Francais, Sil Vous Plait

Watched two French movies in the last 2 weeks. The French at times can be well...French. The first one I watched was The swimming pool. It is the story of an English best selling author (played by Charlotte Rampling) who moves to a small village in France to work on her book. This supposed respite from everyday life starts going awry with the unannounced arrival of her boss's slutty daughter (Ludivine Sagnier). The movie has its beautiful parts, like the French countryside, the background music, Ludivine Sagnier's breasts, etc. But the ending makes you tear your hair and cry over your lost hours (minus the gratuitous skin show) . No, it's not one of those lame endings, but one of those endings that change the entire storyline. You suddenly realize that the movie doesn't believe in time going forward. You also realize that parts of the movie happened only in Charlotte Rampling's head. The more you think about it, you aren't even sure whether Ludivine Sagnier's character even existed outside Charlotte's head. Or for that matter anything including the trip to France. Why the movie is called Swimming pool is unclear except the fact that it allows for some really nice cinematography. Here's my advice to French moviemakers. You have some awesome cinematography skills. Get your story straight like the next movie I watched...."A very long engagement". Before dwelling into that, one line from The Swimming Pool was worth a laugh...Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every asshole gets one.



Un long dimanche de fiançailles or A very long engagement.
This is one movie worth the DVD rental cost. Set in the France of early 1920s, it follows Audrey Tautou's (Of Amelie fame) search for her lost, presumed dead, fiancee. The movie at times reminds one of Amelie given Audrey and that the director is the same. And it has some sex scenes (including one of Jodie Foster) shot in the Amelie style.
But the movie is like...well...a combination of war epics like Rashomon and Saving Private Ryan with a hopelessly romantic movie like Love Story and for added flavor an old-style detective movie. The movie switches from the horrors and absolute ridiculousness of WWI trench warfare at the Somme to the unbelievably beautiful French country around Breton, to the savvy French capital of the swinging 20s with finesse. I haven't seen such beauty and such violence coexist in the same movie before this. Not even in classics like Rashomon, from which BTW, this movie borrows one useful and well-used concept. The same war zone scene is repeated twice or thrice from different perspectives/angles. I was impressed and floored by this movie and it erased my ambivalence about watching French movies after the Swimming pool experience. Audrey delivers once again and is one actress whom I intend to watch more of. She apparently speaks very good English and is part of the upcoming film version of the Da Vince code. But before that, I need to watch another French movie, "La Battaglia di Algeri" or "Battle of Algiers", which according to many is the most unbiased movie ever made about France's involvement in Algeria.