♦ The Room Next Door ***
by Pedro Almodovar
Spanish film, 1h46
Awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodovar tells the story of Martha, a former war reporter, and her writer friend Ingrid, back in New York. The two women renew their friendship as Matha battles an aggressive cancer. Martha definitively loses hope of recovery and turns to her lifelong friend to accompany her in death. She asks him to be there, in the next room, when she herself has decided to put an end to it. If one day her bedroom door is closed, she will be gone. Many other themes dear to the Spanish filmmaker are developed there. In this feature film, Pedro Almodovar celebrates life as much as death and does not make the latter an end in itself.
» READ THE REVIEW: “The room next door” by Pedro Almodovar, death in the face
♦ Winter in Sokcho **
de Koya Kamura
French film, 1h45
Winter in Sokcho is adapted from a novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin. In her book, the writer traces the arrival of Yann Kerrand (Roschdy Zem), a comic strip artist, who came to a small Korean seaside town to find inspiration. There he meets Soo-ha (Bella Kim), a young woman between two shores, returned to her hometown to try to give meaning to her life by finding her way. The arrival of a Frenchman, whose language she is the only one to speak, will profoundly disrupt her daily life: could he be the father she never knew? As soon as they meet, an ambiguous relationship develops and deeply questions Soo-ha’s identity. Koya Kamura, himself Franco-Japanese, signs a fresco whose rhythm and beauty give its place to the decor and the feelings.
» READ THE REVIEW: “Winter in Sokcho”, a woman between two banks
♦ The Daughter of a Great Love **
by Agnès de Sacy
French film, 1h34
In this feature film by Agnès de Sacy, Isabelle Carré and François Damiens try to reconcile, after being brought together in a film, by their daughter, director. The latter, named Cécile, is a film student and gives voice to her mother and father who have been separated for many years. Agnès de Sacy draws on her personal history and tells her story and that of her own parents on the big screen. His alter ego quickly fades to focus on the story of his parents; the girl is not the subject of the film but the trigger. This bittersweet feature film, stretched over several years, is full of nostalgia but camouflaged with laughter to mask the sadness, with a duet that impresses with its accuracy.
» READ THE REVIEW: “The Daughter of a Great Love”, a cinema couple
♦ Wild Fires **
de Jia Zhang-ke
Chinese film, 1h51
Jia Zhang-ke is undoubtedly the great Chinese filmmaker of our time, a tireless chronicler of the changes in contemporary China through the destiny, often over several decades, of some colorful characters, whether workers, entrepreneurs, prostitutes or mafiosi. . His latest film, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, is a concentrate of his cinema. A hybrid work, between documentary and cinematographic odyssey, compilations of images shot during his previous films and today. He takes us on a journey through time and China, from the industrial province of Shanxi where he comes from to the Three Gorges Dam and the city of Chongqing with the only guiding thread being his favorite actress and wife Zhao. Tao. A meditative film, with almost no dialogue or commentary, whose testimonial value and formal beauty do not preserve a certain monotony.
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