Slow Horses, on Apple TV+

In Mich Herron’s novels, Slough House is a lot like the “Circus” in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, except anyone stationed there knows their career is on the skids. Typically, their crusty boss, Jackson Lamb, hands out demeaning intelligence busywork to his team of “losers,” but they suddenly find themselves embroiled in an act of domestic terror in the six-episode Slow Horses, adapted by Will Smith (relax, it’s a common name), which premieres Friday on Apple TV+.

River Cartwright was cocky, because he thought he was a good agent and his grandfather David presumably still has influence after retiring from a very high position in MI5. Then he messed up during a highly visible training exercise, so now he is attached to Slough House. Lamb thinks he has only one decent agent, but it isn’t him. Instead, he means Sid Baker, who has apparently been tailing him since she arrived.

Cartwright discovers this while following up on leads he generated during some particularly nasty dumpster diving. Somehow, he might have a line on a disgraced far-right journalist, who seems to know something about the kidnapping of a young Muslim comedian by a mysterious cell of British nationalist extremists. However, Lamb’s rival, Diana Taverner, director of operations at the proper MI5 probably knows even more. Lamb deduces the abduction is part of a false flag operation she launched to entrap the “Sons of Albion” and discredit the far-right. If anything goes wrong, which it will, she intends to scapegoat Slough House.

Obviously, Slow Horses follows in the tradition of le Carre’s Tinker Tailor, even sharing the star of the film version, Gary Oldman. There is a lot of dry, cutting British humor, which is perfect for Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas. Frankly, the actual terrorist-thriller elements are just okay, but the politics involved could very well alienate both sides (nationalists are bad, but the “deep state” is also pretty slimy). However, the backbiting, bureaucratic in-fighting, and double-crossing are all jolly good fun.

As you would expect, Oldman is perfectly cast as the caustic, boozy Lamb. The same is true of Thomas, who gets nearly as many laughs as the regal but acid-tongued Taverner. In terms of tone, the humor is somewhat akin to Yes, Minister, but darker, because characters really die, pretty regularly.

Suite Française: American Viewers Finally Get to See the Irene Nemorivsky Film

Irène Némirovsky was an international bestseller in her own lifetime, but today she is best known for an unfinished posthumous publication. Of Russian-Jewish heritage, Némirovsky was denied citizenship by France and ultimately deported to Auschwitz, despite her fame and status as a Catholic convert and political conservative. Her tragic fate echoes throughout the pages of the incomplete novella sequence belatedly published in 2004. Ironically, the film adaptation has had a circuitous fate as well. Two years after Saul Dibb’s Suite Française (trailer here) opened throughout most of Europe, the Weinstein production finally bows this Monday on Lifetime.

Dibb and co-screenwriter solely adapted Dolce, the second novella set in the provincial village of Bussy, but if viewers want to get a sense of the “French Exodus” depicted in Tempête en Juin, they can check out Christian Carion’s admirable Come What May. Lucille Angellier and her stern mother-in-law Madame Angellier are surprised by the sudden arrival of domestic war migrants from the cities, but the property-holding Madame quickly moves to exploit it. The next wave of visitors are even more disruptive. Those would be the occupying National Socialist military forces.

Like every large household, the Angelliers are forced to quarter a German officer. In their case, they are relatively fortunate to host Commander Bruno van Falk, a music composer somewhat suspect among his comrades for his perceived lack of enthusiasm for their Nazi business. However, as the heretofore loyal wife develops an ambiguous friendship with her boarder, it leads to friction with her suspicious mother-in-law and their resentful neighbors. Yet, their sort of affair will give the younger Madame Angellier cover for sheltering a rebellious fugitive.

Frankly, it is utterly baffling how an adaptation of a legit bestseller related to the Holocaust starring Michelle Williams, Kirstin Scott Thomas, and a pre-Wolf of Wall Street Margot Robbie in a small supporting role could be shelved for so long. If the Weinstein Company were publicly traded, we’d say dump your stock now, because if they can’t market a film like this, they are in serious trouble.

Granted, Dibb’s Suite is not a likely Oscar contender, but it is solidly presentable. As a point of comparison, Carion’s film is probably half a star better, but solely due to Matthew Rhys’s standout supporting turn, for which there is no equivalent in Suite. Still, Scott Thomas is absolutely pitch-perfect as Madame Angellier, for reasons that ought to be intuitively obvious. Nobody does upper-crust snobbery better than her, but she also makes her redemptive moments exquisitely poignant.

As her daughter-in-law, Michelle Williams is not exactly dazzling in any respect, but she develops some effective chemistry with Matthias Schoenaerts. Robbie actually makes a bit of an impression as Celine, the village trollop, but it is Sam Riley who really lost out from the film’s dithering non-release. He does some of his best, most intense work as Benoit, the resentful tenant farmer itching to join the resistance. On the other hand, it is frustrating to see Claire Holman (the under-recognized X-factor, who made Inspector Lewis such a reliable viewing pleasure) woefully under-utilized as Marthe, the loyal servant.

During a slow week, Suite would have been a valid option in theaters, so it is well worth watching on basic cable. It has high production values and big name cast-members (also including Lambert Wilson, switching from French to English at a moment’s notice and Luther’s Ruth Wilson). Most importantly, it has Scott Thomas, who is just about enough to recommend any film on her own. There is intrigue and romance, but Dibb always treats the macro historical tragedies in a respectful manner. Easily recommended for mainstream audiences, Suite Française premieres (finally) this Monday night (5/22) on Lifetime.

My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn: When the Behind-the-Scenes are Better than the Movie

It was not a total lost when Only God Forgives, Nicolas Winding Refn’s much anticipated follow-up to Drive, bombed with the Cannes press corps. At least it should have shown Ryan Gosling how to deal with the Lido drubbing dealt to his directorial debut, Lost River. Maybe Winding Refn’s film is not looking as bad to them, by comparison. Maybe. Nevertheless, his family did not return from six months in Thailand without bringing home one highly watchable film. Alas for Winding Refn, that would be his wife Liv Corfixen’s up-close-and-personal behind-the-scenes documentary, My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

When watching Corfixen’s film, you immediately realize there was no way OGF was going to work. Winding Refn essentially admits his script makes no sense, which is never a good sign. Yet, his own contradictory impulses imply an even deeper identity crisis for the film. On one hand, he is clearly preoccupied with the pressure to repeat the success of Drive, yet he is perversely determined to produce a something utterly dissimilar. Mission accomplished on that score.

Much to her frustration, Winding Refn strictly limited Corfixen’s access to the set. It is evident from their often testy exchanges that she missed a lot of “making of” drama as a result. Still, it is blindingly obvious from the get-go this is a “troubled” production. In some shockingly revealing scenes, she captures all of her husband’s unvarnished self-doubt and self-pity, as OGF irreparably runs off the rails. Winding Refn’s references to compatriot Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier sounds especially telling. They seem like they should be two neurotic peas in a pod, but Winding Refn clearly nurses an inferiority complex.

Life should really not be dismissed as a DVD-extra, because it is hard to see anyone packaging it with OGF. After all, the shorter film basically explains why the longer feature attraction is such a chaotic mess. Short is also the right term. The actual movie substance of Life clocks in just under sixty minutes. However, Life has one thing few films can boast: their legendary family friend, director Alejandro Jodorowsky reading tarot and providing marriage counseling.

In all honesty, OGF has its moments, but they all come courtesy of the wonderfully fierce Kristin Scott Thomas and stone cold Thai movie star Vithaya Pansringarm, both of whom are seen in Life, planning their climatic scene together. In contrast, Gosling is utterly underwhelming, but to be fair, he comes across like a good sport in Corfixen’s doc, often seen playing with the couple’s young daughters. Perhaps he and Winding Refn should just leave the making of David Lynchian films to David Lynch.

Regardless, Life is a brutally honest look at the personal and emotional repercussions of a film that never worked, in any step of its production. It is also frequently very funny, in decidedly uncomfortable ways. Frankly, it is a shame we do not have similarly intimate records of the notorious production processes for films like Heaven’s Gate, but Life will be there as a cautionary example for all future filmmakers battling their expectations and egos. Highly recommended for fans of cult cinema, My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn opens this Friday (2/27) in New York, at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center.

The Invisible Woman: That Scandalous Dickens

Her actress-sister Frances eventually became Anthony Trollope’s sister-in-law.  For her part, Ellen Ternan had a much closer relationship with Charles Dickens, but she was infamously not his wife.  Ralph Fiennes brings their not-so secret affair to the screen as the director and star of The Invisible Woman (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Dickens was a genuine literary celebrity—the Stephen King of his era.  He even wrote serialized novels too.  Dickens also had ten children from his plain, unassuming wife, Catherine. As the Dickenses grow increasingly distant, it is not terribly surprising the novelist will eventually succumb to temptation with one of his many admirers.  That will be Ellen “Nelly” Ternan.

By all accounts, Ternan was a middling actress at best, but she still caught Dickens’ eye in a production of The Frozen Deep, his quasi-collaboration with Wilkie Collins.  Dickens quickly becomes a patron to the Ternan family, including her mother and two sisters, all of whom are considered better thespians than Ellen.  Of course, Mrs. Ternan is no fool, but she understands the limits of her daughter’s options. 

Nevertheless, this is still Victorian England, when scandal meant something.  To play the part of Dickens’ mistress, Ternan will have to assume the titular invisibility.  Even if she wanted to, she is incapable of flaunting social norms, like Collins and his lover.  Regardless, the truth is bound to come out sooner or later, or else Fiennes’ film would never exist.

So here it is, somewhat more preoccupied with societal conventions and class distinctions than a typical installment of PBS’s Masterpiece, but not too very far removed stylistically.  It is hardly an apology for Dickens, but Fiennes’ lead performance is easily the best thing going for it.  He rather brilliantly expresses the passion and recklessness lurking beneath his almost painful reserve.  Unfortunately, it is sort of like watching one hand clap during his scenes with Felicity Jones’ Ternan. When Fiennes is quietly intense, she is just quiet.

Frankly, Invisible must stack the deck against Dickens’ poor, anti-trophy wife to sell his attraction to the pale, mousy Ternan.  Maybe we just don’t get Jones here, but it seems like most red blooded scribblers would be more interested in Kristin Scott Thomas’s elegant and sultry Mrs. Ternan.  Regardless, Joanna Scanlon’s subverts the intended sabotage of her character, investing the real Mrs. Dickens with excruciating dignity and humility.

Certainly presentable by general British costume drama standards, The Invisible Woman is more distinguished by Fiennes’ turn as an actor than a director.  There is also plenty of fine work from Thomas, Scanlon, and Tom Hollander as Collins, but the central chemistry is lacking. Recommended mostly just for voracious Victorian readers, it opens Christmas Day in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives

Evidently, expat Julian Thompson had a spot of legal trouble back home.  He and his drug-running brother Billy now assume Bangkok is their oyster and act accordingly.  However, Thompson might just miss those coppers with their due process.  The family business will get decidedly ugly in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Julian is the sensitive Thompson brother.  He runs the legit side of their Muay Thai boxing club front and keeps his regular prostitute Mai on-call, even though he never fully avails himself of her services, if you get the drift.  Billy Thompson was always their mother’s favorite.  Unfortunately, he is now dead, but he sure had it coming.

After raping and killing an under-aged prostitute, the elder Thompson brother was locked in a room with her guilt ridden father, who knew what to do.  Chang was the one who told him to.  The mysterious retired police officer still seems to call all the shots on the Bangkok force.  Although he sometimes appears eerily bad-assed, Chang is probably just a metaphorical “Angel of Death.”  Of course, Thompson is just as dead either way.

Given the circumstances of his brother’s death, little Julian has trouble ginning-up sufficient outrage to seek vengeance.  This is not the case for their Oedipus Complex-on-wheels mother, Crystal.  She blows into town like a hurricane, determined to avenge her preferred son.  Crystal will also take every opportunity to mess with Julian’s head, while re-asserting control of her far-flung illicit businesses.  Killing a cop is no big deal to her, but Chang is no ordinary flatfoot.

For what it’s worth, Only is nowhere near the train wreck Cannes reviewers made it out to be.  The film has its memorable moments and performances.  Yet, there is no denying Winding Refn’s approach is rather self-indulgent.  There are so many long slow David Lynchian shots of empty hallways, viewers will half expect the giant and the dwarf to eventually pop out of a door.  There is also an oppressively misogynistic vibe to the film.  Thai actress Ratha Phongam is a lovely woman, who does what she can with Mai’s pencil thin character, but the way the Thompsons treat her is rather appalling—and she gets off easy compared to others.

Of course, some might call Crystal Thompson a strong female character.  That is certainly true, but a foul mouthed, sexually manipulative, woman-hating, sociopathic mommy-monster should not exactly constitute a feminist role model.  Kristin Scott Thomas is rather awe-inspiring in the role, hardening her tart-tongued imperious image in a forge of Hellfire.

To the film’s credit, it finally finds Ryan Gosling’s comfort range: sullen and emasculated. The film also delivers vicarious payback during Julian’s massive beatdown scene.  Audiences will start to cheer in their heads “that was for the interminable Blue Valentine and that was for the pretentious The Place Beyond the Pines, and that was for its ridiculously awkward title.”

Frankly though, Vithaya Pansringarm is the star of the film, following-up his breakout performance as the murder-solving Buddhist monk in Tom Waller’s Mindfulness and Murder.  An intensely righteous screen presence, his Chang is like a Dirty Harry with a divine mandate.  As the president of the Thailand Kendo Club, he also swings a sword with authority.

Throughout Only, Winding Refn’s directorial hand is so heavy it nearly crushes everyone on screen, except KST and Pansringarm—they never wilt.  Too laborious and too stylized, it still serves as a dramatic showcase for its fine supporting players.  Only recommended as a curiosity piece for cult film veterans, Only God Forgives opens today (7/19) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Ozon’s In the House

Germain did not become a teacher to coddle teenagers’ self-esteem.  He wanted to teach great French literature.  That probably sounds nobler than it is in practice.  In fact, the after-school tutoring he offers a talented pupil lead to unlikely scandal in François Ozon’s In the House (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Germain begins the new academic year with his usual pessimism, but Claude Garcia’s first composition catches him off guard.  It displays a voyeuristic fascination and caustic condescension toward his classmate, Rapha Artole, and the lad’s family.  It also happens to be well written: B+.  Using his natural talent for mathematics, Garcia insinuates himself into the Artole household as Rapha Junior’s trig study partner.  After each visit, he writes what he claims are non-fiction accounts of the Artoles, but Germain analyzes as if they are part of a developing story.

It is hard to tell just how much of Garcia’s forays into the Artole house are truth or fiction, because the whole point is to keep the audience guessing.  Ozon masterfully adapts Juan Mayorga’s play, toying with truth and reality in nearly every scene, yet keeping the film firmly rooted in its characters and their relationships. At times, it comes across like a comedy in the Annie Hall tradition, but it becomes steadily darker as the psychological gamesmanship intensifies.

Germain is the sort of arrogantly urbane character Fabrice Luchini was born to play.  Perfectly exhibiting the cutting wit of a failed novelist, he could be the high-handed French cousin of Fraser Crane.  Yet, it is really up to Ernst Umhauer’s Garcia to make it all work.  He is convincingly creepy as the young master manipulator, but he also memorably expresses Garcia’s youthful insecurities at key moments.

The brilliant teacher-student tandem is backed-up by a big name French cast, including Emmanuelle Seigner, Mrs. Roman Polanski, playing against type as Rapha’s mother.  A desperate housewife of an entirely different sort, she is surprisingly earthy and vulnerable.  In contrast, Kristin Scott Thomas elevates the role of Germain’s gallerist wife Jeanne above a mere I-told-you-so commentator with her elegance and sly screen presence.  Whenever you see KST on-screen you know you are in for something smart and sophisticated.

Ozon has similar credibility.  Frankly, it is remarkable how postmodern In the House is on the page, yet how absorbing it is on the screen.  Masterly controlling the mood and thoroughly undercutting one viewer assumption after another, Ozon wraps it all up in a note of near perfection.  Very highly recommended for fans of French cinema and KST, In the House opens this Friday (4/19) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

Pawlikowski’s Woman in the Fifth

Tom Ricks is a writer, so he must be a little off.  With only one obscure novel to his name, the American cuts an underwhelming literary figure, but he has enough issues to earn a restraining order from his French wife.  Following her and their daughter to Paris does little for his overwrought state of mind in Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Woman in the Fifth (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Less than thrilled to see him, Nathalie Ricks promptly calls in the gendarmerie.  Beating a hasty retreat, Ricks finds himself penniless at the flop-house motel run by gangster Sezer.  To pay for his room and board, the novelist accepts a job working as a sketchy subterranean watchman for one of Sezer’s criminal endeavors.  He figures it will give him time to work, but his writing is definitely not of the healthy variety.  The only bright spot are his semi-regular assignations with Margit Kadar, an elegant and alluring widow of a Hungarian novelist perhaps even more obscure than Ricks, living in Paris’s 5^th arrondissement.

While his ex shuns his reconciliation attempts, Ricks attracts the romantic attention of Ania, the Polish immigrant waitress at Sezer’s tavern, who also happens to be the mobster’s lover.  This profoundly destabilizes the novelist’s situation.  It also starts a chain of events leading Ricks to suspect a hitherto unknown force is meddling in his affairs.

Based on the novel by Douglas Kennedy, Fifth blends elements of genre cinema in ways that would be spoilery to discuss in detail.  However, Pawlikowski is more interested in presenting an extreme psychological study with a distinctly Continental art film sensibility than aiming for mere thrills or chills.  Never rushing the revelations, Pawlikowski still deftly creates sense that all is not right with his protagonist and his world.

Leading a multinational ensemble, Ethan Hawke and his terrible French accent are effectively moody and withdrawn as the socially problematic Ricks.  Polish actress Joanna Kulig, recently seen (and very much exposed) in Malgoska Szumowska’s Elles, is also quite credible as the glammed-down Ania.  Yet, Kristin Scott Thomas is the crucial piece of the film’s puzzle.  Always an intelligent presence, she is absolutely perfect cast as the sophisticated Kadar.  The audience instantly shares Ricks’ interest in her—and of course her accent is always flawless, in both French and English.

Fifth’s slow build and emotionally detached approach to Ricks’ existential drama might difficult for some viewers to whole-heartedly embrace.  However, it is a smart, stylish film.  Indeed, cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski’s chilly gray color palette nicely suits the on-screen mystery and alienation.  It is the sort of film viewers will kick around in their heads for days after screening it, which is an increasing rarity.  Highly recommended for fans of European cinema with a dark twist, Woman in the Fifth opens this Friday (6/15) in New York at the Village East.

Hallstrom’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Water is the new oil. It has been for years. Many therefore question allocating the considerable water resources needed to create a salmon fishing reservoir in the arid highlands of Yemen. A socially inept British fishery civil servant has plenty of issues with the scheme, but he is stuck implementing it in Lasse Hallström’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (trailer here), now playing in New York.

Dr. Fred Jones writes his little papers about fish and grumblingly accepts the abuse of his blowhard boss and domineering wife. Yet, when Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, the British business agent of a fly fishing Sheik, contacts him about creating a salmon run in Yemen, he gives her an unequivocal “no.” However, Patricia Maxwell, the majority party’s press flack needs a good news story in the Middle East. She says yes.

Against his better judgment and free will, Dr. Jones commences work on what he considers a folly, but soon discovers nearly unlimited resources go a heck of long way. He also finds himself increasingly attracted to Chetwode-Talbot. It is not exactly reciprocal, at least at first. While gung-ho at the start the of the venture, the ominous disappearance of her Special Forces lover in Afghanistan sends her into an emotional tailspin.

Just try not to think of Raiders of the Los Ark whenever someone calls the fish researcher “Dr. Jones.” Clearly, screenwriter Simon Beafoy couldn’t, since his adaptation of Paul Torday’s novel includes a throwaway reference to the Ark of the Covenant. Ewan McGregor is no Harrison Ford (and he is absolutely not Sir Alec Guinness), but he and Emily Blunt display some entertaining Tracy-Hepburn-lite bickering-bantering chemistry. Once again reveling in the sort of role she was born to play, Kristin Scott Thomas is also a true delight as the acid-tongued imperious Maxwell.

In truth, SFITY’s project management scenes are surprisingly engaging. Indeed, it is quite interesting to watch the unlikely creation of a salmon habitat in such an exotic locale. Nor does the film bury its head in the sand with regards to Middle Eastern terrorism. In fact, the local Islamists vehement oppose the Sheik’s ambitious development scheme on the grounds anything progressive must necessarily contradict the spirit of Islam. Strangely though, their plan of attack is distinctly unambitious compared to what their brethren have proved capable of. Likewise, the security precautions are ridiculously lacking, amounting to little more than security guard patrolling the dam.

Still, Beafoy’s screenplay has a lot of wit and charm. However, it is periodically interrupted by heavy-handed New Agey sermons about the efficacy of faith (and a rather faithless faith it is). Dr. Jones is a fisherman, you see. He keeps drowning flies, even though anglers leave empty-handed more often than not. If that isn’t faith, than what is? Get it?

Despite its occasional excesses, SFITY is considerably smarter than most films, featuring some refreshingly punchy dialogue. Of course, it is always great fun to watch Thomas boss around a pack of journalists and bureaucrats. Rather appealing on balance, SFITY is now playing in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch

Typically estate law is not the most thrilling subject matter. However, a multi-billion dollar legacy and a secret heir make things slightly more interesting. A mysterious Bosnian industrialist’s hitherto unknown son will fight for his inheritance in The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (trailer here), Jérôme Salle’s adaptation of the popular French graphic novel, which opens this Friday in New York.

Nerio Winch was one secretive old dog. He was also worth billions, but he was just murdered. The directors of the W Group, in which Winch was the majority shareholder, want to keep the circumstances of his death under wraps, concerned about the power void he presumably left. However, board member Ann Ferguson has a bombshell to drop. Winch secretly adopted a son in the former Yugoslavia, who stands to inherit everything. The legal terms are intentionally complex, in order to thwart any possible inheritance taxes. Further complicating matters, the prodigal son is currently cooling his heels in a Brazilian prison on trumped up drug trafficking charges.

Spanning the globe, Apparent takes place in the old world Balkans and the contemporary Hong Kong, where Winch International is based, making stops in Brazil and Malta. Strangely though, despite all the time spent in HK, there are very few Asian characters in the film. Still, Salle capitalizes on the exotic locale, staging his climatic fight scene against a dramatic panoramic view of the HK cityscape. Indeed, he has a real knack for staging wide angle action sequences.

Apparent is hardly King Lear, but it is enjoyable in an old school Tony Scott kind of way. It is also intriguing to see Bosnian actor Miki Manojlovic as shrewd old Nerio, a role that strangely parallels his character in Danis Tanović’s Cirkus Columbia, scheduled for an American release early next year. Indeed, both films address issues of absentee fatherhood and a problematic legacy. A great actor, Manojlovic brings genuine gravitas and a touch of class to the proceedings.

Kristin Scott Thomas also once again proves to be a reliably entertaining corporate shark, ice cold but still pretty hot as Ferguson. Unfortunately, Steven Waddington’s turncoat security chief is a rather colorless villain, but Mélanie Thierry (so good in Bertrand Tavernier’s Princess of Montpensier) is appropriately seductive as the film’s femme fatale of several names. In the lead, Tomer Sisley holds it together well enough and carries off the action quite credibly, even though he is not especially dynamic in the straight dramatic scenes.

Fortunately, Salle understands the need to keep things charging ahead. Despite some howling melodramatic excesses (or perhaps partly because of them), Apparent is a whole lot of fun. Super slick and glossily stylish, it should well satisfy high-end action fans when it opens this Friday (11/18) in New York at the Cinema Village.

Corneau’s Love Crime

It is not exactly clear what Christine Riviére’s business involves, beyond high finance and cutthroat betrayals, but she is very good at it. Her supposed protégé Isabelle Guérin learns this the hard way. However, the student has a few tricks to teach the master in Alain Corneau’s devious (but misleadingly titled) Love Crime (trailer here), which opens this Friday in a dry and resilient New York.

A cruel game-player, Riviére calls herself a mentor, but she deliberately uses up and discards her direct reports like yesterday’s newspapers. Guérin is her latest victim, but she has lasted longer than most because of her somewhat ambiguous dedication to her sophisticated boss. Nevertheless, as Riviére’s exploitation becomes ever more obvious, Guérin finally starts to rebel. Not surprisingly, her boss does not take this well, publically humiliating her on multiple occasions, pushing the younger woman to her apparent breaking point.

With Guérin’s mental and emotional health in free fall, exactly the crime we might expect is committed. It appears to be an open and shut case to the authorities, but then Corneau starts pulling the switcheroo. Crime is not a big twist movie per se, but sort of a procedural, showing viewers how the big twist is executed every diabolical step of the way. Indeed, Crime follows in the tradition of some of Claude Chabrol’s best films, outwardly employing the thriller form but artfully altering the narrative focus.

No matter how you classify the film, it is a pleasure to watch the bilingual Kristin Scott Thomas unleash her inner Joan Crawford as Riviére. Tough, smart, and elegant, the term femme fatale is insufficient to describe her dangerous screen presence. Though comparatively restrained, even withdrawn, Ludivine Sagnier’s Guérin quite deftly keeps the audience off balance, which is critical for the film’s success. (To extend the comparison, she also looks a bit like Bette Davis, if you watch the film through an ace bandage.) A perfect study in contrasts, they spark off each other in darkly delightful ways.

As an added bonus, Crime utilizes Pharoah Sander’s haunting “Kazuko” as its soundtrack, which is certainly unorthodox given the exotic instrumentation (tenor sax, koto, and harmonium), but it definitely creates an atmosphere of mystery. (It also happens to be an exquisite piece of music.) Together with Yves Angelo’s cool noir cinematography, Crime is a distinctly stylish production.

Yet, ultimately it is Corneau’s masterful control of the audience that makes the film such an effective thriller, worthy of comparison to the work of Henri-Georges Clouzot. Indeed, he leads viewers exactly where he wants to, carefully stage managing what they see and when, without resorting to blatant manipulation.

Frankly, Crime is a tiny bit twisted, but it is an enormously enjoyable ride. From cast to wardrobe to music, every aspect fits together ingeniously. There just are not enough films like this, so do not miss Crime. Enthusiastically recommended, it opens this Friday (9/2) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.

The French Memory Hole: Sarah’s Key

Though it crosses borders and flashes backwards and forwards in time, Sarah Starzynski’s story is French through and through. Decades after the German occupation, a continental journalist pointedly reminds her colleagues of France’s record of complicity while researching the notorious Winter Velodrome Round-Up. In the process, she learns of a particularly tragic case intertwined with her own family history in Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s Sarah’s Key (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Julia Jarmond’s husband has just assumed ownership of his family’s plum apartment in a thoroughly gentrified Parisian neighborhood. However, before the War, it was the traditional Jewish quarter. The Tezacs moved in shortly after the Round-Up. It is a coincidence her husband never cared to examine, but has nagged at her father-in-law Edouard for decades. When Jarmond confirms the previous occupants, the Starzynskis, were indeed Jewish citizens forced to vacate by the French police, she sets out to learn the fate of the only family member to survive the war, young tweener Sarah.

As we watch in flashbacks, Starzynski quickly grasps the nature of her temporary transit camp. Managing to escape, she eventually finds sanctuary with the Dufaures, stolid examples of French peasantry at its finest. Yet, Starzynski was desperate to return to her family’s Parisian apartment for reasons involving the titular key and the young brother hidden in a secret closet.

With no German characters whatsoever, Key never even reaches the concentration camps. All the holding camps and deportations viewers witness are entirely French, which though indefensible, will look relatively mild compared to the gruesome Holocaust imagery many might expect. Instead of revisiting German brutality (basically considered a given), Key is far more concerned with examining French guilt, both on the national level as well as the more complicated personal manifestations. In fact, Paquet-Brenner’s restraint serves Key rather well, allowing him to make his points on collective French memory holes without dooming the film to didacticism.

It is hard to imagine anyone but the elegant and bilingual Kristin Scott Thomas as Jarmond. Fluently moving between languages while seamlessly maintaining character, she projects a sensitive intelligence and mature allure that is always compulsively watchable. Yet, it is Niels Arestrup who truly makes the picture as Sarah’s adopted father, Jules Dufaure. His portrayal of reluctant heroism and hardscrabble dignity is unexpectedly compelling.

Frankly, Key’s greatest flaw is a structural problem most likely inherited from Tatiana de Rosnay’s bestselling source novel. Right from the beginning, there is never any mystery about the key’s significance and since Starzynski safely returns to the fateful flat approximately midway through the film, the entire second half is largely anti-climatic. Still, KST makes the most of Jarmond’s dramatic moments, including a particularly touching scene with Michel Duchaussoy as Edouard Tezac, another fundamentally decent Frenchman.

Ultimately, Key is a solid, faultlessly tasteful film, distinguished by the work of the ever striking KST and two rough around the edges late middle-aged Frenchmen. For French audiences, it is also a rather necessary memory jogger. Recommended with respect, Key opens this Friday (7/22) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Kristin Scott Thomas in Leaving

No one enjoys infidelity like the French. So, when immigrant workers starting taking amorous affairs away from Frenchmen, it will surely lead to trouble. Indeed, there are definite social and class-based issues in play when an English wife leaves her French husband for Spanish migrant worker, but old fashioned jealousy trumps them all in Catherine Corsini’s Leaving (trailer here), a star showcase for Kristin Scott Thomas that opens this Friday in New York.

Suzanne and Samuel’s teenaged son and daughter are not quite out the door yet, but that day is fast approaching. Increasingly bored around the house, Suzanne wants to re-launch the physical therapy career she put on hold for the sake of motherhood. Her doctor husband obliges her, hiring Spanish day labors to renovate the garage into her private office. As fate would have it, this includes the hulking but sensitive Ivan. Though their initial attraction is relatively circumspect, when Suzanne tends to Ivan after he suffers injuries in an accident she caused, the embers ignite.

Before you can say Madame Bovary, Suzanne has left her husband for her lover. Unfortunately, Samuel is not the sort of person to accept such rejection, so he uses his local clout to make life hard for them. Given Leaving’s flashback structure, it is safe to say this will all end in tragedy.

A number of French infidelity films have found their way to art theaters in recent months (the excellent Let it Rain, the good Mademoiselle Chambon, the so-so Change of Plans), but Scott Thomas’s tour de force performance truly distinguishes Leaving. As Suzanne, she is exquisitely sensitive and truly fearless. Though there is fine work from Yvan Attal in the rather thankless role of the spurned Samuel and Sergei Lopez as the passionate everyman Ivan, Scott Thomas makes the film.

Corsini wisely focuses on her lead, allowing Scott Thomas to shine. Still, Leaving (written by Corsini with “the collaboration” of Gaëlle Macé) is also a remarkably honest depiction of familial turmoil. Though it is hardly pretty either, the children’s choosing up sides (son David with his mother, daughter Marion with their father) rings especially true.

Suggesting echoes of Breathless and I am Love, Leaving exalts in-the-moment passion, even as the consequences come crashing down around the furtive lovers. Yet, the extent to which it stacks the deck against Samuel would be a blatant distraction, if it were not for Scott Thomas’s riveting performance, powering the film past such flaws. Indeed she is the reason to see the film. Highly recommended for Scott Thomas’s flawless turn, Leaving opens this Friday (10/1) in New York at the IFC Center.

The Commandant’s Conscience: Les Milles

Les Milles: The Train of Liberty
Directed by Sebastien Grall
Synkronized USA

French honor was badly tarnished by the actions of many during World War II, particularly those in Vichy who claimed most vociferously to act on its behalf. Especially troubling were the refugees they blithely turned over to the conquering National Socialists. However, one French commander has different notions of honor in Sébastien Grall’s Les Milles: The Train of Liberty, now available on DVD.

While still waging war against the Germans, the French rather conveniently confined all German and Austrian refugees, both Jews and political dissidents alike, in internment camps. By a twist of fate, the camp at Les Milles happened to host a disproportionate number of celebrated artists, writers, and scientists, including painter Max Ernst, novelist Leon Feuchtwanger, and historian Golo Mann, the son of novelist Thomas Mann.

As reserve officer Charles Perrochon takes command of the Camp des Milles, it is unclear which will fail him first, his country’s defense or the lungs that were irreparably damaged during WWI. Like the rest of the men serving under him, Porrochin finds it distinctly distasteful to babysit a bunch Germans, given the current circumstances. Yet his honor demands minimum living standards be maintained in the camp, and he visibly bristles when a mysterious American reporter suggests France might sacrifice his internees to the invading Nazis. Much to his regret though, her concerns quickly prove prescient.

With France crumbling and his lungs closing, Perrochon’s honor dictates a rash course of insubordination. With the help of his reluctant officers, the old commandant requisitions a train in a desperate attempt to shuttle his prisoners to Marseille, where hopefully a freighter will take them to free Morocco. Of course, by this point the fog of war is getting pretty thick, playing havoc with Perrochon’s largely improvised plans.

According to Milles’s end titles, Perrochon and his train have been largely overlooked by history. This also seems to be true of google, which only retrieves information of Grall’s film for searches on Perrochon and the Les Milles camp. As portrayed in the film, the camp commandant is indeed a laudable figure of integrity. Yet as Perrochon, Jean-Pierre Marrielle still creates a convincingly human character, nicely avoiding the trap of coming across as either a saint or a martinet.

Marrielle also gets effective support from some top French character actors, including Philippe Noiret as his high-living general and Jean-Marie Winling Garraud, the brooding camp doctor with an equally pesky conscience. Milles is also notable for an early screen appearance by the French-speaking Kristin Scott Thomas as Mary-Jane Cooper, the troublemaking American journalist. Unfortunately, aside from the token hot-head, the exiles are largely interchangeable stock characters of the dignified intellectual variety.

The actual Camp des Milles was in service several years beyond the timeframe of Grall’s film, ultimately serving as a transit hub for inmates en-route to concentration camps. Grall’s screenplay might let the Vichy Regime off a bit easy, but it resists the temptation of saccharine sentiment and cheap emotional uplift, creating an intriguing character study of a man of honor. Now available on DVD, Milles is a fascinating attempt by a French filmmaker to take stock of the Vichy era and a reasonably absorbing wartime drama.