FILM REVIEW: THE PREY

Franck Adrien (Albert Dupontel) in The Prey.

The hunted and the hunters

By John Esther

Franck Adrien (Albert Dupontel -- AKA Pierre, the intellectual gone amok with a fire extinguisher in Irreversible) is a bank robber doing time in prison. Although he is a loner who just wants to be left alone to serve his time, others will not let Franck alone. He has a stack of money hidden from his last job, but he does not trust anyone -- including his incredulously attractive wife, Anna (Caterina Murino), who is left alone to support their mute daughter, Amélie (Jaïa Caltagirone) -- enough to disclose the whereabouts of the loot. This makes quite a few people mad, but Franck can handle himself.

At least he thought he could. Poor tough Franck shares his prison cell with Jean-Louis Maurel (Stéphane Debac), an accused child rapist with a meek demeanor. For a few Russian-speaking thugs and a couple of corrupt prison guards, Jean-Louis does not deserve to live long enough to see his trial. So when the guards let the thugs into Franck and Jean-Louis’ cell to take care of Jean-Louis, Franck intervenes on Jean-Louis’ behalf. This makes some very bad people mad.

Illustrating no good deed goes unpunished, for his intervention Franck has time added onto his sentence, becomes a target of the Russian thugs and, unfortunately and unknowingly, puts his wife and daughter in serious harm’s way. So when he gets a chance to escape from prison, Franck gets out and begins to hunt the hunter. (I would have loved see how the guards explained their way out of Franck’s escape. “He knew the cameras were off so he beat up the four of us and ran out.”)

Assigned to track Franck down and bring him to justice is the incredulously pristine-looking Claire Linné (Alice Taglioni). A topnotch detective with an outstanding reputation for getting things done where others cannot, Claire nonetheless seems to be no match for the resourceful criminal with the lungs of a triathlete. As the police’s prey Franck always remains one step ahead yet several steps behind his prey. Of course, all these near misses with the law begin to draw suspicion in Claire. Franck’s behavior just does not add up.

As cynical as you want it to be, co-directors Eric Valette and Eric Hensman’s The Prey (La Proie) is an often violent, strong character-driven, somewhat thrilling story where nobody is to be trusted nor aided without suffering the consequences. The consequences are usually death.

This necessity for mistrust and self-preservation may very well hold true in many circles, but the preposterous ending of the film is not to be trusted in terms of believability.

Will there be a sequel where the bad prison guards and Russian thugs get out?

 

 

AFI 2011: LE CERCLE ROUGE

Corey (Alain Delon) in Le Cercle Rouge.

Another round with a master

By Ed Rampell

One of the great things about film festivals is that screenings of classic movies can revive forgotten or overlooked pictures, and give audiences a second look at them. It’s sort of like discovering a long, lost relative, and the AFI Film Festival is no exception to this revival tradition. Guest Artistic Director Pedro Almodóvar selected and introduced one of his personal favorites, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge.

With crime dramas such as 1956’s Bob le Flambeur, Melville was one of those few pre-New Wave French directors the Cahiers du Cinema gang of upstart critics championed. During his intro at the Egyptian movie palace, Almodóvar noted the lingering influence Melville has had on auteurs, such as Pulp Fiction’s Quentin Tarantino. The Spanish director of films such as 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown also informed the audience that while the title of Le Cercle Rouge refers to a Zen saying (and not to a European terrorist group) “alluding to destiny,” that viewers should not be on the verge of a nervous breakdown because this thriller “is not a Zen film but an intense action” movie. Although the 1970 French picture does indeed open with a quote from Rama Krishna, Almodóvar is, of course, right.

This caper film follows two criminals and a policeman drummed off of the force for corrupt behavior. The dashing Alain Delon, a sort of Gallic Errol Flynn, stars as the convict Corey, who is released from prison but plans another big heist. The Italian actor Gian Maria Volontè plays Vogel, a con on the run whose fate becomes wrapped up in Corey’s. They have a solidarity with one another forged in the crucible of crime. Significantly, the nature of the offenses they have committed is never revealed.

They join forces with the great French actor Yves Montand -- a dead ringer for Bogie in his trench coat -- who plays the defrocked cop Jansen, who despite his inner demons is a remarkable marksman.

The cat-loving Corsican Commissioner Mattei (André Bourvil) is hot on their trail, as the cynical Inspector General (Paul Amiot) -- who suspects most men harbor evil in their hearts and presumes all men to be guilty -- breathes down Mattei’s neck to recapture Vogel, who’d escaped from his clutches. As Almodóvar noted in his intro, Le Cercle Rouge is a profoundly “pessimistic film,” but this movie made by the director of three policiers starring Delon, including 1967’s Le Samouraï, is great fun to watch as over the course of two hours and 20 minutes, the characters meet their preordained destinies.

FILM REVIEW: LOVE CRIME

Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) and Christine  (Kristen Scott Thomas) in Love Crime.

Business as usual

By Miranda Inganni

French film director Alain Corneau (Tous les matins du monde; Le deuxième soufflé) and co-screenwriter Natalie Carter created Love Crime to be a labyrinthine murder mystery. Unfortunately, as much as the plot's twists and turns are fun, just keep your hand on the left wall and you'll figure out this maze.

Slick, manipulative and crispy Christine (acutely played by the fluently French Kristen Scott Thomas) loves to capitalize on her meek, but mighty bright assistant, the submissive and streamlined Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier). Both women take pride in their successes, but as Isabelle comes to realize that Christine is using and abusing her for professional gain and personal amusement, she starts to question her loyalty to her powerful boss (though not the corporation in which they both vie for favorable futures).

Instead of Isabelle fighting the corporate system, she decides -- after being pushed to the brink of self-destruction -- to work it from the inside and plots to take down her towering boss.

Humiliation and exploitation lead to murder and the obvious suspect goes to great lengths to establish her guilt, only in order to disprove it.

Don't be fooled. Despite two strong female lead characters, this is not a feminist film and there are no victors (victorias?). While revenge might be a dish best served warm (preferably with a glass of blood-red Bordeaux), there is nothing neither wise nor noble about it. The "winner" still comes out a loser.

In addition to the acting, one of the highlights is the music, or rather the lack thereof. Centered on Pharoah Sanders' improvisational jazz piece, "Kazuko," the score is practically non-existent, which helps to add tension and tenderness at the climax of the film, while not forcing emotion throughout it.

FILM REVIEW: SPECIAL TREATMENT

Mind games

By Ed Rampell

Jeanne Labrune’s Special Treatment is in the tradition of Luis Bunuel’s 1967 disturbingly dark psychological look at prostitution, Belle de Jour. Unlike the youthful, preternaturally beautiful Catherine Deneuve’s prostitute in the latter, Isabelle Huppert -- an acclaimed French actress who has been a fixture on the cinema scene since the 1970s -- plays an over-the-hill hooker in Special Treatment. The specialty, so to speak, of her character, Alice Bergerac, is not so much in the physical pleasuring of her johns, but in role playing. Wigs, costumes, props, S&M, naive schoolgirl personas, scenarios and the like form the basis of Alice’s Kama Sutra technique.

What makes director/co-writer Labrune’s work especially intriguing is the film’s witty parallels to that other type of “treatment”: psychoanalysis. Alice’s sessions with her clients are intercut with the likewise high priced, 50-minute “hours” psychoanalysts have with their patients -- the call-girl’s form of therapy compared to that of the analysts’ “talking cure.” The role of the dominatrix is likened to that played by the analyst.

No shrinking violet, Alice goes on to have encounters with a variety of shrinks, including Xavier Demestre (Bouli Lanners), an overweight, overwrought, middle-aged  psychoanalyst experiencing marital problems with Helene (Valerie Dreville), who also seems to be in the psychiatry racket (uh, I mean profession). Xavier’s midlife crisis leads to his meeting Alice.

Although Special Treatment is about sexuality, it is not especially sexy, with little nudity and no steamy erotic scenes. It is more of a meditation on what makes people tick, sexually and otherwise. What motivates Alice and her johns, Xavier and his patients? Why does Alice do what she does and what does the 40-something whore want to do with the rest of her life? While Alice appears to be a free agent without a pimp or brothel exploiting her, she ultimately comes across as a sex slave of sorts, even if she is imprisoned by herself, instead of by organized crime. Alice Bergerac’s name is probably intended as a play on Cyrano de Bergerac, the lover of over endowed schnoz fame noted for using ruses when it came to romance.

COLCOA 2011: OPENING NIGHT

Suzanne (Sandrine Kiberlain) and Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini) in Service Entrance.

Film d'aventures, Espagnol

By John Esther

At an invitation-only event, City of Lights, City of Angels (ColCoa) kicked off its 15th year with patrons, celebrities, journalists, and Francophiles packing the Directors Guild of America lobby to sip on fine wine and and nosh on good food before catching the West Coast premiere of Philippe Le Guay's Service Entrance (Les Femmes de 6èmé ètage).

Traditionally promoting French films to English-speaking Americans as a way of cultural exchange between France and America, Colcoa, intentional or otherwise, broadened its appeal to Spanish-speaking American audiences with this film about an investor, Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini), who befriends a group of Spanish maids who have fled to Paris from Franco's Spain.

After the death of Jean-Louis's mother, he and his wife, Suzanne (Suzanne Kiberlain), hire Maria (Natalia Verbeke), a newly-arrived Spanish maid who may not be all that she represents (she often has domestic help from her friends). A poor Catholic with some command of the French language, Maria and her fellow docile Spanish compatriots -- with the notable exception of Carmen (Lola Dueñas), a staunch lefty -- are considered a refreshing departure from their uppity French counterparts.

Singing, joyful and gregarious, the Spanish women provide an alternative milieu to the conservative one Jean-Louis dwells in and often detests (he is still the boss). Jean-Louis also begins to understand the daily struggles of the working women -- cramped quarters, clogged toilets, domestic abuse, etc., -- and does something about it. Unfortunately, Jean-Louis' benefactor behavior does not stem from any new sense of humanism or noblesse oblige, but rather for his increasing fondness for Maria.  Jean-Louis hardly recognized the existence of the other Spanish maids who actually live in his building before Maria came along.

But we all have our cages, and Maria is imprisoned in her own ways, beyond just her low income. Years ago, she gave her son up for adoption, leaving him behind in Spain. 

Doing that type of farce the French often do oh so well, Service Entrance maintains a steady beat of humor throughout the film, spicing it up with a little class consciousness and a dose of romance. It is not the best thing to come along in recent French cinema, but the French and Spanish language film's attention to detail and nuance makes for a good time at the cinema and goes further in ColCoa's commitment to cultural awareness between the two countries. 


Colcoa runs through April 18. For more information: www.colcoa.org