Agnès Varda. A name synonymous with a film revolution still, astonishingly, under-recognized. A name that reminds us of rich, fluent, and oh-so varied cinema. Stayed tuned for the remainder of the Femme Filmmakers Festival, Vagabond closes the the whole affair Sunday. Anyway, I’m only rippling the surface with the following links, but click away all the same.
Having recently delved into the cinematic year of wonder that is 1961, it was an easy selection to include the emotive turn from Jeanne Moreau from La Notte in my Actress Lead shortlist. In the same year the French actress made a cheeky cameo in Jean-Luc Godard’s Une Femme est une femme as Jean-Paul Belmondo simply asks her how it’s going with Jules et Jim. Moderato, Moreau responds. A subtle understatement if ever I heard one.
I can think back to my earliest memories of Jules et Jim, back when I perhaps couldn’t fully grasp the kind of bond the two male characters had, or when I was unsure how to pronounce (or spell) the name of director François Truffaut, and growing up to the prospect of perhaps meeting someone as hypnotic and fickle as Catherine. A unquestionable element of what makes Jules et Jim a genuinely great, no matter how many times I have re-watched it, is that Jules and Jim (no offense at all Oskar Werner and Henri Serre) are not the focus of the movie – Catherine is.
Audacious, magnetic, temperamental, the legendary Jeanne Moreau is bewitching beyond comprehension in her many guises here, I’ve fallen in love with Catherine over and over. And Moreau. The camera follows her and sticks to her like glue. Jeanne has long since earned the mantra iconic and the loving cliche that there is nobody quite like her. This loss is a sad one indeed, but a somber reminder of her enormous screen presence and my life-long affection of cinema.
My own personal choices for the year. They reflect not just necessarily what I think is the best or essential cinema, but perhaps resonate with me or inspire, both at the time, and still today. Subject to alter choices if new viewings are worthy enough. Other published Film Honors posts can be found at the menu at the top of the page.
* Where applicable and fair, the companion films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources are judged individually, but in the event of the same nomination for both in any category an additional nominee will be selected also – hence the six inclusions in certain categories, and eleven for Motion Picture.
Screenwriting Adapted *
Claude Berri, Gérard Brach (Jean de Florette)
Claude Berri, Gérard Brach (Manon des Sources) Camille de Casabianca, Alain Cavalier (Thérèse)
Raynold Gideon, Bruce A. Evans (Stand by Me)
Lasse Hallström, Brasse Brännström, Per Berglund (Mitt liv som hund)
Michael Mann (Manhunter)
Screenwriting Original
Woody Allen (Hannah and Her Sisters) Denys Arcand (Le Déclin de l’empire américain)
Paul Hogan, Ken Shadie, John Cornell (Crocodile Dundee)
Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette)
Marie Rivière, Éric Rohmer (Le rayon vert)
Costume Design *
A Room with a View
Jean de Florette
Labyrinth
Manon des Sources
The Mission
Thérèse
Set Design
A Room with a View
Aliens Labyrinth
The Name of the Rose
Thérèse
Sound Design
A Better Tomorrow Aliens
Labyrinth
Manhunter
Top Gun
Actor Support *
Daniel Auteuil (Jean de Florette)
Daniel Auteuil (Manon des Sources)
Michael Caine (Hannah and Her Sisters) Dennis Hopper (Blue Velvet)
Yves Montand (Manon des Sources)
Tom Noonan (Manhunter)
Picture Editing
A Better Tomorrow Aliens
The Color of Money
Manhunter
Thérèse
Actress Support
Emmanuelle Béart (Manon des Sources)
Elpidia Carrillo (Salvador)
Barbara Hershey (Hannah and Her Sisters)
Piper Laurie (Children of a Lesser God)
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (The Color of Money)
Cast Ensemble *
Aliens
Le Déclin de l’empire américain Hannah and Her Sisters
Jean de Florette
Manon des Sources
Stand by Me
Directing *
Claude Berri (Jean de Florette)
Claude Berri (Manon des Sources)
James Cameron (Aliens)
Alain Cavalier (Thérèse) David Lynch (Blue Velvet)
Michael Mann (Manhunter)
Cinematography *
Chris Menges (The Mission)
Bruno Nuytten (Jean de Florette)
Bruno Nuytten (Manon des Sources)
Tony Pierce-Roberts (A Room with a View)
Jean-François Robin (37°2 le matin) Philippe Rousselot (Thérèse)
Special Effects
Aliens
Big Trouble in Little China
The Fly
Labyrinth
Short Circuit
Actor Lead
Jean-Hugues Anglade (37°2 le matin)
Gérard Depardieu (Jean de Florette) Yves Montand (Jean de Florette)
Gary Oldman (Sid and Nancy)
James Woods (Salvador)
Score Composing
John Barry (Peggy Sue Got Married)
James Horner (Aliens) Ennio Morricone (The Mission)
Jean-Claude Petit (Jean de Florette)
Gabriel Yared (37°2 le matin)
Actress Lead
Béatrice Dalle (37°2 le matin)
Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God)
Catherine Mouchet (Thérèse)
Sigourney Weaver (Aliens)
Chloe Webb (Sid and Nancy)
Motion Picture
37°2 le matin(Jean-Jacques Beineix) France Aliens(James Cameron) USA Blue Velvet(David Lynch) USA Le Déclin de l’empire américain(Denys Arcand) Canada Jean de Florette(Claude Berri) France / Italy Manhunter(Michael Mann) USA Manon des Sources(Claude Berri) France / Italy / Switzerland Matador(Pedro Almodóvar) Spain Mitt liv som hund(Lasse Hallström) Sweden Stand by Me(Rob Reiner) USA Thérèse(Alain Cavalier) France
Thank God for international cinema (France, in particular, again), giving the 1980s some oomph it so needed. What did you think of this year for films?
The Good: Strong, unyielding performances were to be enjoyed by all – especially the ladies, and even more particular, Cyrielle Claire who graces our screens for mere minutes but still manages to demand our admiration all the same. The cinematography, in parts, is tremendous, with beautiful, natural backdrops and framing worthy of a master. The film starts off strong and with great promise; endless possibilities are spread before us, my expectations are rising, my excitement bubbling.
The Bad: The chosen music, albeit… atmospheric, is wholly unjust to the paired scenes, managing nothing more than to yank me right out of the fable’s truth and set my mentality on murder-mystery film noir — which ‘Frantz’ is not. On top of that, the pacing is all over the place. With the narrative circling itself around symbolic details and rushing past what needed to be a solid foundation for the supposed plot twists, we are being left with a hammered in, fatigued story, screaming out implausibility and limp emotive manhandling.
The Ugly: Somewhere in there, the potential for two really good movies withers away; two good movies we’ll never get to see. Instead, we get a discordant approach towards presenting the expected in an unexpected way, with the pursuit focused on a subtly clever and stylish roundup where it should be driving to adequately relate and resonate with the viewer on a sentimental level.
My disappointment: Loss, sorrow, nostalgia, pain, grief, loneliness… I understand the need to develop a thematic tight bound that aims to impress; it’s the ever-present creative strive for ‘more’, always there, always scratching away at the confines of any artist’s imagination. But these are topics that don’t always need to be brushed clean with refinement.
Borrowing and reapplying the words of T S Eliot, sometimes one’s world ends “not with a bang but a whimper”.
Audiences around the world are missing out on the non-commercial, non-English language film gems – it has been the same for years, decades. French film Divines (di-veen) is one such motion picture, an experience that made me actually feel something far deeper than surface emotions. Directed by breakthrough Houda Benyamina, winning the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Divines was recently a hit at the 42nd César Awards, winning Best Supporting Actress (Déborah Lukumuena), Most Promising Actress (Oulaya Amamra), and Best First Feature Film for Benyamina. Now officially showing on Netflix, you really have no excuse with this one.
Utilizing perfectly a modern take on Antonio Vivaldi’s Nisi Dominus (unlike Guy Ritchie could manage with the awful Revolver) for part of its opening sequence, Divines kicks right into gear. First we see teenager Dounia (Amamra) watching locals praying and drug dealers, then phone video footage of her and best friend Maimouna (Lukumuena) goofing around and mimicking the tough street life. But it is tough, they dwell in a run-down housing project on the edge of Paris, the girls shoplift and sell on – Dounia has a Robin Hood moment when she brings a neighbor a jar of Nutella. They find the courage to start running errands, drug deals, for local kingpin girl Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda). Their looting scores rendezvous is high above a theater stage where expressive dance practice takes place, a far off world to them as they mock the arts – until, that is, Djigui (Kévin Mischel), a passionate dancer entices and intrigues Dounia with his energy.
Djigui catches Dounia and Maimouna spitting down on the stage, he climbs up after them, but his stupidity almost causes him to fall – Dounia helps him back up and their moment shared is unexpected and seemingly new to them both. Later she watches him alone, and he knows it this time, undressing. On discovering her money is missing she confronts the dancer, who only sees this as a chance to extend their connection – her aggression only encourages him. On the petty crime side of things, Dounia excels, making a handsome chunk of money, is then asked / trained to get into a rich guy’s apart to retrieve Rebecca’s hundred thousand euros. Having practiced walking in high heels, Dounia, with Maimouna in tow, is almost unrecognizable all made-up and silky dress-clad, but really comes into her own and falls right into the seductress role, we almost see her coming of age before our eyes. But it’s a dangerous occupation, Dounia is doused with gasoline at one point, and also takes a vicious beating when she comes across an aggravated buyer.
The midpoint sequence, accompanied by Mozart, not only shows the twosome’s new wealth, that Dounia is smitten by dancer, and that she even attends church to deal drugs while on her knees praying for forgiveness, it also demonstrates Benyamina’s exceptional eye for music cues and story-telling. Balancing several story strands of varying tones (friendship, crime, romance, ambition) is made to look easy here, a marvelous, if not entirely away from the seedy and morbid, narrative. One great sequence when the girls imagine making enough money to buy an expensive car, the camera takes them on the journey, as they play-act their super-cool ride. The core bond between the girls is rich and dynamic, topped off with kinetic performances from the youngsters. The director’s little sister Oulaya Amamra, in particular, is a revelation, chews up up scenery without over-acting, devouring Dounia’s transformations with expert passion. The receptionist role-play exercise at school is a brilliant scene, as the teacher begins to get frustrated with Dounia’s fooling around, the tensions hit the roof and the colliding views erupt into a full scale debate on both her potential and the teacher’s achievements. In a way both perspectives need to be screamed loud and heard, and thematically the film goes a hell of a long way to make us see how essential that might be.
Filmotomy 
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