age of Panic, The/La bataille de Solférino (Justine Triet 2013)
Apaches/Apaches, Les (Thierry de Peretti 2013)
Castle in Italy, A/Un chateau en Italie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi 2013)
French Minister, The/Quay d'Orsay (Bertrand Tavernier 2013)
Eastern Boys (Robin Campillo 2013)
Gilded Cage, The/La cage dorée (Ruben Alves 2013)
Going Away/Un beau dimanche (Nicole Garcia 2013)
Grand Central (Rebecca Zlotkowski 2013)
His Wife/Son épouse (Michel Spinosa 2014)
If You Don't, I Will/Arrête ou je continue (Sophie Fillières 2014)
Love Battles/Mes séances de lutte (Jacques Doillon 2013)
Love Is the Perfect Crime/L'amour est un crime parfait (Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu 2013)
Marchers, The/La Marche (Nacir Ben Yadir 2013)
Miss and the Doctors/Tirez la langue, mademoiselle (Axelle Ropert 2013)
Mood Indigo/L'Écume des jours (Michel Gondry 2013)
On My Way/Elle s'en va (Emmanuelle Bercot 2013)
Playing Dead/Je fais le mort (Jean-Paul Salomé (2013)
School of Babel, The/La cour de Babel (Julie Bertuccelli 2013)
Suzanne (Katell Quillévéré 2013)
Tip Top (Serge Bozon 2013)
Tonnerre (Guillaume Brac 2013)
Under the Rainbow/Au fin du conte (Agnès Jaoui 2013)
Young and Beautiful/Jeune et jolie (François Ozon 2013)[/b]

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.