Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy

France just rewarded the mass murderers guilty of the 10/7 atrocities by officially recognizing the territory governed by the responsible terrorist organization. That should be shocking, but antisemitism is baked into French history. Over a century later, French antisemites are still trying to frame Alfred Dreyfus for treason. Sadly, the case remains timely, but Roman Polanski might be a flawed candidate to bring his story to the big screen (since he is a literally a fugitive from justice). Nevertheless, he is the filmmaker who collaborated with author Robert Harris, to adapt his fact-based novel. The result happens to be Polanski’s best film in years, which deserves consideration regardless of your judgement of the director. “Long awaited” by some, An Officer and a Spy (a.k.a. J’accuse), finally opens (after six years) this Friday in New York at Film Forum.

The film starts with the infamous “degrading” of Captain Dreyfus after his treason conviction, including the breaking of his saber. Col. Marie-Georges Picquart played a small, behind-the-scenes part in his conviction, which troubles him not, since he assumes Dreyfus is guilty. Shortly thereafter, he is appointed to lead the contemporary equivalent of military intelligence. In this new position, he soon learns the irregularities in the Dreyfus case were deliberately and dubiously irregular.

While investigating another potential traitor, Maj. Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, Dreyfus uncovers evidence that suggests his new suspect was in fact guilty of the crimes for which Dreyfus was convicted. However, his superiors in the army and the War Department close ranks, preferring a traitor like Esterhazy to remain free rather than admit Dreyfus’s innocence. Picquart refuses to lie, but he always follows orders, so the generals assign him to a whirlwind of dangerous foreign postings. Nevertheless, during a rare homecoming, Picquart consulted with Dreyfus’s defenders, including Emile Zola, who pens the explosive “J’Accuse” indictment.

At this point, French society cleaves in half, while both Picquart and Zola face criminal charges. In some ways, An Officer and a Spy plays like a late 19^th Century variant on paranoid 1970s political corruption thrillers, which makes sense, because that was largely Harris’s concept for the source novel. Indeed, he had plenty of historical material to work with, including assassination attempts and duels. Yet, it also a masterful mood piece, wherein Polanski captures the stuffy social restraint and suffocating hypocrisy of fin de siècle France.

Dreyfus himself only appears intermittently, mostly at the beginning and the end. Nevertheless, Louis Garrel’s performance is quite extraordinary. Harris and Polanski mostly concern themselves with Picquart’s campaign to expose the unjust conspiracy instead of the man who was their target, sort of like Kevin Costner in JFK, except the events of this film really did happen.

Jean Dujardin also disappears into the role of cerebral Picquart. (At times, he looks more like Gilles Lellouche.) Regardless, it is an unusually anti-heroic performance, despite Picquart’s typically heroic activities, like chasing assassins and clearing the name of an innocent man. Dujardin’s portrayal of the Colonel is deliberately hard to embrace (especially given his early anti-Jewish prejudice), but he conveys his intelligence and integrity, while staying consistent with the prevailing attitudes of his time.

The Three Musketeers—Part I: D’Artagnan

The King's Musketeers and Cardinal Richelieu’s guards are all French, but they spent a lot time fighting and killing each other. That was the early 17^th Century for you. Life was cheap, but honor was dear. The Musketeers must scramble to save the reputation of the Queen in Martin Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers-Part I: D’Artagnan, the first film in his two-part adaptation of Dumas, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

As in the novel, this is really the story of how the three musketeers became four. Initially, the provincial Charles de Batz de Castelmore D’Artagnan can only secure entry into the King’s military academy, making him a cadet. While pursuing one of the ruffians who attacked him on the road to Paris, D’Artagnan manages to offend Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, all of whom schedule duels with him. Of course, the trio all agree to be each other’s seconds, so all four are together when Richelieu’s guards try to arrest them for dueling. That will be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Soon after D’Artagnan buries the hatchet with the Musketeers (in several of Richelieu’s men), he finds himself racing to save his noble-born new friend from a murder frame-up. It turns out he is the perfect man to do it, because it involves the gang that left him for dead. Of course, their ringleader is literature’s greatest femme fatale, “Milady,” whose boss happens to be the Cardinal.

Her next assignment will be stealing the jeweled necklace Queen Anne gave as a keepsake to her secret English lover, the Duke of Buckingham. To quell the Cardinal’s malicious rumors, the Queen must wear it at the upcoming state wedding of the King’s brother. Fortunately, her servant, Constance Bonacieux, has D’Artagnan’s ear (and his heart), so she can recruit the Musketeers’ assistance.

Screenwriters Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patelliere stay reasonably faithful to Dumas pere, but they add a big climatic battle that looks like it could have been inspired by the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre scene in Queen Margot (also based on a Dumas pere novel). Regardless, they recreate lots of the fighting and scheming that still makes the book fun to read over 150 years after its initial serialization. The swordplay and musketry all look legit, which makes sense, considering French Olympic epee fencer Yannick Borel helped train the cast. (A sabre fencer might have been more appropriate for the props on hand, but Borel’s techniques are surely sound with even a basic foil.)

The casting is also terrific, starting with Vincent Cassel as the steely, righteous-in-a-hardboiled-kind-of-way Athos. Romain Duris is physically perfect as the devout ladies’ man, Aramis, but he has the least screen time out of the four heroes. Pio Marmai is appropriately bear-like as Porthos, without the clownishness shtick the character is often depicted with.

Of course, Eva Green seductive and just generally fab as Milady. Louis Garrel makes Louis XIII surprisingly thoughtful and complex, while Lyna Khoudri’s screen-illuminating charisma is also a real bonus as Bonacieux. Frankly, Francois Civil has his work cut out for him keeping up with his co-stars, but that rather fits his role as the naïve D’Artagnan. Arguably, the only real shortcoming among the ensemble is Eric Ruf not being sufficiently sinister as the dastardly Richelieu.

NYFF ’17: Ismael’s Ghosts, Director’s Cut

It is like Day for Night mixed with a little le Carré, but it is all very Arnaud Desplechin. Ismaël Vuillard (the protag of Desplechin’s Kings & Queen, again portrayed by Mathieu Amalric) is supposed to make a movie about notorious diplomat and possible spy Ivan Dedalus, who certainly sounds related to Paul Dedalus, a recurring character in three other Desplechin films, also played by Amalric. Everything is related and possibly everyone is Desplechin in Ismaël’s Ghosts (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 55^th New York Film Festival.

This is not the version of Ghosts that garnered Cannes jeers. Instead, we get a “director’s cut” that is twenty-minutes longer. Frankly, the long version is still pretty confused, but it must be even harder to follow with pieces carved out. Vulliard is supposed to be telling the story of Ivan Dedalus, a notorious diplomat and spy from a working-class background, who ironically was often attached to missions precisely because he was suspected of dealing with the Russians.

However, Vulliard’s personal drama keeps getting in the way. Depending on what point Desplechin flashes back to, the surrogate character is either romancing Sylvia, the shy astrophysicist, preparing his mentor-father-in-law Henri Bloom for a retrospective tribute in Israel, or dealing poorly with the sudden reappearance of his long presumed dead wife Carlotta Bloom. Eventually, the stress gets to be too much for Vulliard, forcing his long-suffering friend and line producer Zwy to track him down.

Even if Desplechin added an additional hour, Ghosts would probably still be a jumbled, herky-jerky affair. The constant flashing forwards and backwards can leave your head spinning, but the whole point is how everything is supposed to be mixed up in Vulliard’s head, so you just have to roll with it.

In fact, there is a lot of good stuff in here. Louis Garrel is almost unrecognizable as the intriguing Ivan Dedalus, so much so, we wouldn’t mind seeing Desplechin return to his character. Amalric and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Sylvia also have some appealingly fresh and mature chemistry together. Hippolyte Girardot also shows a flair for physical comedy as the poor, put-upon Zwy. Surprisingly, it is Marion Cotillard’s sequences as Carlotta Bloom (dig the Vertigo reference) that mostly muddy up the film.

It hardly matters if viewers have not seen Kings and Queen, because the significant events of that film are barely referenced in Ghosts. Anyone who can write up a cogent, detailed five-page synopsis of it has our respect. Yet, one could argue the old joke about the weather also applies to this film. If you are not enjoying it, just wait five minutes and it will change. Frankly, Ghosts is more briskly paced than the equally Proustian My Golden Days, but it has none of the whiny teen angst. Better than reported, Ismaël’s Ghosts, Director’s Cut is recommended for patrons who enjoy unpacking films when it screens tomorrow (10/13) and Saturday (10/14) during this year’s New York Film Festival.

Luc Bondy Reinvents Marivaux: False Confessions

Pierre de Marivaux’s plays are still frequently revived in France, but they have never been widely read in English translation. At least he was popular within his lifetime. Frankly, he needed his royalties, having lost his shirt in the Mississippi land bubble. As a result, he should have identified with the well-bred but financially destitute hero of one of his best-known plays. Dorante is now just a plebeian secretary, but he will still sneakily woo his wealthy widowed mistress in the late Luc Bondy’s modern-day adaptation of False Confessions (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

It is all crafty Dubois’s fault. Dorante’s former valet now works in the household of the somewhat older but still alluring Araminte. Knowing his master was smitten after merely spying the wealthy widow at the opera, the servant hatches a scheme to bring them together. Through the influence of his uncle, Dorante lands a job as Araminte’s secretary, beating out the candidate put forward by the Comte Dorimont, an unwelcome suitor Araminte will either marry or sue in court to resolve a long-standing land dispute.

Dorante immediately wins her confidence by spurning her Dowager Countess-like mother’s request to help convince Araminte to see things her way. Since that would have included marrying the Comte, Dorante is definitely not on-board. As she starts to appreciate his charms, Dubois stokes her servant Marton’s romantic interest in Dorante, stimulating Araminte’s jealousy, which in turn clouds her rigid class-based sensibilities and judgement.

Bondy’s False Confessions is an unfortunate case of one or two high-profile critics causing a domino effect among other critics and bloggers who are incapable or unwilling to think for themselves. It has a bizarrely low RT score, but it is really quite spritely and sophisticated. Somewhat controversially, Bondy opted to keep Marivaux’s original language (more or less), but frankly, as experienced in English subtitles, it only sounds elevated rather than forbidding or distancing. Sadly, he also passed away during the final days of shooting, but it is never obvious at what point his freshly widowed wife took over the helm.

It almost goes without saying, but Isabelle Huppert really is terrific portraying Araminte. We don’t often think of her in comedic contexts, but her timing and delivery are impeccable. Bulle Ogier is also quite a stitch unleashing her inner Dame Maggie Smith as Araminte’s tart-tongued mother. In contrast, Louis Garrel underwhelms, largely playing Dorante on sullen auto-pilot. However, Manon Combes really seems earnest and genuine as the out-classed Marton.

Cinematographer Luciano Tovoli (best-known for Suspiria and Tenebre) gives it a warmly welcoming, bright and airy look. Bondy opted to shoot the film version during the day at the very Odeon Theater where the cast was simultaneously performing his more traditional staging at night. That concentrated focus somehow produced a consistently witty and charming film, like a lighter, more laidback version of Alain Resnais’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. Highly recommended, False Confessions opens tomorrow (7/21) in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Playhouse 7 and moves to the Village East here in New York.