The Typecasting of Dalle

Béatrice Dalle will never be allowed to leave behind this surprisingly sympathetic portrait of antisocial personality disorder. The film somehow begs you to remain neutral and objective while showcasing the most repellent extremes of the condition.

An interesting contrast to the portrayal of an equally disturbed young woman in L’été meurtrier—which was released just two years prior.

The Discreet Charm of Malle

French cities are in tatters as students and workers unite against capitalism and consumerism. Meanwhile, a bourgeois family in Provence bickers over inheritance before its deceased matriarch has even been put in the ground. Milou en mai is rather like a Luis Buñuel film but with the surrealism dialled all the way down. Surprisingly fun.

Rod Paradot: A Star Is Born

A six-year-old boy from a dysfunctional home is placed into care, develops serious emotional problems, and spends the next decade getting into trouble with the law while social welfare services fight to rehabilitate him.

La Tête Haute (Standing Tall) seems unremarkable when summarised like this, but it is actually a very compelling film—in large part due to the breakthrough performance of Rod Paradot who plays problem-child protagonist, Malony.

From his sneering disdain towards the Juvenile Court Judge portrayed by Catherine Deneuve, to the sheer physical embodiment of the mental demons that torture him, it is hard to believe that this is Paradot’s first film; that he was a trainee carpenter waiting to be discovered just months before production began.

One very jarring aspect of this film is its tendency to exasperate the viewer. Quite often Malony will seem to be making progress only to sabotage it with a senseless act. It becomes repetitive but is almost certainly intended to project the child protection team’s frustration onto the audience.

And here we find another trait that sets this apart from other recent French films concerned with the rehabilitation of troubled teenagers: It paints the Judge, the Social Worker, and their colleagues in a more constructive and positive light. They are as frustrated with the system as the child, but their battle is with the confines and constraints that impede their ability to help him. They actually seem to care.

Very much recommended.

Clémenti to Obscurité

La Brune et moi (“the brunette and me”) is a 50 minute film which explores French punk in 1979, showcasing several bands that were dominating the scene back then.

I’ve been meaning to watch it since discovering Edith Nylon and Taxi Girl over a decade ago, but I was too slow on the uptake to notice it was available on YouTube all this time, and for a while on Henri—Cinémathèque française’s free VOD platform.

Most of the music in this feature is actually pretty great, but it is unfortunately punctuated by a low-effort screenplay about a notorious (at the time) groupie called Anouschka who decides the time is ripe to be exploited by a businessman in return for a music career.

Bizarrely, the businessman in this puerile flick is played by none other than Pierre Clémenti. I heard his career had been derailed following conviction and imprisonment for drugs offences in the 1970s, but I had no idea the event was of such Granville-Paris Express proportions that the trajectory had taken him from Belle de jour to something as tawdry as this.

Nevertheless, La Brune et moi does offer an interesting look at how punk counterculture was playing out in Paris back then—something the media in the Anglosphere largely ignored—and for that alone, it’s worth a watch.

Actually… not for that alone. You need to see Pierre Clémenti in this. You really do.

Lacks Bells and Whistles, But Still Worth It

Following the breathtaking success of The 400 Blows in 1959, François Truffaut toyed with the idea of documenting the life and times of its central character—Antoine Doinel—in a series of films. Between 1962 and 1979 his vision was realised, and this box set comprises all five chapters of the story.

Of the five titles, the second (Antoine and Colette) was made for TV, not cinema, and although it is an essential part of the series, it seems to have caused something of a curation headache.

There is a strong sense that it was rescued from the archives, for example, and as such the quality is not quite up there with the other four films—which are, by the way, excellent Blu-ray transfers. Secondly, because it’s only an hour long and was encoded at a lower bit-rate than the other films, it has been included as an extra on the third disc. So to watch the films in order, you have to jump from disc 1 to 3 (extra feature) to 2 back to 3 (main feature) then finally 4. This undoubtedly causes some buyers to initially watch the films in the wrong order.

I suppose the most disappointing thing about this box set is that the bare minimum was done before getting it into production. There are no booklets or tributary notes inside—just four Blu-rays in unusually thin cases. What’s more, the special features on the discs are minimal. A trailer and film length commentary on each one at the very least, and very short presentations—each no more than a few minutes long. My favourite extras are the 1958 screen tests with child actors Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick Auffay and Richard Kanayan. I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat while watching, but still… they represent no more than six minutes of material.

To conclude, although I’ve always felt strongly that The 400 Blows should have been allowed to exist in isolation—to have not become part of a soap-operatic series—the films are nevertheless very good and an important part of French cinema history. With the exception of the first film, they will never be as celebrated as Truffaut landmarks like Shoot the Pianist, Jules & Jim, The Last Metro, etc., but I have owned this box set for a year now, I still watch the films for enjoyment from time to time and I consider them an essential part of my collection.

Foresti's Dark Performance Shines

De plus belle is a slice-of-life comedy-drama which revolves around the difficult life of a middle-aged single mother—portrayed by Florence Floresti—who has issues with body-image and self-esteem following treatment for breast cancer. Dealing with the physical aftermath leads her to a chance encounter in a wig-shop that puts her on a very unlikely road to psychological recovery: In the theatre… doing the strip-tease… alongside other women with similar problems.

This all sounds very familiar and derivative, and the production is closer to an ITV drama than a cinematic blockbuster, but it is worth watching nonetheless. I only bothered because I spotted Mathieu Kassovitz on the cast list (I’m a huge fan) so it was surprising to find his presence eclipsed by the rather less accomplished Foresti. Her performance is so dark and vulnerable that there’s a constant feeling she is bringing her own real-life insecurities to the screen. Consequently, I am now very interested in exploring her earlier work.

Despite the tired old theatrical trope which suggests exposing oneself on stage is the way forward with body-image issues, there is actually a surprising twist at the end which makes De plus belle a bit different from films which exploit the same idea. It’s not exactly profound and I won’t spoil it, but as already indicated… it’s worth a watch.