It's snowing in Paris

[chani]

I went to the movies yesterday in the evening, to relax after what happened at school, and saw a good French movie Le Petit Lieutenant by Xavier Beauvois. I really recommend it. It's quite realistic unlike so many films about police. It shows the everyday routine of a homicide squad through the coming of a young lieutenant, Antoine,  fresh out of the academy, who lived in Le Havre until he passed his examination and moved to Paris while his young wife stayed on the coast. Antoine is excited and dreams of fighting crimes. In one scene he said he wanted to become a cop "because of movies, at least at the beginning", which was funny of course and a nice touch here since the film is anything but the usual detective movie!

Nathaly Baye who played his boss, Caroline Veaudieu, (a super-cop and a former alcoholic who from then on was clean, still recovering though) is simply terrific. Antoine and Caroline bonded quickly. She is touched (and so are we) by his puppy-dog enthusiasm and eagerness to please. He is her "Petit Lieutenant", she takes him under her wing because she lost a son years ago who would have been the same age as Antoine. All the actors are actually wonderful. Of course there are criminal cases going on, but it is not an action movie nor your usual detective film. It is an unspectacular approach of Police's work actually, but it is anything but boring because the film focused on the characters, normal people who are simply humans trying to do their job often with very few means, trying to relax every time they can, trying to deal with drama when it happens. When emotion comes, it's simple and unspectacular too, but powerful. Some people would say that the film doesn't tell any story, and indeed the "Russian thugs plot" is secondary, the film is about Nathalie Bayes' character and about the everyday life of those policemen, and because it's about the characters its hyper-realistic style works. No it doesn't tell any story, there is no glamour, the characters are ordinary-looking people (Nathalie Baye is a 54 years old woman and she doesn't wear make-up) and the film doesn't end with a classical denouement.  

But why should a film always tell a story? There isn't only one way to make movies. Asians know it! I hadn't seen a French film that good for a very long time. 36 Quai des Orfèvres directed by a former cop, Olivier Marshall, was good even though very different (much more spectacular), except for the last 15 minutes that ruined the film IMO. There isn't any sour note in Le Petit Lieutenant. At the end of the day the film looks like its content, form and content matched.

Tragedy doesn't need a big show, it often lies in details and every day life.When one of the policemen simply broke down in the street because he screwed up and got the young lieutenant shot, I cried, and when he was questioned by the guys from the police disciplinary body, his vulnerability made me cry again. There was nothing histrionic about it but the actor managed to convey  a true distress, a real emotion. And when Caroline, later told her unconscious "Petit Lieutenant" in the intensive care unit, how the investigation was going on, I was quite moved again. Eventually when she collapsed against a car in the street, unexpectedly, after she checked her text messages, during a far shot in which we only saw her back, and she simply told her colleague "he's dead", I cried a river. Everything lies in the way Nathalie Baye said it, and in that delicate, understated use of the camera. It was simple, moving and so sad. That's the magic of cinema.

Among other news, Subcommander Marcos announced that the EZLN was disbanded. This is the end of an age. I didn't get to meet him when I was in selva lacandona in Chiapas, but I've always been fond of this guy. It wasn't the Zorro attitude and costume, even though he did have charisma, I guess I liked the way he wrote actually and how he couldn't help being a storyteller and a poet in the communiqués collected in the book  Ya Basta!

Comments

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Snowing in Paris! No snow yet here, but it's very very very very very cold!!!! I need cognac and warm comfort food.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I didn't last. Snow turned into rain quickly. It's like it never happened actually. But my cat liked watching the snow flakes.

Cognac sounds like a good idea! I wonder if I have some left...

[so-sharlemaine.livejournal.com]

Whether it lasted or not....

"It's snowing in Paris."

That sounds so beautiful and dreamy. Fuck springtime. That's when I want to see Paris, when it snows.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean but snow in Paris is very rare. So you'd better give snowless Paris a try!

[so-sharlemaine.livejournal.com]

I thought it would snow all the time in Paris during winter. Shows you how much I know about it. I had no idea.

Darn. Well, ok. I'll give springtime a try then.

But why should a film always tell a story?

[ladyemorgaine.livejournal.com]

Well, it depends on how one defines a story...

It is not always about plot, events, happenings on a grand scale. Stories with a capital "S". The unfolding of a life... the evolution of relationships are small "s" stories. When we create our lives we are creating stories....


The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
Muriel Rukeyser

Just to add...

[ladyemorgaine.livejournal.com]

It is the meaning we gain / perceive that lifts the mundane to the level of story...