French Film Festival
The Sunday Age
Sunday March 2, 2008
At the Como, Balwyn & Westgarth cinemas, from Thursday
to March 19 Over the years, whatever the omissions, the rewards on offer at the French Film Festival have been plentiful, and the 2008 batch looks to be no exception. The opening-night film is Paris (pictured), starring the seemingly ubiquitous Romain Duris and the equally so Juliette Binoche, and directed by Cedric Klapisch (When the Cat's Away, The Spanish Apartment). It's his sixth project with Duris, who also turns up in Raphael Fejto's The Age of Man (2007) and in the title role in Moliere (2007), Laurent Tirard's film about the famed 17th century playwright. La Binoche can also be seen in Hou Hsiao Hsien's The Flight of the Red Balloon (2007). It's inspired by Albert Lamorisse's memorable 1956 short, Le balon rouge, which is in this year's family program. (Most sessions are 18 plus.) Among the films available for preview were two about female obsession. In Gael Morel's discreetly measured Apres Lui ( 3/5, 2007, 91 minutes), a grieving mother (Catherine Deneuve) mourns the death of her teenage son (Adrien Jolivet) and tries to keep reality at bay by immersing herself in his world. And in Michel Spinosa's uncompromising Anna M ( 3/5, 2007, 105 minutes), Isabelle Carre plays a young woman whose fixation on a married doctor (Gilbert Melki) devours her and creates chaos for him. However, one of the festival's crowd-pleasers - in a program of more than 30 features - will undoubtedly be Je crois que je l'aime ( 4/5, 2007, 88 minutes). A delightful and very polished romantic comedy directed by Pierre Jolivet (whose son is in Apres Lui), it stars Vincent London as a jittery technology mogul and a glowing Sandrine Bonnaire as the no-nonsense ceramicist who calms him down. Their dance of love is conducted in a world where communications are at a premium, and totally unreliable.
© 2008 The Sunday Age
