London Film Fest 2010 Day 8 - MAMMUTH - Castigat Ridendo Mores

Typically you go to the London Film Fest and when you sit down to a French flick you get existential angst. But this year, with LITTLE WHITE LIES and MAMMUTH, I've had a wonderful, joyful time! After the hard-core psycho-drama of WOMB it was marvellous to watch MAMMUTH - with its warm colours, gonzo style DV photography, hilarious physical comedy, and ultimately uplifting sentiment. Gerard Depardieu plays a complete fuckwit called Serge Pilardosse - he's physically clumsy; sports a mullet that Mickey Rourke in THE WRESTLER would be proud of; basically, he's a walking disaster zone. Dumped into retirement, he realises that, like many working class people, he doesn't have enough money for retirement. So starts a sort of motorcycle road trip in which he tries to gather up the necessary paperwork from his seven previous casual jobs in order to qualify for a state pension. The road trip allows writer-directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervem to examine the basic injustice of an economic system in which you can work hard your whole life in blue collar jobs but still basically have nothing to show for it. But this social critique is explored with the lightest of touches and with so much good humour! Any film that can show a scene of mutual masturbation that seems utterly cute and sweet (not to mention recalling NOVOCENTO) deserves credit. And any movie that can use the device of a crash-victim (Isabelle Adjani) haunting the driver and not seem hammy also deserves credit. Depardieu excels at this kind of physical humour - and his final scenes are truly inspirational. But it's Yolande Moreau, as his long-suffering wife, who truly steals the picture with her hilarious turn dealing with automated call centres, and vengeful attitude toward the woman who stole her phone. In addition, we get a great little cameo from the evidently mental Miss Ming. What else can I say? This is a movie with a lot of heart, a good message, some first-class swearing, physical comedy and a joyous ending. Parfait!

MAMMUTH played Berlin 2010 and was released earlier this year in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria.

London Film Fest Day 5 - MICMACs

Jean Pierre Jeunet of DELICATESSEN and AMELIE fame is back with a delightful, inventive, visually stunning movie about a bunch of misfits who bring arms dealers to account! It's a movie that is steeped in cinema history, but wears that knowledge lightly. It has everything from the finest in physical comedy, reminiscent of Tati and Chaplin - to the practical jokes and explosions of Tex Avery - to post-modern insider jokes worthy of Charlie Kauffman. I had a thoroughly good time watching MICMACs!

So what's it all about, Alfie? In a set-up that's a paragon of efficiency, Jeunet shows us a French soldier killed by a landmine in Algeria. Back at home, his wife goes insane with grief and his little boy, left to a convent, escapes in a laundry van. Thirty years later, he's manning a video store, lipsynching to The Big Sleep, when a drive-by shooting leaves him with a bullet in his brain, without a job or a flat, and on the streets. And who is to blame for his predicament? Why, the two arms companies who sold the landmine and the bullet respectively.

Our hero is picked up and be-familied by a wonderful group of people united by having scraps of metal in their bodies. They salvage old junk, fix it and sell it. Together, they help our hero exact revenge through ingenious practical jokes and tricks - the "micmacs" of the title.

The resulting movie is a goofy caper - a screwball romance - a visual and linguistic delight. It's funnier and more endearing than Amelie and I hope will have as much success.

MICMACS played Toronto 2009. It goes on release in Belgium and France on October 28th; it opens on November 26th; on December 17th in the Netherlands; on January 8th in the UK; and on January 24th in Germany.

Random DVD Round-Up - THE LAST MISTRESS / UNE VIEILLE MAITRESSE

Catherine Breilliat's French period drama is a beautifully played tragedy that never feels starchy or staid although it sometimes feels just plain bizarre. Okay, so maybe this is 1850s French high society but how many people do you know who talk in intimate detail about previous liasons with their future mother-in-laws? Such is the implausible framing device of Barbey d'Aurevilly's novel and this new movie. A young rake is sitting in his future mother-in-law's salon explaining his entanglement with a prostitute called Vellini. As a young man, Ryno (Fu'ad Ait Aattou) had dismissed Vellini as old, crumpled and vulgar, but no sooner had he said those words than, Mr Darcy-style, he fell into erotomania. They conduct a ten-year affair until Ryno throws Vellini over for a diametrically opposite, virginally pure, rich young girl. Soon after the wedding, Ryno spirits his bride away to the coast in order to escape temptation. But temptation follows him, with tragic consequences. Desire cannot be fettered.

THE LAST MISTRESS works because it balances attention to period detail and visual flair with an apparently modern take on sexual relations, not to mention solid central performances from Fu'ad Ait and Asia Argento in a role that seems made for her. It's a costume drama for people who prefer LA REINE MARGOT to Jane Austen, with none of the austere trauma of NE TOUCHEZ PAS LA HACHE.

THE LAST MISTRESS/UNE VIEILLE MAITRESSE played Cannes, Toronto and London 2007 and was released last year in France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Russia, Australia and Turkey. It was released in the UK, Brazil and South Korea earlier this year. It is now available on DVD.