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Tomorrow morning I'm being inspected during one of my lectures (last time it happened it was in december 2007 so it isn't that often!) and I think I'm done preparing my lesson. It's on the Gulf War and mostly based on G. Bush's speech on september 11, 1990, plus a few maps and pictures (which I'll use if the projector and the computer in the classroom work!), and a second text giving Saddam Hussein's take on it.

What should I do now?

I feel a Deadwood itch to scratch. Might be because I watched The Sessions yesterday, and besides John Hawkes (who was indeed amazing in the film), two other Deadwood alumni have a small part in it: W. Earl Brown who used to play Dan Dority, and Robin Weigert who was the wonderful Jane.

The Sessions isn't a great film in terms of writing or mise-en-scène– and it's a bit too light for me, but you know I like my films darker –, but it is tasteful and touching. It's worth seeing if only for John Hawkes and Helen Hunt who both deserve all the praises they received.

It's quite unbelievable that John was snubbed by the Oscars btw, but I guess it's because his performance doesn't look like a performance (while he did hurt himself for the role!)which is really something given the nature of the role!

His acting is just so natural, so humble and yet so easy, there's nothing showy about it. He just makes the character come to life, and you forget about the fact that there's an actor playing that man.

I finally went and saw Ken Loach's The Angel's Share.

Such a lovely film. The kind that puts a smile on your face so people wonder what's happening to you when you walk the streets after leaving the theatre.

As usual with Ken Loach, it's filled with humanity, moments of rude awakening and moments of laughter...and, of course, with politics.

As a committed author and a trotskyist, he never stops denouncing capitalism, but he never forgets to be a good director who respects (and loves) both his characters and audience. His films never shy away from the harsh light of day and always make you think, but, above all, they have heart.

This time, Ken Loach managed to make a comedy, poke fun at the law of "supply and demand", build a sort of subversive fairy tale in Glasgow -- in which there's a way out of a merciless system and there's sharing out the riches --, while writing an ode to whisky.

As we were leaving the dark room an old woman said that the film made her want to have a glass of whisky in the evening. I shared the sentiment.

I went to the movies after a sleepless night, several hours of work in the library (had to reward myself!)...and finally saw Martha Marcy May Marlene which is indeed a good film – I wish I had the time to write a proper review and elaborate on the ambiguity the film is based on and all the wonderful little details it provides to tell the story of a shattered personality and of an identity meltdown through mirror plays, memory tricks, merging timelines and madness, and create the right atmosphere, but instead here's a link to a spoilerish review from The New Yorker –, and Elizabeth Olsen is terrific...but damn John Hawkes again blew my mind. As usual his performance was powerful but subtle.

There was nothing cartoonish about the pastoralist sect guru he played, and yet he was totally believable in the role, exuding charisma, virility and danger, but also sweetness (John's smile makes me weak on the knees!) and perversion, appearing both charming and terrifying, caring and creepy.

No, it isn't at all the same role as the one he played in Winter's Bone. Teardrop was a threatening presence, a hillbilly lone wolf addicted to meth who inspired fear, but he turned out to be someone a girl could count on. Patrick is quite the opposite, he appears much nicer, but is much more dangerous; he's a sorcerer who puts on a seduction act and pulls the strings of his puppets/admirers, and he is bad news for little girls.
John Hawkes doesn't have a lot of screen time but owns any scene he is in(even the orgy scene...he doesn't partake but the picture that stays with you is Patrick watching from the stairs while his puppets are fucking), and the character haunts the film, just like he haunts the girl who is Martha/Marcy-May/Marlene.

And of course there's the beautiful scene in which John plays the guitar and sings "Marcy's Song" and the actress seems to become the girl in the song. The scene is a bit like the one from Maria's Lovers, when Keith Carradine serenaded Nastassja Kinski with "Maria's eyes".





Martha Marcy May Marlene isn't flawless but for a debut movie it's really really good. I'm glad that one fo my favourite actors chose it.

Also, apparently John Hawkes has turned down a part in The Walking Dead. Good for him! He's very busy with movies (I'm so looking forward to seeing The Surrogate that some say it gave his career's best role *) and The Walking Dead doesn't deserve his talent.

Anyway, if John should come back to television, I demand that it would be on Justified !!!!! They keep hiring Deadwood alumni, so I'm sure they'd love to have him...and having Sol Star and Seth Bullock reunited on screen would simply give me a tv orgasm.

* Just read an interview in which John mentioned that his "Deadwood pals"– Earl Brown, who plays Dan Dority, and Robin Weigert, who was Calamity Jane– got parts in The Surrogate!

I watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy yesterday at the cinema with a bunch of friends. The film, directed by Tomas Alfredson, is based on one of John Le Carré's novels and adapted for the screen by Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor.


I really liked it. It's a much better movie than Eastwood's J.Edgar (especially for the use of non-linear narrative and flashbacks!) that I saw two weeks ago, or than The Descendants. And damnit, yes Gary Oldman deserves an oscar!

It's good to see him as the lead in a good movie. It felt like ages since he had a good part in a decent film. He was excellent here, but all the cast was good, especially Benedict Cumberbatch (who looks much better as Sherlock than he did with that blond hair!). Apart from the "stars" (Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, John Hurt), the film was filled with familiar faces from tv series (like Cesar from Rome, or Edith from Downton Abbey), and everybody was pretty much perfect. Gary delivered a fine, restrained and subtle performance, based on his commanding presence, and all the other actors seemed to tune in according to his acting.

( spoilerish review under the cut )

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the kind of spy movies that I like, gripping and focusing on the Intelligence work rather than on showy action scenes, so obviously the anti-Bourne kind...

I recommend it, but it is not pop-corn movie, people!

The theatre was full yesterday evening when M. and  I saw Steve McQueen's second film, Shame. The film is doing well over here (only -12 rated unlike the American NC-17) and has received good reviews from the critics, like this one from Le Monde. Of course, everybody praises Michael Fassenber who plays Brandon, the sex addict. And he truly deserves all the praises he's gotten. He does carry the film.

I was looking forward to seeing Shame because I was very impressed by McQueen's debut, three years ago, and I knew this was a filmaker to follow.

And indeed he's still very much the super talented cinematographer we had discovered with Hunger. That said, I have to confess that I prefer Hunger.

Shame is not a bad movie, far from it. It is actually a good movie starring and incredible actor. It is elegant and stylish, which was a given for anyone who knows McQueen's work and background. As I said before, when I reviewed Hunger, the guy is an alchemist. He turns mundane stuff or even garbage and shit into gold. This is a filmaker who always finds grace and beauty in ugliness, who transcends base acts with his art.

And here again the magic works.

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I forgot to mention, in my Update post of yesterday, that I also went to the movies and saw The Artist.

It's super ballsy (to make  a w&b silent movie nowadays!)and it is really a wonderful film. Beautiful (white &black as usual makes the most beautiful films), poetical, smart (but not pretentious at all in spite of several references here and there) . And the actors are terrific. Jean Dujardin totally deserves his award in Cannes. He's simply perfect for the role and his acting subtly evolves throughout the film.

And the dog...the dog is amazing! That dog is more than a comic relief or a wink at EMI(His Master’s Voice !); he is a key character to understand what the film is really about.

I couldn't more recommend that movie.

It's much more than just an exercice de style or a performance film for the lead, the fact that the film is silent is very significant. The form matches the content, as any work of art should (hence the mise-en-abîme of the opening scene). Michel Hazanavicius, the filmaker, truly is The Artist of the title.

In the last couple of days I sought advice from people around me, regarding the thesis dilemma, and everybody came up with their own piece of course, so I decided to let it "rest" and put my mind off the issue for a while (not too long because the Summer holidays are upon us so if I want to make my move and get in touch with Orléans prof I guess I must do it before the 14th of July)...

So I've been reading Michael Connelly's The Reversal, featuring both Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller, and it's fun. I got the copy from a colleague who got it from her son who bought it in the U.S so I'm reading it in English. It's an easy read and I'm almost finished. Every time I read Connelly in English it reminds me that he isn't a great writer, at least style-wise. But he's a good storyteller and I like the tapestry, or rather the painting, he has created, through all his recurring characters whose paths cross in L.A. And there's Bosch of course who remains his best creation, no matter how entertaining the others are. Haller, the Lincoln lawyer, makes for good stories but he can't compete with Harry's charisma. In the novel, every other chapter is from Haller's point of view (and written with the first person singular) while when it's Bosch' s chapter we come back to the omniscient point of view (although we often get to know what's ging on in Harry's mind) so Bosch remains more mysterious in a way. He is the only character that Connelly keeps protecting from Hollywood sirens while he lets movies borrow his other characters (that said the recent film based on The Lincoln Lawyer wasn't bad, and I also enjoyed Blood Work starring Clint Eastwood as Terry McCaleb years). Harry Bosch is one of a kind.

I also went and saw My Little Princess, my second French film, after the excellent yet  very unusual Pater (who received a 17 minute standing ovatin in Cannes and is impossible to review) in 8 days!

Very disturbing movie. First, the topic is disturbing. The film takes place in the 70's and the" little princess" is a 10 years old girl, raised by her great-great mother, and whose quirky and instable mother, whose love she's desperate to get, decides to involve her into her artistic lifestyle and turns her into a model. The mother becomes a famous photographer thanks to her little muse...except that the pictures she takes are quite erotic and morbid so scandal ensues (to the point that the little girl is called a whore by her classmates and nicknamed "porn baby" by the media). It's the story of a stolen childhood and of a dysfonctional and yet passionate relationship between a mother and her daughter. The mother kind of loves her daughter but she's immature and displays more art (gothic and decadent) than heart, and the fact that she's from Romania adds to the vampire-vibe. Isabelle Hupper who loves twisted roles plays the mother (she's very histrionic, quite Drusilla-esque, something between a crazy woman and a self-centred diva to our eyes, and to her daughter's eyes between a fairy and a witch), but it's the young actress (twelve) playing Violetta who is really amazing on screen.

The film is disturbing because it shows how it all begins like a game for a girl who was neglected and is trilled to suddenly be her mother's favourite model, the only object of her attention, and also because all the little girls like to dress up, but then she slowly becomes the character she plays on the photographs, outside the shooting room, looking like her mother in parties and exhibition's previews; following the model her mother loves, she changes her looks in "the real world" (she wears make-up, tiaras and eccentric princess-like clothes at school, and later is dressed like a poptart with high heels and expensive clothes) and her behaviour evolves (playing the femme fatale with journalists, with boys) as if the photo sessions had some shaman power changing her! Violetta get caught up and becomes a freak which causes troubles and makes her a pariah in society, and eventually the desire to fit in, for "a normal life", wins and she rejects the role and her mother's world, looking for her lost self.

The most disturbing thing is that the film is quite autobiographical for it is the story of the filmaker, Eva Ionesco. Her mother, Irina Ionesco was a famous photographer in the 70's and actually the true story is "worst" than what is showed on screen for Eva's role as a sexualized model began when she was 4 years old and not 10 (and the film suggests things but of course doesn't show the girl in the nude).

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I often lament about the lack of great French writers or great French films these days. Compared to the beginning of the XXth century French literature has been poor for the past decades, and French movies keep disappointing me.

But I've read the interesting and original Mémoire de La Jungle by Tristan Garcia and I'm reading Michel Houellebecq's La Carte et le Territoire, which is really really good. Besides I saw yesterday Xavier Beauvois's Des hommes et des Dieux so there's hope still.

No matter what is said about Houellebecq, he is a good writer and  true author –– not the likes of Marc Lévy or Anna Gavalda or Amélie Nothomb who sell so many books every year–– and his last book belongs to Literature with a capital L.

As for Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of Gods and Men), it's the best French film I have seen for a very long time. It won Le Grand Prix in Cannes and many critics consider it should have received la Palme d'or instead of Uncle Boonmee (I haven't seen Uncle Boonmee yet so I can't tell). Xavier Beauvois whose Le Petit Lieutenant I enjoyed very much years ago, really turned out to be an amazing film maker.

Go, run if needed, and see this movie! If you are a movie buff you will be thrilled, if you're a believer you will feel warm, and if you're just a human being you will be deeply touched.

By the way, it's funny to think that a movie like this does much more for the Catholic Church and its Christian values, even though it isn't Xavier Beauvois's intent at all, than The Pope's behaviour or speeches.

Des hommes et des dieux tells the story of the Trappist monks from Tibihirine (a monastery in the Atlas) who died in 1996, during those horrible years in Algeria when the F.I.S party, that had been declared outlaw after it had too much success in elections, tried to conquer power using terrorism while the government (ruled since 1962 by one party, the FLN) fought back using similar means. It was a decade of violence and sheer terror for everybody living in Algeria and a lot of blood has been shed. Seven monks (out of the 9 who lived in the monastery then)were among the thousands victims because they decided to stay over there. Finally they were seized by G.I.A (the F.I.S's army) and their heads were found later...

For a long time their death has been a mystery, even though the official version was that the Islamist terrorists killed them. However last year a former French officer from the secret services finally told a judge what he knew from a fellow Algerian officer but had covered until then for the sake of the French-Algerian relationship: it's likely that it's actually "an error" (I don't know the English word for "bavure") from the Algerian army that killed the monks.

That said, the film isn't about the mystery or about who killed the monks. It's about their last days, about the everyday life that was theirs, about brotherhood, harmony and solidarity; about the fraternity within that religious community but also between the monks and their Algerian neighbours who lived in the village nearby and often shared stuff with the brothers and whom the Trappists helped but never tried to convert; about the harmony between men from different cultures (an example of peaceful coexistence between religions) and also between men and nature.

Of course the violence surrounding Tibihirine is there and the film doesn't shy away from the consequences of terrorism or the threat of having the military around, but it isn't a study on terrorism or a documentary on the civil war in Algeria.

It's first and foremost about those men, and at some point, despite the liturgy, the religious singing and the habit, you forget that they are monks, you just see how human they are. They don't live or dies as heroes but as men. And they are simply touching.

You can see the trailer on youtube.

The film is beautifully shot and moving but never falls into melodrama; it isn't austere but it isn't a hollywood movie either!

Beauvois films the everyday life of the monks like he filmed the everyday life of a police station in Le Petit Lieutenant. His movie has the realism of a documentary but also the lyricism of an opera. There are the beautiful landscapes of the Atlas, the camera indulging in a contemplative side that suits the Cistercian order; there's the quiet of working the land and another kind of quiet that comes from the hymns they sing; there are also moments of smile and moments of tears.
The cast is brilliant; Michael Lonsdale is a wonderful brother Luc, Lambert Wilson isn't bad as Christian (he's even quite good when he stops watching himself act)  and I was impressed by Olivier Rabourdin as brother Christophe (on the picture below). The most beautiful scene in the film, as the monks are having a Last Supper together while listening to The Swan Lake and drinking burgondy wine, is rather daring and could have been terrible but was poignant and powerful. I couldn't help crying then.

Those monks won't be forgotten.



( The rest is in French )

I've been on a sort of break since Friday. The Bac starts in two days, as usual with Philosophy, and the History & Geography exam is on Friday morning so I will enter Marking Hell on Monday after I'm given the papers. So before I'm bound to invigilating and then marking duty, I'm entertaining myself with music, books, films and tv shows.

I saw Kiarostami's Copie Conforme, which was fine but I am not surprised it didn't get any reward in Cannes, except for the Best Actress prize. Juliette Binoche was indeed great in it. I read that the film won't be released in Iran because of her clothing! Too cleavage-y, I guess.

As for the tv shows, since it was difficult to get The Wire online, I'm currently watching the first season of Fringe. I watched the pilot and the following episode on French tv last year but dropped it for I couldn't watch the show in its original language and it seemed to be a ripoff of The X-Files, but I've heard good things about Fringe this year and now I'm rather enjoying it. I can't wait to get to the second season which is apparently better!

Many things are quite predictable but it's well done, and it's the relationship between father and son that makes the show work for me.

I'm glad for the return of True Blood that was a lot of fun for the premiere.

Also I watched the pilot of  Persons Unknown and might stick to the series for a while.

But, frankly, I miss the really good stuff. I miss Caprica !

First off, a few words on last Sunday's episode of Being Human. Spoilers under the cut.

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Secondly, I'm avoiding Marking Hell so I have rewatched another of Eisenstein's movies: Ivan Groznyy I . I wanted to rewatch it since I watched Csar by Pavel Lounguine, a film I had mixed feelings about. I have yet part II (the second opus that Stalin forbid and was released in 1958 only, under Khrushchev) to watch and I intend watching October too. Visual-wise, it is really something. The photography is gorgeous; every shot is framed like a painting with lots of symbolical meaning. Each scene is precisely plotted and designed. The theatrical facial expressions (an oversuse of bulging eyes, especially)and poses, the exaggerated acting and the many closeups may be bizarre and ludicrous for nowadays' audiences but they served Eisenstein's poetical ideas and give the film a surreal charm. The overacting and closeups sort of recalls silent movies in which gestures and faces told the story but the film here is more stylised than silent movies and the expressions/portraits are sometimes so intense that the magic works at the end of the day. The characters manage to convey true emotions from time to time (Anastasia and Andrei Kurbsky, above all) but they are more metaphors than real characters hence their resemblance to animals (Ivan being an eagle of course). And the play on lighting and shadows thrown against the walls is brilliant (Eisenstein might have been inspired by Disney's Fantasia). Of course there's propaganda and the film served Russian nationalism in 1944 but we are far far away from Jdanovism and "socialist realism"!
I'm pretty sure that Coppola's drew part of his inspiration for Dracula in Ivan Groznyy Part I. Both films are splendid and highly stylised, and there's something in Vald, not only in the prologue after Elisabetha's death but also in his interactions with Mina, that recalled Ivan (who's quite sexy too in a few scenes)and his relationship with Anastasia. And Coppola played with shadows on walls and floor too. I can see a sort of cinema filiation from Murnau and Lang to Eisenstein and Coppola.

I think I still prefer Alexander Nevsky ––by the way Prokofiev scored Groznyy too and that soundtrack music is great but I find it to be less powerful and less memorable than the music he composed for Alexander Nevsky––but Ivan is also a beautiful film that deserves to be praised. Eisenstein was a poet and a wizard.