Friday, November 28, 2008

Random DVD round-up 3 - HER NAME IS SABINE / ELLE S'APPELLE SABINE

Oh dear. I know I'm meant to be "deeply affected" by films like this but I just found it boring, repetitive and actually pretty exploitative. Famous French actress Sandrine Bonnaire has made a documentary about her younger sister Sabine. She inter-cuts footage of Sabine as a pretty young girl in chic Paris with contemporary footage of Sabine as a bloated, drugged woman, her life mired by autism. The film works best as an educational film on the dangers of incarceration in mental institutions. As a plea for understanding I found it manipulative.

ELLE S'APPELLE SABINE played Cannes 2007 and Berlin 2008. It was shown on French TV in 2007 and opened in Belgium, Greece, the UK, the Netherlands and Austria in 2008. It is available on DVD and opens in Germany on January 15th.

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