Aubrey Malone
It’s that time of the year again. The French film season at the Irish Film Institute runs from November 13 to 24.
France knows a thing or three about making movies. Sometimes, admittedly, they’re too talky. (Eric Rohmer, anyone?) There’s also a danger of pretentiousness. You may come out of a cinema shaking your head and going, “What was all that about?” as you ponder the vision of Juliette Binoche or Isabelle Huppert gazing into a psychic abyss.
But when they’re good they’re very good. There’s a particular style to French films just as there is to French fashion and French cuisine. They exude atmosphere even when there isn’t much happening. If that goes too far in a triumph of style over substance it’s often a price worth paying.
This year there are four films directed by someone known more for her novels, Marguerite Duras: Destroy, She Said, (17th), India Song, (18th), La Musica (23rd) and Agatha and the Limitless Readings (24th).
Two films involve a subject most of us have been engaged with during the year: immigration. Across the Sea deals with a 27-year-old man who leaves Morocco for Marseilles. He doesn’t have the right papers but his path is smoothed by a kindly police officer. Souleymane’s Story (19th and 24th) concerns an illegal immigrant (Abou Sangare) who’s worried about a forthcoming interview regarding his asylum approval in Paris.
Being Maria (15th and 24th) is a biopic of the actress Maria Schneider, here played by Jessica Palud. Schneider claimed she was abused both by Marlon Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci on the set of her landmark film Last Tango in Paris.
Her story is resonant of stars like Frances Farmer, Jean Seberg, Tippi Hedren and countless others who also felt objectified in Hollywood, Hedren most notably by Alfred Hitchcock, as was captured in the 2012 film The Girl. Matt Dillon plays Brando.
Not many people know that Charlie Chaplin made a French film, A Woman of Paris, in 1923. I remember being astounded by this when it turned up on a Chaplin box-set I bought some years ago. It was a critical success but a commercial disaster. Chaplin subsequently disowned it. It has now attained a certain cult appeal. It’s worth a look if only for the sharp contrast it provides to all his other work.
You may also like to see Suspended Time (14th and 17th), a film about two brothers using the Covid lockdown to re-discover precious memories of their youth. Or This Life of Mine (15th and 21st), a tale of mental illness directed by Sophie Fillieres. Fillieres was seriously ill while making it. She died before it was finished, leaving her two children to complete it.
The festival closes with Marcello Mio. This has the daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve deciding to facially resemble her father rather than her equally famous mother for an upcoming role. How odd is that?