THE ODYSSEY

THE ODYSSEY is a beautifully constructed melancholy tale about a man who sacrifices his family for fame, and then tries to redeem himself late in life. That man is the French naval officer turned submariner and film-maker Jacques Cousteau - a figure handed down to us almost as parody as STEVE ZISSOU. One forgets - and it's delicious to be reminded - that he was once a truly respected and international star. That his oceanographic films earned the Palme D'or and huge global TV audiences.  That he was something of a rock star. And yet for all this fame, he was never financially secure.  His wife sold her jewels and fur to finance the refurbishment of his first ship and was steadfast on board despite his philandering.  His banks could barely keep up with the ever more outlandish plans for films.  And he would foolishly mis-sell movies to TV studios at a fraction of their cost. And yet, somehow he prevailed, bringing images of exotic animals and Antartica to his fans. 

The emotional arc of this film creates a two act drama. In the first act we have the relentlessly driven Cousteau neglecting one of his sons in favour of the one who is also a diver. And you have Cousteau having affairs and abandoning his wife.  In a more subversive narrative, we also have Cousteau financing his film with petrodollars, effectively researching the best place to dig for oil in the Arabian Sea. In the second act of the film, inspired by his beloved ecologist son, Cousteau becomes an evangelist for the environmental cause and founds the Cousteau Society. It brings precious little reconciliation with the neglected son and wife, and he becomes even more famous, even though that fame is now tinged with deep personal loss. 

Jerome Salle's film is not afraid to show both sides of Cousteau - his charisma and energy as well as his callous disregard for people and financial facts. He manages to capture the wonder of underwater ocean-cinematography and the majesty of Antartica in a way that - as Cousteau did - inspires us with the romance of ocean exploration.  But he always manages to undercut this with the darkness of family life chez Cousteau.  In particular, I liked the lead performance from Lambert Wilson - capturing all of Cousteau's ambiguity - and some of the touching set pieces - particularly that between Vincent Heneine's Bebert and Audrey Tautou's Simone. 

THE ODYSSEY has a running time of 122 minutes. It opened last year in France, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Russia and Switzerland. It opened earlier this year in Netherlands, Romania, Canada, Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal and Norway. It opens today in the UK.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 6 - THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER

Lifeless French costume drama set at the same time as LA REINE MARGOT and suffering by comparison with that passionate, violent film. Melanie Thierry is decorous but banal as the Princess, married off to her dull cousin Montpensier, rather than the man she loves, wily, manipulative Henri de Guise. Left alone in a rustic castle she inspires the love of wise, gentle Huguenot, the Comte de Chabannes, but it's hard to see why. And then when the Duc d'Anjou, heir to the French throne pops by, he also falls for her. Sent to Court, we then get the Princess attracting the admiration and jealousy of her husband, Chabonnes, Anjou and Guise - at the same time. I kid you not, but there are messages given to the wrong man behind the mask, and a lot of hiding on staircases for a man who never comes. People get pissed off, lovers recoil, and it all runs out of steam long before it ends. This film lacks any passion, spark of sense of stakes. Which is amazing when you consider that we have Catherine de Medicis as a character and the St Bartholomew's Day massacre as an event. Altogether, this movie feels less like a costume drama/romance and more like a lo-fi soap opera. Dull, dull, dull.

Additional tags: Bruno de Keyzer, Melanie Thierry, Raphaël Personnaz, Bertrand Tavernier, Francois-Olivier Rousseau, Jean Cosmos.

THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER played Cannes 2010 and was released earlier this year in Greece. It will be released in France on November 3rd.

BABYLON A.D. - All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

Over-budget, over-schedule, unloved by its studio, disowned by its director, heavily edited down and released in two versions....BABYLON A.D. is a confused movie with a void at its centre, and I'm not talking about Vin Diesel. Writer-director Mathieu Kassovitz, who made the brilliant flick LA HAINE, has a done stitch-up job on the studio, accusing them of blocking his artistic vision with harsh editing. He's right. This dystopian thriller, based on the novel by Maurice G Dantec, has had its guts ripped out in the editing suite. The poor viewer never really has a clear idea about what the frack is going on.

My vague feeling is that a hundred years in the future, Russia has turned all of Europe and Asia into satelite states that have disintegrated into cyber-punk savagery. America is a locked-down haven of functionality but at a price - culture has been commercialised to the point where religion is sold through billboards like face-cream. Years ago, a mad scientist created a cylon baby who would have a virgin birth, propelling a particular sect to world domination. This baby, now a woman, is to be smuggled to the sect's headquarters in New York by a mercenary called Toorop and, for no particular reason other than sheer improbaility, a kung-fu nun.

The key point is this: the only bit of that plot summary that comes across coherently in the actual film is the final sentence. In other words, this movie is just one long chase scene for no particular reason. The only real pleasure is in observing the production design, which veers from a cool, gritty Kreuzberg like Europe, via Canadian snow-scapes, to a futuristic New York.

Mathieu Kassovitz claims that the studio hacked his film to death. I believe him. Still, that's only half the problem. The other half is the piss-poor casting. On the one hand you have Vin Diesel who, gods love him, can't really depict characters in the midst of moral dilemmas. And then you have Mélanie Thierry who plays the girl. Now, for the first hour of the film I swear to god I thought she was about fifteen. But then, in a really excruciatingly embarassing scene, her character comes on to the mercenary and you think, oh my god, she's actually meant to be in her twenties! I came home and looked up the actress' age on IMDB. She's actually 27!!! Amazing. Put it this way, you can cast her as your lead actress, but you need to put her opposite someone who looks like he could conceivably have a relationship with her without being accused of pederasty or indeed crushing her to death in the palm of his hand.

So all I'm saying is this. Kassovitz needs to come clean. Yes, the film is shit. Yes, the studio probably did bad things with FinalCut Pro. And maybe, just maybe, they forced Vin Diesel onto him. But he acquiesed. And then he cast an actress who looked 15 opposite him.....

BABYLON A.D. is on release in France, Belgium, Russia, Canada, the UL and the USA. It goes on release next weekend in Indonesia, Argentina, Portugal, Mexico and Panama. It opens on September 11th in Austria, Germany, Singapore and Brazil. It opens in Spain on September 19th. BABYLON A.D. opens in October in Australia, South Korea, Finland, Italy, Norway and Egypt and in November in Venezuela and Greece.

PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES/COEURS - pretentious wank

PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES is directed by the giant of French cinema, Alain Resnais and based on the play by acclaimed English author Alan Aychbourn. It is photographed by Eric Gautier, the respected DP who brought us GABRIELLE and THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES. It is acted by a superb cast comprising Sabine Azéma, Lambert Wilson, André Dussollier, Pierre Arditi, Laura Morante and Isabelle Carré.

All this means that I approach the film with much respect for all concerned. It does not, however, preclude me from damning it as pretentious, tedious, over-worked, heavy-handed, deliberately oblique, wank. Seriously. There is nothing new here. No insights into contemporary human loneliness and relationships. Nothing.

The film/play is based on six people and uses the over-familiar structure wherein everyone is linked to everyone else. Andre Dussolier plays an ageing estate agent who is showing Laura Morante's character around apartments. She is frustrated with the choices, though we later find that this reflects her frustration with her lazy fiance, played by Lambert Wilson. He spends his time drinking in a bar managed by Pierre Arditi instead of looking for a job. Arditi tells him to ditch his fiancee and find a new woman. So he hooks up with a pretty young blonde played by Sabine Azema. She has low self-esteem due to being constantly let down by dates. She lives with her (incredibly) much older brother, played by Andre Dussolier. And Dussolier's colleague, played by Isabelle Carre, completes the circle. She plays a fiercely religious woman who gives Dussolier's character videos of "Songs of Praise" type shows, that are actually taped over tantalising home-made porn videos! Oh yes, and she works part time as a carer for Pierre Arditi's character's father.

The only reason I stayed in the cinema was to see how they resolved by the religious woman/porn star segment. They basically didn't. What we did get was some heavy-handed imagery. Oh, the characters are so isolated and emotionally cold that when they speak it snows INSIDE the house. Ah, so poetic! Unbelievable.

PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES/COEURS played Venice 2006 where it (unbelievably) won Best Director and Best Actress for Laura Morante. It has already opened in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, the US, Greece, Israel, Brazil and the UK. It opens in Argentina on August 2nd.