The new French Film Festival may have a leaner organisation but it has made no sacrifices in its programme, says Dan Slevin.
(Preval) Jacques Gambin and his wife Philomène (Laetitia Casta) in The Ideal Palace. Photo: French Film Festival
In August last year film media were dismayed to receive notification of the deferral of the annual French Film Festival. It had become a significant fixture in the calendar, providing access to lots of French (and French language) commercial cinema, returning gems from previous International Film Festivals, a smattering of classics, the occasional guest and a general sense of cinematic bonhomie.
Now, less than a year later and pretty much on schedule for when you would have expected it to appear, we have a new version of the festival featuring a stripped down organisation, support (but not ownership) from the Alliance Française, and an utterly not-stripped down programme. In a sensible move, the organisers have taken advantage of the flexibility of digital film delivery to have all thirteen locations run the festival during the same fortnight which ought to be efficient for marketing costs at least.
On the surface, the programme is as strong as ever and I have had a chance to preview a couple of titles (plus one return from NZIFF 2018) to help me confirm. French filmmakers love their history (and they love their bucolic stories) so L’incroyable histoire du Facteur Cheval fits the bill. In south-eastern France in the late 19th century, a shy country postman (who may have been on the Asperger’s spectrum) started constructing a building in his spare time. It was to be a “palace” for his daughter – An Ideal Palace (the English title of the film).
Photo: French Film Festival
Inspired by world architecture he had seen in postcards and building entirely by hand using rocks and stones found on his daily postal route, Cheval took 33 years to complete his marvellous, naïve, piece of architecture. Once finished, when he asked if he could be buried inside it the authorities said no so he spent another eight years building a mausoleum for himself in the local cemetery. Like the Palace itself, the film is a slow starter but grows on you inexorably, helped by delightful performances from Jacques Gamblin as Cheval and all of the young actresses who play his daughter Alice.
Girls of the Sun (Les filles du soleil) is an urgent antidote to anyone who thinks that French cinema is just a boring rehash of the same old characters and situations – middle-class angst, middle-age crisis. Inspired by the shocking true stories of the more than 7,000 Kurdish women and girls who were captured by Isis in Iraq and then either treated as spoils of war or sold into slavery and traded amongst themselves or others taking advantage. Many of these women, if they were lucky enough to be saved, joined the Kurdish independence fighters and fought against their previous captors.
Kurdish women freedom fighters (led by Golshifteh Farahani) in Girls of the Sun. Photo: Vendetta
Written and directed by Eva Husson – 2015’s Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) – this film doesn’t have that kind of stylised storytelling. Girls of the Sun tells you how it is, sometimes more than once, and usually at length. If you can get past the early exposition and the slightly rocky flashback structure, you’ll find a deeply felt film about women that – thanks to the complexities of modern geo-politics – have not had their stories told widely enough. I do feel that Husson and her filmmaking collaborators are so keen to do these women justice that the film becomes too heavy to take flight – except for an extended flashback where a group of kidnapped women are ‘exfiltrated’ with the help of some sympathetic locals during a brief period while their Isis kidnappers are at afternoon prayers. I could have handled a whole film, just about that if I’m honest.
The éminence-grise of European cinema, the Franco-Swiss master Jean-Luc Godard, last came to our attention by being unnecessarily dickish to the lovely Agnès Varda in Faces Places. In that film, he was an important presence in her life who left a note on his door saying he didn’t want to be a part of her film. Whether he was demonstrating genuine irascibility or playing along with her own narrative we may never know. He doesn’t give many interviews and, at the age of 88, he probably doesn’t have to.
Photo: French Film Festival
But he still makes the most challenging, stimulating and confounding film anywhere and his most recent, The Image Book, is a perfect example. A low-resolution collage of old film clips, found tape footage, digital artefacts and an often penetrating soundtrack, the film reveals Godard to be as experimental, challenging, intellectually rigorous and – yes, playful – as any young art student.
I saw this with a few other hardy souls at the New Zealand International Film Festival last year and it was an almost overwhelming experience. It’s like reading an essay that’s so full of references and allusions that you want to keep stopping to look things up, except Godard’s insistence on a big-screen experience prevents that. You just have to let it wash all over you. It’s not for the faint-hearted but it is pure modern cinema.
The restored classic featured in this year’s festival is Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad from 1961, one of those films that invented arthouse for western audiences. Enigmatic, obtuse and, dare I say it, baffling, it’s a bucket list picture for serious cinephiles.
The 2019 French Film Festival opens in Wellington with a gala screening at the Embassy theatre and plays in 13 centres across New Zealand until 27 March. Details at frenchfilmfestival.co.nz.
