It's light, breezy and artfully silly

 

Director Francois Ozon wisely stocks The Crime Is Mine with veteran French actors. The list includes Fabrice Luchini (as a judge), Regis Laspales (as a detective), Olivier Broche (as a clerk to a judge), and Dany Boon (as an architect). I begin here because in revamping a 1934 play, Ozon needed actors with a deep understanding of the ripe exaggerations needed for screwball comedy. Add Isabelle Huppert as a fading silent film star, and Andre Dussollier as the head of a tire-manufacturing company and you've got the makings of an old-fashioned comedy served with a feminist twist. Rebecca Marder and Nadia Terezkiewicz give the movie its center as down-and-out roommates -- one a lawyer, the other an actress. This youthful duo finds itself caught up in a murder. Ozon includes a trial that perhaps anticipates the age of tabloid sensation because the defendant views the courtroom as a launching pad for an acting career. It's difficult to resist the performances of a cast intent on making the most of every opportunity to display finely honed character chops. The Crime Is Mine stands as a fine example of how smartly to execute farcical material that easily could evaporated in the mists of nostalgia. Better yet, Ozon plays with old-fashioned forms without needing to declare his superiority to them. There’s also icing on the cake: Production designer Jean Rabasse, cinematographer Manuel Dacosse, and costume designer Pascaline Chavanne give this pleasure of a movie a rich retro look.

A father's request torments his daughter

 

French director Francois Ozon returns to the screen with Everything Went Fine, the story of a woman (Sophie Marceau) whose stroke-disabled father (Andre Dussollier) wants to put an end to his life. Dussollier’s Andre asks Marceau’s Emmanuèle to help arrange an assisted death for him, a position to which he clings even after he begins to show signs of recovery.  Andre's refusal to live a diminished life seems an extension of a selfishness that's revealed in some of the film's flashbacks. Emmanuele faces a major obstacle. Medically assisted death is illegal in France, so Emmanuèle and her sister (Géraldine Pailhas) must get their father to Switzerland, where he can fulfill his desire. Based on a memoire by Emmanuèle Bernheim, the movie deals with the guilt and anger resulting from Andre's request. Andre's chilly wife (Charlotte Rampling) shows little interest in his suffering for reasons which the screenplay eventually reveals. Hanna Schygulla, the great German actress, appears as a Swiss woman who arranges assisted deaths for those who can afford to travel to Switzerland, where people legally can choose to die. Ozon admirably resists the temptation to sentimentalize a story told with an even hand and little judgment of its characters. Without indulging in showy emotional displays, Marceau excels as a woman living with conflicted emotions that allow for no easy resolution.

How Paris survived the war

A German officer and a diplomat go head-to-head.

Before leaving Paris in defeat, the German army was prepared to blow-up 33 of the city's bridges, along with Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, the Paris Opera and the Eiffel Tower.

Hitler evidently surveyed a ruined Berlin, and, in a fit of Nazi pique, decided Paris had to be leveled, as well.

General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, was ordered to carry out the destruction of a city that Hitler's forces had occupied from 1940 until the summer of 1944.

In Diplomacy, director Volker Schlondorff (The Tin Drum and The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum)) creates a speculative drama that focuses on the confrontation that kept von Choltitz from obeying the Fuhrer's order.

In the bargain, Schlondorff obtains memorable performances from Niels Arestrup, as von Choltitz, and Andre Dussollier, as Raoul Nordling, the Swedish diplomat who tries to persuade von Choltitz to do the right thing for western civilization -- not to mention for the thousands of Parisian civilians who would have perished had German bombs been detonated.

Von Choltitz and Nordling meet in von Choltitz's office in the Hotel Le Meurice in late August of 1944. There, they engage in a lengthy conversation that hones in on a variety of disturbing moral questions. The screenplay is based on a play by Cyril Gely, who co-wrote the movie with Schlondorff.

If you know the 2009 movie A Prophet, you'll recognize Arestrup as having played the powerful leader of a prison gang. Dussollier is familiar from a variety of French films, many directed by Alain Resnais.

Arestrup acquits himself well as a military man who takes pride in following orders. A soldier's ethos -- or von Choltitz's idea of one -- allows him to maintain his self-respect, even though he participated in the annihilation of the Jews of Sevastopol.

Von Choltitz knows that the German cause is lost, but sees no reason for forsaking his duty, and he's contemptuous of the French for not fighting to the last man when the Germans took over Paris.

Dussollier portrays a worthy advisory, arguing with a man who is not used to having his authority questioned. Nordling must balance pleas to reason with a modicum of respect (real or feigned) for von Choltitz's position, which is revealed to be increasingly complex. As the story unfolds, Nordling proves himself a man of great guile.

This subject was tackled previously by director Rene Clement in Is Paris Burning (1966), but Schlondorff gives us a gripping little drama about men who hold the fate of a great city in their hands. They thrust, parry and calculate as they work their way toward the movie's conclusion.

Of course, we know from the outset that Paris won't be destroyed, but Schlondorff uses an epic encounter to assay the character of men facing the extreme pressures of an unfolding -- and then undetermined -- piece of history.

The complex life of an aging writer

Director Andre Techine's latest is rich in emotional intrigue.

Watching Unforgivable -- a new movie from French director Andre Techine -- puts one in mind of the pleasures that derive from immersion in the work of someone who directs with urgency and assurance.

Unforgivable, Techine's 19th film, finds the 69-year-old director (Wild Reeds and The Girl on the Train) in fine form as he tells the story of Francis (Andre Dussollier), a novelist who has traveled to Venice to write. As the aging Francis searches for living quarters, he meets and marries (impetuously it seems) an attractive young real estate agent (Carole Bouquet).

In more or less breathless fashion, Techine -- who co-wrote the screenplay with Mehdi Ben Attia from a novel by Philippe Djian -- introduces a variety of other characters, all of whom begin to figure in the story.

A sampling: On the advice of Bouquet's Judith, Francis tries to persuade a private investigator (Adriana Asti) to search for his grown daughter Alice (Melanie Thierry), an actress who may have vanished with an impoverished aristocrat (Andrea Pergolesi) who supports himself by selling drugs and dabbling in art forgeries.

Later, Francis hires a young man (Mauro Cante) to trail his wife, whom he suspects of having an affair. To add even more complexity, this young man -- recently released from prison -- is the son of Asti's character, a lesbian who once had an affair with Judith.

This brief synopsis only begins to describe the layers of connection among the movie's characters, all of whom get their due by the time the movie ends.

Techine likes to move quickly, not worrying about dotting every "i" or crossing every "t." For me, he succeeds in establishing a world populated by characters who are living with a sense of elasticity. French characters are living in Venice, where they mingle with Italians. Relationships tend to shift, as do the languages the characters speak.

Techine is onto something with a story that refuses to take root, skimming through situation after situation in ways that prove intriguing. Unforgivable is a movie full of glancing blows and sudden insights.

A superb cast abets Techine in his efforts. A greying Dussollier plays a character who seems to be creating complexities in life that he's currently unable to imagine on the page. He's suffering from writer's block. And there's an emotional coolness about Bouquet that serves her character well.

Unforgivable may extend a bit too long, and it's not necessarily the most profound of movies, but its pulse carries us along as surely as the small boats that transport these characters from the island where Francis has rented a home to the city where Judith works.

More important, Techine understands personal complexity and emotional entanglement. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that he knows that such matters often can make understanding nearly impossible.