French leave
Much of Benoit Jacquot’s À Tout de Suite — part of this year’s French Film Festival being held at the Shangri-La Plaza Cineplex — focuses on actress Islid Le Besco’s face. That’s because all the events — hold-ups, hostage-takings, sexual trysts, killings — are filtered and reflected through that young visage: she’s a perfect vessel of innocence shattered by experience.
Le Besco plays Lili, an art student who falls for moody hood Bada (played by Ouassini Embarek) and decides to join him on a flight from the law that takes them from Paris to Morocco then and Greece before she is left stranded and hollowed out — again, reflected in tight, black and white close-ups.
If it sounds not a little like Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1959 classic, À Bout de Souffle (Breathless), that’s no accident. Jacquot knows his French New Wave, likes his handheld camera and allows viewers to peer inside these lives like a documentary maker. Even the title — which translates to “Right now” — sounds urgent, breathless. Set in 1975, the black and white photography (which seems shot on digital video) meshes uneasily with stock footage of Paris streets and Greek seaside cafés from that era. Anyway, the haircuts and fashion tell us we’re in the era of Pink Floyd and Donna Summer.
Lili decides to hide Bada and his accomplice, after they’ve taken hostages from a bank robbery, in her parent’s Paris apartment. She then runs away with them, a risky move that involves stuffing wads of stolen cash down her underwear to pass through customs and other dangerous activities. The story seems somewhat familiar (it’s based on true events) but it’s Jacquot’s blank-verse telling of it that registers: Lili seems caught in a daze, numbed or drugged by danger, pulled along yet unable to find any meaning in her journey to self-discovery. By the end, when she winds up on an island somewhere, you don’t know if she’s found paradise or exile.
There’s something about foreign film fests that recharges your cinema batteries. Could be because — at least in the case of the French Film Festival, which officially opens June 6 at Shangri-La Cineplex — the festival is free. (That’s right: FREE.) But it also has to do with the unexpected variety of films, something that Hollywood blockhead blockbusters can’t compete with. I mean, really, when your choices are down to a Ben Stiller kid’s comedy set in a museum or a Christian Bale apocalypto robot epic (and these two films occupy almost every cinema) who wouldn’t ask for a little more variety, s’il vous plaites?
Every year (and this is the 14th run put on with the help of the French Embassy to the Philippines, Alliance Francaise, Cultures France and Shangri-La Plaza) the French Film Festival gives you a chance to do something Hollywood would prefer that you never do: use that two percent of gray matter that is still left functioning in your cranium, and actually think while watching a movie.
Okay, I know: thinking is overrated. But think of it as exercise. Brains can get flabby on a steady diet of 24 and Family Guy boxed sets. Try mixing a little culture into your viewing menu.
The French Film Fest opens on Friday, June 5, 2 p.m. with Home, an eco-essay on the earth’s fragile nature shot by Yann Arthus Bertrand. The preview reminded me of Koyanasquatsi, that ‘70s documentary of sped-up human and animal life, pulsing with Philip Glass music. It wraps up on June 14, 8:30 p.m., with Van Gogh, Maurice Pialat’s study of the Dutch artist’s retreat to Auvers-sur-Oise under the care of Dr. Gachet. In between, there will be classics such as Francois Truffaut’s Les Quatres Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), and more provocative fare such as Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste. Other films include Ca Brule, Flandres, Marie Jo Et Sex Deux Amours, Un Secret, 17 Fois Cecile Cassard, L’esquive, Jean de la Fontaine, Ma Maison Préférée, Ridicule and Zim & Co.
With the Cannes best director win by Brillante Mendoza for Kinatay, there’s all the more reason for Filipinos to doff their hats to the French this year. All in all, the Shangri-La Cineplex will screen 14 French films, plus a special “Tribute to Philippine Cinema” on June 12 (how appropriate), featuring Filipino Cannes entry Independencia, along with Serbis, Manila, Katayin and Sabongero. Talk about having the best of both worlds. All showings are free, first come, first served.
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For schedule information, call 633-2277 or visit www.spot.ph.
