Ozon’s The Crime is Mine

In 1937, Will Hayes of the MPA (as it is now known) approved Wesley Ruggles’ True Confession for release despite its “flippant portrayal of the courts of justice.” If only they could have seen Judge Gustav Rabusett, the dumbest investigating magistrate in all of Paris. He appears in the first French [super-loose] adaptation of George Berr & Louis Verneuil’s play after True Confession and the subsequent American remake Cross My Heart. Rabusett does little to inspire confidence in the French justice system. However, like Roxie Hart in Chicago, Madeleine Verdier knows you cannot buy the kind of publicity a murder trial produces, so when he tries to railroad her for the fatal shooting of a producer, she goes along for the sensationalistic ride in Francois Ozon’s The Crime is Mine, which opens today in New York.

Verdier is a struggling actress. Her roommate Pauline Mauleon is a struggling attorney. When Rabusett fits her for the murder of Montferrand, a dirtbag producer with a notorious casting couch, it serves both their purposes. Verdier had indeed fought off Montferrand’s unwanted advances that fateful day, but she left before he was killed. Like any sensible women living alone in a big city, Verdier and Mauleon keep a gun in their apartment. It happens to be the same caliber that killed Montferrand. Since ballistic science was limited in the 1930s, that was more than good enough for Rabusett.

It works out pretty well for Verdier and Mauleon too. Both become newsreel stars and tabloid sensations when the actress explains how she shot Montferrand to “defend her honor.” Cannily, Mauleon turns the trial into a feminist drama, starring Verdier. Fame soon follows, as well as a fortune (on credit). Yet, the real murderer is still out there, watching as the women reap the rewards of the crime Verdier did not commit.

The source material might be dated, but the way Ozon and co-screenwriter Philippe Piazzo skewer the tabloid media still feels fresh and relevant. The adoring media act more like Verdier and Mauleon’s press agents than investigative journalists. They are not reporting the news, they are picking sides.

Yet, Ozon never blames them for playing the press or the system. In fact, he invites viewers to enjoy watching Verdier and Mauleon get one over. Indeed, it is rather subversively entertaining, thanks to energy and vitality of Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Rebecca Marder as the thesp and the mouthpiece. They are having fun getting away with it and so do viewers—at least until the regally flamboyant Isabelle Huppert throws a monkey wrench in the works, portraying Odette Chaumette, a past-her-prime actress transparently inspired by Sarah Bernhardt.

Dumont’s Slack Bay

Belle Époque France never looked so grotesque. The idle rich still come to the Opal Coast to be even less productive, but this time it is they who will become fodder for the rustic locals. Class distinctions and gender roles will take a bizarre thrashing in Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay (trailer here), an absurdist comedy with the emphasis on the absurd, which opens this Friday in New York.

The Van Peteghems have come to summer at Slack Bay, because that is what respectable people do. Unbeknownst to them, the clam-digging, muscle-harvesting Brufort family has been killing and eating obnoxious bourgeoisie tourists, both for reasons of class consciousness and to put food on the table. Stoop shouldered André Van Peteghem sets a whole new standard for condescension and his sister Aude might be even snobbier. Yet, somehow the Peteghems could be too ridiculous for the Bruforts to kill.

Of course, it does not hurt that oldest Brufort son Ma Loute has fallen head over heels for Aude’s daughter Billie. Technically, the local police chief Alfred Machin and his deputy Malfoy are still investigating the missing tourists, but they inspire less confidence than their obvious inspiration, Laurel and Hardy. When the rotund Machin tips over on his side, it requires quite a laborious effort to right him, so they should not pose much threat to the Bruforts. However, Ma Loute has yet to see Billie when she is in the mood to pull back her hair and don her Annie Hall wardrobe. Her family always accepted he gender playfulness rather casually, because they simply aren’t the sorts to get worked up over anything, but her new proletarian boyfriend is cut from a different cloth—in just about every possible sense.

It is almost impossible to convey the tone and viewing experience of Slack Bay. In many ways, it looks stylistically akin to Dumont’s sly and shocking endearing Li’l Quinquin, but it retains undercurrents of the old, grimly fatalistic Dumont who helmed laugh-a-minute films like Hors Satan and the unremittingly punishing Flanders. In Slack Bay, human nature is irredeemably tainted, but it’s a lovely day, so let’s go to the beach.

At times, the slapstick humor and wacky fantastical realism of Slack Bay makes Tom & Jerry look subtle, but you have to admire the dogged determination with which it is plied. To be honest, there are scenes of such lunacy it made your correspondent laugh out loud, but he was the only one laughing during the screening. Indeed, Dumont’s visuals can be overwhelming. Think of the film as day-to-day scenes from The Village in Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, as rendered by Bill Plympton collaborating with Honoré Daumier.

You have probably never seen Juliette Binoche act so Meryl Streepy over-the-top, but she just doubles and triples down as the stately Aude Van Peteghem. On the other hand, Fabrice Luchini is totally in his element as the Van Peteghem patriarch (sort of like Frasier Crane raised to the power of one hundred). Brandon Lavieville’s Ma Loute (the titular character in its original French release) is rather dully brutish, whereas the economically-named Raph has a bright but suitably ambiguous screen presence as Billie Van Peteghem. Yet, Didier Després and Cyril Rigaux steal the show over and over again. As Manchin and Malfoy, they are a spectacle unto themselves.

It is nearly impossible to believe the gleefully anarchical Slack Bay was crafted by the same filmmaker who helmed the dreary, didactic Hadewijch, but here it is. This is the sort of film that has to be seen to be believed. Every critic compares this magnum peculiarity to Buñel, but the grand set pieces of Terry Gilliam and Mel Brooks’ buckshot-scattergun approach to comedy are nearly as apt. Everyone really should see Slack Bay, just so they can disbelieve their own eyes, especially if they have restively sat through previous Dumont films. Recommended for those who appreciate eccentricity on an epic scale, Slack Bay opens this Friday (4/21) in New York, at the Quad Cinema downtown and the Film Society of Lincoln Center uptown.

Tribeca ’16: Courted

Xavier Racine is aloof and judgmental, but that is his job. He is a French criminal judge. Racine acts like he was born to wear ermine robes, but his personal life is a bit of a train wreck. However, he will only open up to the Danish anesthetist from his past who has been summoned to serve as a juror. Jury duty is indeed a sophisticated pleasure throughout Christian Vincent’s Courted (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

Even when Racine is in the best of moods, he is never the sort of presiding judge a defendant would want to appear before. To make matters worse, the jurist is suffering from a persistent flu and an even pricklier attitude, stemming from his pending divorce. The defendant, Martial Beclan, would appear to be up merde’s creek, especially considering the nature of the crime he stands accused of. Allegedly, Beclan stomped his infant daughter to death with his combat boots. Yes, it should be a fun case.

Then Racine notices the final alternate juror selected. She would be Ditte Lorensen-Coteret, who helped save the judge’s life following his heart attack several years ago. Racine was interested enough to pursue her, but it just didn’t work out. Evidently, courtroom procedures are a little looser in France, because he immediately reconnects with Lorensen-Coteret, sparing little concern for appearances. Suddenly, this trial does not look so bad to Racine.

Frankly, it doesn’t look so bad to us either, thanks to the wonderfully mature and inviting chemistry shared by co-leads Fabrice Luchini and Sidse Babett Knudsen. The supercilious Racine might sound like the sort wry, slightly nebbish comedic role Luchini practically owns the patent on, but there is nothing rote about his performance. He creates a real flesh-and-blood character, who turns out to be considerably deeper than his colleagues realize. The scene in which he informally explains their place in the legal system to the jury should be seen by everyone in the Academy’s acting division.

Likewise, Knudsen is wonderfully warm and sly as Lorensen-Coteret. Viewers really can see the grim courtroom light-up when she walks in. She plays with and off Luchini perfectly, but she also develops a charming, down-to-earth rapport with Eva Lallier, playing her manageably rebellious teen daughter Ann.

There is no question Courted has to be the feel-good infanticide movie of the year. It sounds like such a disconnect to have such a heavy criminal case and a deceptively relaxed pseudo-romance unfold concurrently, but that is how life is. It gets messy and moves on regardless. Yet, things often turn out to be more significant than viewers initially realize, thanks to Vincent’s light directorial touch and the graceful wit of his screenplay. As an added bonus, the film also instills faith in the efficacy of the French justice system. Enthusiastically recommended, Courted screens again tonight (4/20), Friday (4/22), and Saturday (4/23), as part of this year’s Tribeca.

Gemma Bovery: What’s in a Name?

Gustave Flaubert was an exacting writer who often spent days perfecting a handful of lines, making him a fitting literary idol for a fussbudget like Martin Joubert. As a result, when an English woman named Gemma Bovery (mind the “g” and the “e”) moves to his Rouen village, he quickly fixates on her similarity with Flaubert’s Emma Bovary. Her curviness does not exactly dampen his interest either. Literary obsession will have comedic and tragic implications in Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovery (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Joubert was once a miserable editor for a Parisian publishing house, but he has been much happier since he returned to Normandy to take over the family bakery—up until now. It was Charlie Bovery’s idea to move to France. Even though his somewhat younger wife Gemma does not speak French, the antiques restorer thought the charms of provincial life would be a healthier environment for them. However, as Joubert immediately suspects, small town life is rather stifling for the passionate namesake.

As part narrator and part Iago, we watch the story unfold through Joubert’s jealous eyes. He is perfectly positioned for spying, since the Boverys moved in right across the street from the Jouberts. Despite his obvious infatuation, the curt Valérie Joubert is not particularly concerned about anything happening between them, for obvious reasons. However, when Bovery commences an illicit affair with the shiftless son of the wealthy Madame de Bressigny, Joubert’s rash petulance will set in motion an unfortunate but perhaps inevitable series of events.

With her adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel (with co-screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer), Fontaine completely redeems herself for the cringing smarminess of Adore. This is a wickedly droll film that saunters towards its sad end with a strangely carefree but knowing vibe. Frankly, the final ten or fifteen minutes are just about brilliant.

Of course, Fabrice Luchini is perfectly at home with Martin Joubert’s literate humor and angst-ridden yearning. He plays a darkly comic figure, but one that is dashed easy to relate to. Frankly, someone like Film Forum or MoMA ought to program an overdue retrospective of his films. Gemma Arterton alos brings an earthy sensuality to the film as Bovery and earns credit for her diligence learning French. Yet, one of the film’s most notable surprises is Jason Flemyng’s dignified, humanistic portrayal of Charlie Bovery, who is quite the far cry from the put-upon cartographer of the recent chaotic Russian maelstrom that is Forbidden Empire.

Although Fontaine’s film certainly has a smart sensibility, it is never too clever for its own good. Its sly literary parallels, allusions, and foreshadowing emerge organically from a wholly satisfying narrative. There is not one scene that feels forced (but there are plenty of times Joubert will have viewers wincing at his recklessness). Very highly recommended for fans of French cinema and French literature, Gemma Bovery opens this Friday (5/29) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza and Landmark Sunshine theaters.

Rohmer’s Full Moon in Paris

It is the early 1980s in Paris. The hair is feathered and the phones are all rotary. It looks glaringly dated, but the relationship issues of the characters inhabiting this world are as fresh today as they were when the film wrapped. Such is often the case with the work of Éric Rohmer. Technically, it is the fourth of his narratively discrete Comedies and Proverbs pseudo-series, but Full Moon in Paris (trailer here) is completely its own Rohmeresque animal, which launches Film Movement’s Classic line when it re-releases this Friday in New York.

Louise loves Remi, more or less, but she is not nearly as enamored with him as he is with her. By now, the lovely social butterfly is accustomed to being in that position. Still, she is committed enough to move into his modern suburban condo in Marne. The daily commute from her Paris interior design internship is a bit of a drag, especially when she wants to go out with friends. Everything would be much simpler if Remi would agree to let her keep a pied-a-terre. Of course, that means they will have to mutually trust each other.

Despite her aggressively flirtatious nature, Louise is, by-and-large, faithful to Remi. Ironically, it is Octave, the married platonic friend whose advances she frequently refuses, who plants the seeds of suspicions in her. He is absolutely convinced he saw Remi with one of Louise’s fashionista friends, under rather intimate circumstances.

Like most of Rohmer’s films, Moon completely stands alone. Yet, the more Rohmer films viewers watch, the more they get out of them as a collective body. Again, Rohmer displays a characteristic fascination with schedules and time tables, while duly marking the passage of successive months. He also gives us a time capsule snap shot of the suburban Paris circa 1984.

However, Moon is arguably one of the easiest Rohmer films for viewers to identify with. Let’s be honest, just about everyone has been in an unequal relationship, liking the other person more than they reciprocated, or liking them in a completely different way. Louise is in several such relationships, but karma will ultimately catch up with her.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of Moon is the tragic fate of Pascale Ogier, who would become only the second actress to be posthumously nominated for César Award for her performance as Louise. She might very well have become Rohmer mainstay, but it was not to be.  Even though the character causes all her angst and heartache, Ogier still makes Louise a figure of great sympathy. Yes, she is self-serving and insensitive, but in a strangely naïve way. Indeed, she is the picture of waif-like vulnerability.

It is also rather mind-blowing to see the future Luc Besson tough guy Tchéky Karyo playing the socially awkward Remi. He is in fact, quite good, especially in the big pay-off scene. In contrast, Octave is not so very different from the supercilious characters Fabrice Luchini has made a career out of playing, but he gives Louise’s married suitor a notable edge. Whereas, in the Rohmer tradition of small parts with large impact, László Szabó nearly steals the entire picture outright in his eleventh hour appearance as an illustrator working in the wee hours at a local café, slyly putting an exclamation point on Rohmer’s chosen proverb: “he who has two women loses his soul, he who has two houses loses his mind.”

Moon returns just in time to act as a corrective to Victor Levin’s middling 5 to 7, which seems to think it has a lot to say about relationships, but is completely undercut by Louise’s eye-opening experiences. Rohmer’s film has a forgiving nature, but there is still a lot of sting to it. It is also rather encouraging to see the quiet Rohmer renaissance continue, following the long deferred proper New York opening of A Summer’s Tale and the subsequent revival of A Tale of Winter. Both are fine works, but Full Moon in Paris is an even better film. Highly recommended for those who appreciate honest and sophisticated filmmaking, Full Moon in Paris opens this Friday (4/17) at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, in conjunction with a full retrospective of Rohmer’s Comedies and Proverbs.

Tribeca ’13: Cycling with Moliere

L’Île de Ré is sort of like the French Martha’s Vineyard.  It is pretty dead during the off-season, but if you wait long enough you are sure to spot someone famous.  Gauthier Valence is such a celebrity.  He hopes to recruit a retired colleague for a production of The Misanthrope in Philippe Le Guay’s Cycling with Molière (trailer here), which screens as a Spotlight selection of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

The success of his medical drama even embarrasses Valence.  Serge Tanneur’s career went in the opposite direction following a legal spat with a producer.  Retiring to his late uncle’s ramshackle house on the isle, Tanneur has given up all acting ambitions until Valence comes calling.  Of course, the TV doctor wants to play Alceste.  He is the star.  Yet, when Tanneur balks, Valence suggests they alternate between the lead role and Philinte.  Neither saying yes or no, Tanneur keeps him on the hook during a week of trial rehearsals.  Sometimes they click, just like the old days, but there will be complications.

The Misanthrope’s significance to Tanneur is so fitting, Le Guay barely gives it nodding acknowledgement.  Instead, he concentrates on the actors’ craft and the demands of the verse.  Frankly, even after watching the film it is hard to say whether Valence and Tanneur are friends, frienemies, or rivals, which is quite a rich ambiguity.  There are some exquisitely bittersweet scenes, as when the old thesps do a reading with Zoé, the island’s young aspiring porn star.  Yes, they even run lines while biking.  That is how island folk seem to roll, after all.

While Cycling is extremely accessible, it is about as French as films get.  Le Guay’s screenplay, based on an idea co-developed with co-lead Fabrice Luchini, has considerable wit, but it is defined by a sense of longing and regret.  It also rather tastefully avoids big pay-off learning moments, instead remaining true to its characters’ flaws and foibles.

Luchini (whose recent credits include Laurent Tirard’s Molière and Le Guay’s charming Women on the 6th Floor) is overdue for a major American retrospective, but Cycling would be the perfect film to build it around.  He is completely convincing as a frustrated actor doing a mostly convincing Alceste.  His facility with language and brittle insecurities all feel right.  Lambert Wilson is perfectly fine as Valence, playing off Luchini quite well in some key scenes.  Yet, Maya Sansa nearly steals the show as Francesca, the Italian divorcee who attracts the attention of both men.  Likewise, Laurie Bordesoules makes the most of her brief but charming appearances as Zoé.

Cycling never really reinvents the wheel, but it is a refreshingly elegant and literate film.  The scenery is quite pleasant, while Luchini’s work still has real bite.  Recommended for all regular patrons of French cinema, Cycling with Molière screens again tomorrow (4/25) and Sunday (4/28) during this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

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.

Rohmer’s 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle

Events that seem look small from the outside are often quite momentous for those experiencing them first-hand. Eric Rohmer was a master at capturing those deceptively small episodes on film. He offers up a quartet of such vignettes in 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (trailer here), which is currently playing a special one week engagement at Film Forum.

As the audience can tell from the opening credits’ distressing synthesizer pop music, Adventures was filmed quickly in the late 1980’s, while Rohmer’s Le Rayon vert was on a shooting hiatus. Aside from the soundtrack, the rest of the film is quite genteel, depicting the evolving friendship of Reinette, a young aspiring artist from the countryside and Mirabelle, a Parisian law student. In the first installment, The Blue Hour, the title characters are brought together thanks to a flat bicycle tire, while Mirabelle is on holiday at her parents’ “cottage.” A fast friendship develops over dinner and an invitation to spend the night to hear the “Blue Hour,” the brief minutes before dawn when nature is entirely quiet.

As the film progresses, it becomes clear the young women’s values differ in ways akin to what contemporary Americans would consider a Red State/Blue State divide. Reinette is naïve, falling for every panhandler’s sob story, but she is scandalized when Mirabelle assists a shoplifter in the third adventure, The Beggar, the Kleptomaniac and the Hustler, which plays out like a continental fusion of Woody Allen and O. Henry. While the second story, the relatively short The Waiter is often dismissed as a trifle, it is rather funny and it is hard to think of anything more quintessentially French than an encounter with a surly café server.

For many connoisseurs of French cinema, the final story is the real piece de resistance. With Selling the Painting, Reinette sets about to do just that, in order to pay her rent and finally establish herself in the Parisian art world. However, a bet with Mirabelle to remain silent the entire day would seem to complicate matters, but there is a method to their madness. Considerably younger in 1987, Fabrice Luchini was Adventures’ only really established cast-member, already quite adept at playing fuss-budgets. As the unnamed gallery owner, the Rohmer regular (including Claire’s Knee) slyly sends up hipster pretentions, but gets to deliver the old that-was-no-lady style punchline with perfect casual understatement.

Indeed, Luchini is completely in his element in Adventures, but the comparatively unheralded leads are also quite good. Though little has been heard from her since, Joëlle Miquel is somehow simultaneously endearing and convincingly neurotic as Reinette, while Jessica Forde’s intelligent screen presence solidly anchors the film as her more reserved and pragmatic friend/foil. Boasting a widely diverse filmography (including Tsui Hark’s Double Team with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman), Forde has also made several short films, such as Hong Kong 70, which seems more JCVD than Rohmeresque.

Adventures is a charming film, but it has an edge to it. Shot on 16mm, it is not exactly a visual splendor, but it still has a distinctive grace. Witty and tellingly honest, it is a very fine outing from a filmmaker whose credits include several masterworks. Easily recommended for the long Thanksgiving weekend, it runs at Film Forum through Tuesday (11/29).

The Help in France: The Women on the 6th Floor

It was a huge French box-office hit, portraying domestic servants in the 1960’s. It could be called France’s The Help, though it was released there well before the reigning American sleeper hit. In this case, the maids are Spanish and they are also great fun to be around. A middle-aged stockbroker learns this first-hand in Philippe Le Guay’s The Women on the 6th Floor (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Jean-Louis Joubert has lived his entire life in his family’s stately Parisian home, but the sixth floor might as well be another country—a distant province of Spain. It is there that his maid and the other neighborhood domestics rent single-occupancy rooms. Frankly, the conditions are pretty ugly up there, but Joubert would not know. His building manager handles all the upstairs details.

However, when the family’s longtime Breton maid up and quits, her Spanish replacement makes quite an impression on him. Pretty in a warm, earthy way rather than vacuously beautiful, María Gonzalez is just about everything his onetime trophy wife (or potiche) Suzanne is not. Suddenly, he is fixing the sixth floor plumbing and finding jobs for Gonzalez’s friends, all of which Joubert’s family finds a little strange.

Floor obviously addresses issues of upstairs-downstairs class distinctions, immigrant living standards, and even human rights under Franco (who was not dead yet at this time), but its politics are muted enough they can be easily ignored by those so inclined. More than anything, it is a film about a man learning to finally be comfortable in his own skin.

Fabrice Luchini is absolutely perfect as Joubert. Though it might sound thematically similar to his role in François Ozon’s Potiche, there is nothing shticky about his work here. Warm and winning, it is a refreshingly sympathetic portrait of a late middle-aged bourgeoisie man, quite a rarity in contemporary cinema. Likewise, Natalia Verbeke is equally charming (a word quickly at risk of gross overuse when discussing Floor) as the heartsick but still spirited Gonzalez. In contrast, there is no need to look up charming in a thesaurus for Sandrine Kiberlain’s Suzanne Joubert, but she is appropriately icy and brittle as the suspicious pampered wife.

Granted, Floor’s story arc holds no real surprises, but frankly, shocking revelations are not particularly welcome in romantic comedies. Still, Le Guay employs a remarkably light touch in the home stretch, steering the film away safely away from overly cloying sentimentalism.

Gentle and engaging, Floor is exactly the sort of foreign film that can breakout into the relative mainstream. Luchini’s crowd-pleasing work should also considerably boost his standing here in America. Recommended for general audiences (particularly those who really have to be cajoled into seeing a subtitled film), Floor opens this Friday (10/7) in New York at the Paris Theatre. It also launches the Fall 2011 season of the newly renamed Gold Coast International Film Festival’s Furman Film Series this Thursday (10/6) in Great Neck.