♦ Twenty gods ***
by Louise Courvoisier
French film, 1h30
Totone, originally from Jura, has just turned 18. After his father dies in a car accident, he must take care of Claire, his 7-year-old little sister, and find a way to provide for them. The young adult then decides to participate in the “golden county”, a competition which rewards the best cheese in the region with a prize of €30,000. We therefore follow him in his apprenticeship, his adventures and his first romantic emotions.
In her first film, Louise Courvoisier paints the portrait of a youth that we rarely see in the cinema. A “sentimental and cheesy epic», according to his expression, in the form of a rural western, as sunny as it is funny, which takes us through the time of mourning and the ripening of cheese in these beautiful mountain landscapes filmed in cinemascope.
» READ THE REVIEW: “Twenty Gods” by Louise Courvoisier, an initiatory story in the country of the county
♦ Saint-Ex **
by Pablo Agüero
French film, 1h38
In his film, director Pablo Agüero recounts part of the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The latter, then a pilot for Aéropostale in South America, went in search of his mentor Henri Guillaumet, who disappeared while trying to cross the Andes mountain range aboard his plane.
A thousand miles from the biopic, the film is seen as a picture book, where we follow the adventures of Saint-Ex, played by Louis Garrel. To rediscover the imagination of Saint-Exupéry discovered in our childhood, we must let ourselves be carried away by this particular aesthetic. Otherwise, we can completely miss this perhaps a little too stylized evocation of the man and the adventurer.
» READ THE REVIEW: “Saint-Ex” by Pablo Agüero, a poetic evocation of the author of “The Little Prince”
♦ Women on the balcony *
by Noémie Merlant
French film, 1h43
In her feminist feature film, Noémie Merlant features three women, Nicole, Ruby and Élise, who live in the same apartment in Marseille. The first part of the comedy is overflowing with energy and assumed excess, revealing a vibrant sisterhood between the three heroines. But when one of them suffers sexual assault, the film shifts into gore and fantasy.
The scenario then gets lost in bloody and dreamlike detours until it seems bloated. A twist that makes the film lose all its power. Women on the balcony could perhaps have become a trashy standard-bearer of the #MeToo era if it had been tightened around its spine, the unique complicity of these three friends and the vehement denunciation of sexual violence.
» READ THE REVIEW: “Women on the balcony”, Noémie Merlant’s cry of rage
♦ Christmas at Miller's Point *
by Tyler Taormina
American film, 1h46
This film with a banal storyline shares with us the Christmas Eve evening of an Italian-American family. The generations are united and apart from a few elements of the family torments of the moment, this choral film has very little relief. The collection of sketches continues without surprise: bickering cousins, teenagers busy with their video games, snippets of conversations devoid of interest… A feeling of nostalgia permeates the entire film with the surprisingly brown image, crossed with a borrowed Christmas aesthetic to Coca-Cola advertisements from the 1950s. The stereotypes pile up and boredom sets in.
» READ THE REVIEW: “Christmas at Miller's Point” by Tyler Taormina, photos of an American New Year's Eve
No ! * Why not ** Good film *** Very good film **** Masterpiece
