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The Spring film programme starts from Wednesday 13th January . The following films have been voted in by our members:
Film details can be found in the programme brochure. All films are screened in the Skerries Sailing Club at 8.30 pm.
Membership forms can be found here.
13th Jan 2010 – The Grocer's Son
France, 96 mins
Dir: Eric Guirado,
Starring: Nicolas Cazalé, Clotilde Hesme, Jeanne Goupil, Daniel Duval and
Stéphan Guérin-Tillié
The lead actors are hot and the living is easy in the French summertime idyll The
Grocer’s Son. Despite more than a few contemporary fairytale elements and extremely
pretty leads and landscapes, the second film from French director Eric Guirado is also
touching and surprisingly honest, with a genuine eye for character and the small battles
of everyday life. As headlined by the excellent Nicolas Cazalé and Clothilde Hesme, this
small story of a grocer’s son’s return to his village of birth to take over his father’s shop
has all the trappings of a potential crowd-pleaser. The film sold almost 300,000 tickets
during its limited summer release in France.
Nicolas Cazalé is well cast as Antoine, the 30-year-old bum who left for the big city ten
years ago but is forced to go back to the French mountain town of his birth when his
father (Daniel Duval) has a heart attack and the family's grocery shop and only livelihood
would otherwise need to close. After having quit his umpteenth job as a waiter in the city
and upon his brother François’s (Stéphan Guérin-Tillié) insistence he finally give the
family a hand, Antoine arrives at home, where his mother (Jeanne Goupil) is the only
one who seems remotely happy to have him back in town.
Travelling with Antoine is Claire (Clothilde Hesme), a bubbly and pretty girl from the city
who feels she could use some peace and quiet in the country to prepare for her
upcoming exams. Like many of the story’s elements, Guirado and co-screenwriter
Florence Vignon take a slightly different route with this boy-girl set-up than the expected
bucolic love story (though through some shrewd plotting they get some of that, too).
Antoine in fact has feelings for Claire, but she is a free spirit who is glad to help him out
on his rounds of the mountain villages with the shop's smaller cousin, a shop on wheels,
but she remains non-committal. The fact that they don’t know each other all that well
also offers some opportunities for unexpected humour, such as a dinner table
conversation during which Antoine discovers that despite her young age, Claire was
once married. "Shit happens," is her laconic comment.
Guirado hit on the subject of his second film after making a series of documentaries for
television about people who hit the road for their jobs. Without making a point of it, The
Grocer’s Son clearly shows that even in the age of the internet and mobile phones
isolated villages and especially the older inhabitants still rely on something as simple as
a grocer coming by regularly for their daily needs. As Antoine discovers, this does not
only mean selling them bread, butter and eggs but also helping them out in all kinds of
other ways, which incidentally gives Guirado some more opportunities for some gently
comic scenes.
Despite some small plot contrivances -- notably one involving an envelope containing
Claire’s mock exams and the fact that the state of Antoine’s father’s health conveniently
runs parallel to the demands of the plot -- and the somewhat obvious combination of
landscapes with rolling hills and pretty guitar music, the overall effect is one of a small
and optimistic film that is somehow never unrealistic. Credit the screenplay and the
luminous actors for making The Grocer’s Son a small but nevertheless delicious summer
treat. - Boyd Van Hoelj, European Films
27th Jan 2010 – Blue Eyelids
Mexico, 98 mins
Dir: Ernesto Contreras,
Starring: Cecilia Suárez, Enrique Arreola, Ana Ofelia Murguía, Tiaré Scanda, Luisa
Huertas
Boy-meets-girl is the oldest story in the cinema, and yet this gem of a film from Mexico shows that it can always be made to live again. Ernesto Contreras's debut feature finds its own kind of heightened, dreamy realism, a kind that skirts the frontier of reverie and hallucination in one direction, and that of gloomy disillusion in another; but it is always down to earth on the most down-to-earth of subjects: love, sex, loneliness and the dating game. The tone is seductively elusive: mysterious and serio-comic and yet with a robust kind of frankness about what is at stake for each party on beginning a relationship Cecilia Suárez gives a tremendous performance as Marina, who works at a garment factory making uniforms for maids, nurses, air stewards, etc; owned by Lulita (Ana Ofelia Murguía), a somewhat autocratic old lady with a penchant for tiny caged birds.
Contreras brings these creatures into metaphorical alignment with timid Marina, emphatically enough to let us suspect, for a moment, that Marina is a dream the old woman is having about her younger self. Marina wins a prize in an office competition rather grandly sponsored by Lulita: a luxury beach holiday for two. But she has no one to go with, and it at this moment that she is accosted in a cafe by Victor, played by Enrique Arreola, who claims to be an old school friend. For the life of her, Marina cannot remember Victor at all - and yet he seems pleasant and personable, and Marina's prize has brought to a crisis the question of her own loneliness. Might Victor be a candidate for her holiday? Tentatively, they begin going out.
Blue Eyelids is great at showing the pure awkwardness of the first date. Happy and excited, Marina and Victor go dancing at a nightclub, but there is a mix-up over their table and some drinks they ordered, and the atmosphere suddenly goes sour and even desolate, like a mysterious chemical reaction. On such tiny things turns the mood of a fledgling romance: it is so delicate and vulnerable, and yet it is precisely this volatility and insubstantiality that makes it liable to alchemise into something blissful. Victor and Marina are two people who know next to nothing about each other, and perhaps not much more about themselves, and they are on the verge of a great risk. What a humane treat this lovely little film is: a pinsharp cine-poem of romance.
- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Winner - Special Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2008
10th Feb 2010 – The Girl Cut In Two (Fille coupée en deux, La)
France, 118 mins
Dir: Claude Chabrol,
Starring: Ludivine Sagnier, Francois Berleand, Benoit Magimel, Mathilda May, Caroline Sihol, Etienne Chicot, Marie Bunel, Valeria Cavalli, Thomas Chabrol, Jeremie Chaplain, Jean-Marie Winling, Didier Benureau, Edouard Baer
The old master’s touch is certainly evident in this latest missile elegantly lobbed in the direction of the French class system, which, as the title suggests, follows the travails of an innocent young woman torn between two powerfully different lovers. Ludivine Sagnier, a seductive screen presence in François Ozon’s Swimming Pool, here shows another facet of her talent, ambitious yet also tragically naïve as a wannabe social climber with terrible taste in men. Firstly, she finds herself falling for famed author François Berléand, a greying roué who exploits his literary-celebrity status while using her as a plaything, and only later does Benoît Magimel enter the frame as the petulant heir to a pharmaceuticals fortune. She thinks she’s manipulating them, but, alas, it soon becomes apparent that the reverse is true.
Of course, there’s exquisitely skewed comedy of manners here, since we can see disaster looming a mile off, yet also an undertow of suspense as Chabrol carefully controls the string of revelations which agonisingly morph romantic misapprehensions into the stuff of tragedy. The central trio are note-perfect in their roles, yet, arguably, the film’s main pleasure is its fuss-free storytelling, which sketches in characters and situations with unfailing, utterly assured economy. When you’re this good, you just don’t need to show off. — Trevor Johnston, Irish Film Institute programme
24th Feb 2010 – 35 Shots of Rum (35 rhums)
France/Germany, 100 mins
Dir: Claire Denis,
Starring: Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Gregoire Colin, Nicole Dogue
A small, subtle film whose very simplicity makes it a winner, 35 Shots of Rum describes a father and daughter’s love for each other, as the time for the girl to leave the parental nest grows near. Claire Denis, not always an easy director, is in top form here directing an almost all-black cast with grace and delicacy. This is French art house cinema at its unpretentious best; one can only ponder why it was screened out of competition in Venice.
The story takes its time opening on a long, wordless train sequence as Lionel (Alex Descas) and Jo (Mati Diop) make their separate ways home after work. Their tender relationship is evident as they share a meal in their cramped apartment on the far outskirts of Paris. They are on close terms with neighbours Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué), a taxi driver with a long-standing crush on widower Lionel, and Noé (Gregoire Colin), a cool-looking guy with a cat who is often away on business. The love story between Jo and Noe is so understated it’s barely visible, until the whole gang heads off to a concert
together and, while they dance in a bar, their feelings are revealed in front of Jo’s father. An excellent cast fills in the blanks of the slight storyline, making more narrative superfluous. It is almost a shock when, toward the end, something out of the ordinary happens: Jo and Lionel take a trip to Germany to visit the grave of the dead mother and stop by to see Jo’s self-centered aunt (Ingrid Caven.) The scene comes late to delve into the past, but it does make an original bridge to the film’s typically understated conclusion.
Descas is a monument to paternal dignity as he gently, and against his feelings, pushes the reluctant Jo out of their comfortable life together. At the same time he confronts his own aging as he sees his life as a train conductor reflected in the unhappy retirement of his friend René (Julieth Mars.) Colin, flaunting the impish charm of a French Johnny Depp, makes a fine pair with Diop, the soap-and-water girl next door with the serious eyes. A modern soundtrack performed by the Tindersticks matches Agnès Godard’s stylish cinematography. - Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter
10th Mar 2010 – Fermat's Room (La habitación de Fermat)
Spain, 88 mins
Dir: Luis Piedrahita & Rodrigo Sopeña,
Starring: Federico Luppi, Lluís Homar, Alejo Sauras, Santi Millán, Elena Ballesteros
It can't be easy to make such a twisty and clever a thriller based on mathematical theories. But Spanish filmmakers Piedrahita and Sopeña do a terrific job keeping things tense and brainy. And thoroughly entertaining.
Sexy young Galois (Sauras) wows the girls at university with his maths prowess. Is this a fantasy sequence dreamed up by a computer geek? No, he's one of four experts invited to an isolated location, given mathematician names and told they'll be solving the biggest enigma ever. The others are Hilbert (Homar), a 64-year-old gentleman; Pascal (Millan), a beardy quick-thinker; and Oliva (Ballesteros), a scooter-riding babe with brains. Their host, Fermat (Luppi), is called away suddenly, leaving the foursome with a riddle. And the walls are closing in.
Fortunately, instead of obscure formulas, the puzzles are tricky brainteasers, which means we can play along with the characters without feeling left too far out in the cold. And with the room shrinking, things start getting extremely tense, especially when the furniture starts splintering around them. As this is happening, they're also trying to solve the bigger question of why they're here in the first place, including an attempt to unravel the connections between them and Fermat's true identity.
And as the room squeezes in and conundrums keep coming, there are a remarkable number of revelations. The four characters react very differently to all of this; some use brains to figure out alternatives, others try brute force and at one point Galois combines the two with an engineering solution. But the walls relentlessly keep moving, and the biggest enigma may turn out to be how to survive this crazy day.
This is played coolly by the cast, with likeable wit that's realistically grounded. And the filmmakers establish a brilliant visual style with unusual, telling angles that make great use of lines, proportions and numbers. There are also scenes outside the room, as we
follow Fermat on his own journey. One convenient plot point provides the only false note; otherwise the film keeps us gasping or laughing at this playful bundle of mystery, hints,
innuendo and lots of red herrings. And it's great fun to figure out what's what. - Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall
24th Mar 2010 – Coco Before Chanel (Coco avant Chanel)
France, 105 mins
Dir: Anne Fontaine,
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos, Régis Royer, Etienne Bartholomeus, Yan Duffas
Spectacle, a love triangle, heritage settings, bravura acting, witty dialogue, a bittersweet finale: There's something for everyone in Anne Fontaine's Coco Before Chanel. There also is -- not the least of the movie's pleasures -- the sense of a keen intelligence marshaling and shaping the material, shunning cliche and sentimentality and creating meaning out of what for once is not the standard biopic procedure of ticking off the boxes in a celebrity CV.
Fontaine's focus is on Chanel's formative years just before World War I, the transition from the modest, virtually peasant background of her childhood to the world of fashion and haute couture that she came to revolutionize. The young Gabrielle (Audrey Tautou), or Coco as she soon became known, meets and moves in with the wealthy racehorse owner Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), leading the life of a courtesan, resenting her dependence, keeping a tight rein on her emotions and all the time observing and learning from the elevated circles in which she finds herself. She is befriended by another of Balsan's many mistresses, the actress Emilienne (Emmanuelle Devos), who encourages her to develop her talents and strike out on her
own. She then finds love in the shape of Arthur "Boy" Capel (the U.S.-born Alessandro Nivola), an English businessman who steals her from under Balsan's nose and finally sets her up in business.
The love story is engagingly done, but Fontaine's core interest is in showing how Coco becomes Chanel, in pointing out the markers along the path that led a penniless young woman, with no resources other than her inner strength, to become a key figure in shaping contemporary tastes in style and design.
Tautou fully inhabits the role of Coco, her face a mask as if her character has yet to determine which identity she is to assume, sexually as much as socially. The flamboyant Balsan, by contrast, appears to be all of a piece -- Poelvoorde is excellent, stealing many of the scenes he appears in -- but Fontaine shows that his force-of-nature persona too is a mask, concealing deeper vulnerabilities. Coco is Fontaine's first venture into costume drama, but her portrayal of a woman
making her way in a perilous prefeminist world is wholly convincing. Alexandre Desplat's score is tasteful and unobtrusive and the period detail impeccable. - Bernard Besserglik, Hollywood Reporter
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