French Film Festival

The 24^th Alliance French Film Festival is huge. It has 43 new films and documentaries and runs 19 March to 7 April at Cinema Paradiso, Luna on SX and the Windsor Cinema. Apart from the always successful opening and closing nights, there’s a Provence-style afternoon before the film Renoir and the latest Asterix and Obelix in Britain adventure with prizes for the best costume.

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‘Feu’ by Christian Loubentin (MA), directed by Bruno Hullin, is a titillating assault on the senses. Christian Loubentin has a shoe fetish. He is infatuated with Tina Turner’s legs and the high heels that make them look so good. Famous for designing red-soled shoes, he teams up with French cabaret institution Crazy Horse to produce an erotic cabaret featuring seriously stylish footwear. Screening in 3D, it is a seductive the parade of nubile breasts, round taught derrieres and sensational choreography. Screening at Cinema Paradiso on Thursday 26 March, there is Bubbly and a Burlesque show before the film.

‘Invisibles’ (MA), directed by Sebastien Lifshitz, is a documentary which looks at lives of eleven homosexual people who are now in their seventies and eighties. Born between the two great wars and living in regional areas, they speak about their restrictive childhoods and their guilt because of their unspoken sexuality. It’s not all depressing – one guy speaks about having to deal with a continual ‘hard on’ when in the boys’ showers. “We can laugh about it now, but then we cried”. On the whole, they knew homosexuals existed but it was scandalous and dangerous to talk about such things. After building walls of silence and secrecy around their desires, they talk about their coming out experiences and the love and joy they have found. Each person took the step from secrecy to freedom and became active in demanding more rights. Using photographs and archival footage, this is a moving part of history.

The Imposter (MA)

Directed by Quinton Tarantino

In 1994, a thirteen year-old boy disappeared from San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later he is found alive in a village in southern Spain with stories of kidnap and torture. His sister goes to Spain and takes him home but despite some distinguishing marks, there some glaring discrepancies including his foreign accent and the fact that his eyes are brown rather than blue. There is no protest from the family and the story becomes so incredible, I was beginning to think this was a mockumentary. But it is the real story of a French conman, 7 years older than the real boy would have been, and how he managed to become the missing boy. Director Bart Layton hit the jackpot with the ‘characters’ in his documentary – some are desperate to believe, some are blinded by their need to find solutions and some are downright stupid. This weirdly troubling documentary is the best thing since ‘Catfish’.

The Paperboy (MA)

Directed by Lee Daniels

Zac Efron is the paperboy Jack Jansen, delivering his father’s newspaper after dropping out of high school. His more successful older brother Ward (Matthew McConaughey) works for the Miami Times and he returns home in search of a salacious story about a man on death row. Accompanying him is fellow reporter Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo) and it is obvious by the looks they exchange that there are things going on that you don’t talk about in a small town in the 1960s. The death row prisoner is alligator hunter Hilary Van Wetter (John Cusack), a particularly nasty individual who is supposed to have killed an equally nasty individual who was a local police officer. He has attracted the interest of Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) who Yardley describes as “a nasty little nut job” and she is pleading his innocence. Narrated by the black maid Anita (Macy Gray), the paperboy seems to be the only likeable character.

Great Expectations (M)

Directed by Mike Newell

A young orphan is given a chance to rise from his working class origins thanks to an anonymous benefactor. As a young gentleman, Pip (War Horse’s Jeremy Irvine) revisits his childhood sweetheart who had been adopted by the eccentric Miss Havisham (Helena Bonham Carter who was born to be cast in this role). The beautiful Estella (Holliday Grainger) and her guardian have other plans and the heart-broken Pip returns to London. A convict by the name of Magwitch (Ralph Fiennes) seeks his help and the good-hearted Pip finds out about the origins of his good fortune. There have been so many renditions film and televisions of Charles Dickens’ classic, that I wasn’t sure if the world needed another one. But, written in 1860, the narrative twists are still intriguing and the director of ‘Four Weddings and A Funeral’ has succeeded in making an admirable rendition of the fascinating tale.

Blancanieves (M)

Directed by Pablo Berger

Blancanieves, which is Spanish for Snow White, is a tribute to the black and white silent movies. Not that it is actually silent as it is accompanied by soaring orchestral music and seductive Spanish guitar. Black and white stills introduce Seville in the 1920s as the famous matador Antonio Villalta (Daniel Cacho) prepares to go into the ring. Within the first 15 minutes of the melodrama, Antonio is crippled by the bull Lucifer and his wife dies after giving birth to a daughter. The child is raised by her grandmother (Spanish Dancer Angela Molina) until and on her death. Carmen (Macarena Garcia) then goes to live with her father and evil dominatrix stepmother Encarna (Maribel Verou). Her father secretly teaches her the matador skills before the dwarves rescue her. The passions
of bullfighting and flamenco dancing combine with unforgettable characters. At Somerville 18-24 March and at Joondalup Pines 26-31 March.

Lezly Herbert

Lezly Herbert