“A matter of principle”, by Antoine Raimbault
The film is part of the pages of the techno-thriller, which, drawing inspiration from authentic health scandals, reveals the obscure functioning of institutions. Standouts included Steven Soderbergh, with Erin Brockovich and The Informant!, Todd Haynes with Dark Waters and Michael Mann with Révélations. As in the latter, it is against the tobacco industry, and its clandestine maneuvers to oust a European commissioner who was preparing to adopt a directive harmful to his interests, that the hero of A matter of principlethe new film fromAntoine RaimbaultAfter An intimate conviction 5 years ago. “What interested me was the embodiment of counter-power. I was fed American investigative films, I have a taste for that as a spectator and I tried to recolonize that as a European film.” explains Antoine Raimbault. A funny hero, who has mustaches, way of and the punk side of José Bové. And for good reason, it was the then environmentalist MEP who led the investigation, and at the same time made us understand the functioning, unknown to most, of this high democratic place that is the European Parliament.
If we were in an American film, it would be a cowboy projected in Washington, or a Mr. Smith in the Senate. There is something very Capraian… With a mixture of righteousness, and sometimes disillusioned irony but with, deep down, a lot of hope. “Before being a vehicle for the spectator, the character of Clémence, a young 3rd year intern, is my point of entry into Parliament. This is the point of view in which I project myself (…) Clémence is the right character to enter this story because she does not have the codes. I redid this investigation and the character of Clémence is the one where I put all my affects. (…) This investigation gave me hope and it gave hope to Clémence and I hope it will give hope to the spectators.”
“To the End of the World”, by Viggo Mortensen
Funny hero as well as the one that embodies Viggo Mortensen in his second film, yet another second film, as director, Till the end of the world. A very classic western, except that the cowboy, of Danish origin like his interpreter, is completely deconstructed, as we understand it today, that his lover, who does not let’s not count, is from Quebec, it’s Vicky Krieps who embodies her, and who lurks the figure of Joan of Arc, but yes!
It begins strangely with a knight in armor in a forest (we will understand later that the knight is a knight, it is Joan of Arc!), and with a woman who is dying. This woman is a certain Vivienne, Vivienne Le Coudy, from Quebec. The film, navigating between several temporalities, will tell us its story, beautiful and tormented, with a very unique cowboy. The first is played by Vicky Krieps, the second by Viggo Mortensen, for whom this is the second film as director, After Falling. Two films inspired by his mother, Grace Gamble Atkinson, the opportunity for the filmmaker-actor to create a very beautiful female character, the likes of which we rarely see in westerns, a modern woman, who wants to work to earn her own money and be independent , and above all who does not need to emulate the masculine to survive in a man’s world. “You have to work with your characters. Here I wanted to make a classic western while respecting certain things, certain codes. For photography, for example, something simple and elegant was needed. With the languages, the idea was to be historically faithful to the United States of that time where my characters would have been more foreign than American.”
The Cinema Journal
Outings of the week
- An Amazonian people who resist farmers, poachers and Bolsonarism as best they can, is The Flower of Buritithe new immersion, after The Song of the Forestethnographic filmmakers João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora in the world of Krahô, a film in the footsteps of ethno-fiction as practiced by Jean Rouch, which we would have liked to be a little more cinematographic, but certainly not everyone is Lisandro Alonso or Apichatong Weerasethakul ;
- Men, or rather Oms, reduced to the state of pets or pests to be exterminated by blue giants, this is the masterpiece of Rene Lalouxcombined with the visual genius of Roland Topor, The wild planetwhich comes out with another, more unknown film by the filmmaker, Gandahar ;
- A prostitute by necessity, a petty thief and a battered young soldier trying to survive in Japan at the end of the Second World War, it’s hypnotic The shadow of the firethe great return of Shin’ya Tsukamotoa filmmaker who had been somewhat lost sight of since his thunderous cyberpunk debut at the end of the 80s with Tetsuo ;
- A dive into the mysteries of the art market, which are well worth those of the European Parliament, is The stolen paintingthe new film from Pascal Bonitzerbrilliantly written as always, and finely performed by a host of stars, of whom we will especially remember the spicy quartet Alex Lutz, Léa Drucker, Nora Hamzawi and the always impeccable Louise Chevillotte;
- A taxi in the Los Angeles night, driven by Jamie Foxx, a Melvillian hitman, is Tom Cruise, and a city filmed as a pure abstraction, is the very refined and still fascinating Collateralof Michael Mannreissued in a new copy 20 years after its release;
- And then finally, the film that will make you think twice before considering settling in the United States, because as everyone knows you first have to go through the finicky and paranoid controls of American customs, it is Borderlinethe very tense behind closed doors of the Venezuelans living in Spain Juan Sebastian Vasquez and Alejandro Rojas.
Limit stateby Nicolas Peduzzi
There is also the new documentary by Nicolas Peduzzi, Limit state, plunged into an overheating hospital, like all French hospitals since the Covid crisis revealed the state of disrepair into which successive austerity cures and other aberrant policies have plunged them. He follows in the footsteps of a strange hero, here again, a flying psychiatrist, the only one in the hospital, running from department to department accompanied by his interns, but who takes the time, against his hierarchy, to listen the words of people experiencing mental suffering, or victims of various addictions. After his American adventures, the already very successful Southern Belle And Ghost Song, the filmmaker remains on familiar ground, that of the margins and those who haunt them, troubled, extraordinary and outcast personalities, as this borderline state, the title of his new film, could define his entire cinema. He explains that the practice of cinema was for him a way “to get out of my own navel and look elsewhere, other worlds than mine. That’s what I liked about cinema and especially documentaries. It allows you to focus on lives, to truly be immersed. This Jamal, this psychiatrist, is fascinated by mad people and for me the bond he creates with patients is a very fragile work, which is different each time with each patient.”
Charlotte Garson’s column: Written and spoken work 1968-2015 by Chantal Akermanedition established by Cyril Béghin – L’Arachnéen
The oldest fans of France Culture will recognize the voice of Chantal Akerman, invited by Alain Veinstein on his show Overnight, it was March 19, 1999. Although the filmmaker was wary, she said, of the text and of writing, she wrote a lot and spoke a lot. All*, Written and spoken work*, is brought together in a superb object, a very voluminous book in three volumes, collected and edited by Cyril Béghin at Éditions L’Arachnéen (what we have just heard appears in volume II, p. 825). Enough to wait (for those who cannot visit the majestic exhibition dedicated to Chantal Akerman at the Bozar in Brussels) while waiting for her arrival at the Jeu de Paume in the fall, with a full retrospective to boot.
Plan Large’s announcements
On the side of LaCinetek, the online Cinematheque of filmmakers, you will be able (in addition to the monthly list, which this month goes to the Catalan Albert Serra) to discover several films by a great filmmaker little known in France, the German Claudia von Alemannwhich we received in Plan Large on March 23s, at the time of the Cinema of Real. We particularly recommend his documentary on May 68, It’s just a beginning, let’s keep fightingand its very beautiful Trip to Lyon, in the footsteps of socialist and proto-feminist activist Floria Tristan. And to win one-year subscriptions to LaCinetek, you can now, remember, on the France Culture Instagram account.
To see different cinema, we also recommend a very rich retrospective Cinemas of Africa, from 1960 to 1990, from The Black of… ofOusmane Sembène At Dust Ball ofHenri Duparcit can be seen at the Institut Lumière, in Lyon, until June 4.
Finally, we point out, and not only because the young lady Charlotte Garson is there, the beautiful and just published third special issue of Cahiers du Cinéma, dedicated to the singer-filmmaker Jacques Demy.
Sound clips
- Excerpts from An Affair of Principle by Antoine Raimbault
- Ode to joyNATO Jazz orchestra
- Excerpts from At the End of the World by Viggo Mortensen
- Mix of releases of the week
- Excerpts from Limit State by Nicolas Peduzzi
- Archive of Chantal Akerman, Overnight Alain Veinstein, March 19, 1999
- My reverenceVéronique Sanson
