Rendez-Vous. 3.

For me one of the hallmarks of good French film has always been the near-immediate recognition that the filmmaker understands subtleties of character and how people interact with each other. Here, reticence and withholding are often paramount. Skilled moviemakers communicate the importance of what has been withheld - and how - even if they choose not to reveal the "why." A fine example of all this is Xavier Giannoli's interesting film The Singer (Quand j'étais chanteur), which offers Gérard Depardieu in about as relaxed and charming a performance as I can recall. His age, his weight and the knowledge he's gained as an actor (and undoubtedly as a human being) all come to fruition in this lovely performance.

Updated through 3/4.

Depardieu is well abetted by the young and beautiful Cécile de France, so different here from her characters in last year's delightful Avenue Montaigne (currently in US theaters) and Russian Dolls. It's her character who remains a mystery, right up until the end. We learn things, but not nearly all we might. No matter: she's believable, Depardieu is, too, and - most important - their relationship rings true, which is all the more surprising in that it's a tricky April/November, beauty-and-the-beast affair. Giannoli has things to learn about pacing and plot, perhaps, but as a character study (not just of these two but of the subsidiary folk, as well) and as a look at the milieu of aging musicians who still want to ply their trade, the movie works quite well.

Which is more than can be said for another film that saw its US debut today: Christopher Honoré's Inside Paris (Dans Paris). In 2004, M. Honore gave us, as director and adapter, Ma mère, anchored by gorgeous visuals and a strong performance from Isabelle Huppert, and penned the splendidly strange and sexual Le Clan, known as Three Dancing Slaves in the US. As writer/director of this new one, he begins with a charming use of the actors addressing the audience, steals fairly obviously from Godard and Truffaut, concocts a story full of angst, bathos and would-be comedy/romance, climaxes with a truck-load of exposition regarding a character completely unseen and ends with the use of a children's book that manages to be both pretentious and sentimental.  Though the first-rate cast gives its all, not a single character is believable by any standards known to me. Bonus perks include Louis Garrel in the altogether and Romain Duris in the almost (but we've seen him nude often enough already), Guy Marchand (always a treat) and the little-seen-of-late-on-these-shores Marie-France Pisier, who makes a most attractive fifty-ish mom. If your whimsy tolerance is enormous, you might take to this one (you'll have a chance later this year when IFC/First Take releases it stateside). I didn't, but you've probably gathered that already.

Update, 3/4: "Channeling the spirit of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Red in its suffusive evocation of longing and synchronicity," writes acquarello, "Xavier Giannoli's The Singer is an intelligently rendered, understatedly resonant, and refined portrait of the often bifurcating trajectories of existential and emotional intersections."

Posted by dwhudson at March 2, 2007 4:49 AM