Potiche **

Director: François Ozon

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini

Karin Viard, Jérémie Renier, Judith Godrèche

Watching Catherine Deneuve act is one of those things that ultimately can only be called: a pleasure. The way in which she takes hold of the screen with her majestic beauty to deliver uncharacteristically quirky but always marvelous performances, is one of the reasons why anything starring her is an instant must watch.

In Potiche she receives yet another chance to shine on her own terms. She plays Suzanne Pujol, the wife of a wealthy umbrella-factory owner (Luchini) who goes from being a mere "potiche" (French for flower vase and trophy wife) to running her husband's company and eventually finding that she might just be made for politics.

What could've been a forced enlightenment melodrama is instead a whimsical tale about families and creating your identity despite being labeled by others. As usual Ozon lets his flair for the dramatic get the best of him and the movie, which is set in the 1970s, uses some stylistic flourishes that distract from the main plot and the film never really decides if it wants to be whimsical or more character centric.

The supporting cast is extraordinary, Depardieu in particular who has great chemistry with Deneuve but with such an uneven screenplay it's difficult to know exactly what the movie is trying to achieve which makes its twists seem arbitrary and rather ridiculous at times. Ozon can master farce when he wants to but Potiche leaves much to be desired.

The Ten Movies That Defined My Decade.

9. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)

"Why do I love it so much?
What kind of magic is this?

How come I can't help adore it?
It's just another musical

No one minds it at all
If I'm having a ball
This is a musical"

-from "In the Musicals" by Björk

I had never seen a movie like "Dancer in the Dark" before I popped in the DVD that fateful day more than eight years ago.
Before it I thought that musicals were limited to being grand scale epics in Technicolor where everyone was a tune away from a happy ending.
Of course I'd seen "West Side Story", "Cabaret" and the likes, but even in their tragic finales there is always an ethereal beauty that at least leaves you with some hope.
But this one destroyed me.
I couldn't believe what poor Selma Ježková (Björk) had just gone through. A degenerative disease, a son who had inherited it, extreme poverty, a wrongful trial for helping a friend and the biggest evil of all was her extreme goodness.
How could we live in a world where good people suffered the most and how dare a movie not give them the happy ending they so obviously deserved?
Then again I obviously had no idea who Lars von Trier was. "Dancer in the Dark" opened up my eyes to someone who has become one of my favorite working directors.
His ability to be both irreverent and moving has fascinated me ever since. I now owe him some of the most memorable movie watching experiences of my life (I sat frozen in my seat after watching "Dogville" a few years later and am still uncovering the different layers hidden in "Antichrist").
I also owe this movie my endless love for Björk. Before this I liked some of her work, but just thought of her as the kooky woman in the weird "Ren & Stimpy" like video that had disturbed me so much as a kid.
But after watching how she committed with Selma I was astounded someone could give such a raw performance, I remember clearly thinking she had been inspired by Falconetti's performance in "The Passion of Joan of Arc" and how like her she would only deliver one medium changing performance.
Von Trier as I learned is definitely not for everyone, but those who give in to his vision are never unrewarded.
To this day his ability to push cinema forward, challenge our notions and extract brilliant performances out of his tortured muses is music to my ears.

"So lovely it's painful..."

A Christmas Tale ***1/2

Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon
Anne Consigny, Mathieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud
Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Chiara Mastroianni
Laurent Capelluto, Emile Berling, Thomas Obled, Clément Obled

Junon Vuillard (a truly splendid Deneuve) has been diagnosed with a form of degenerative cancer, she needs a bone marrow transplant that might aid her or kill her.
Her husband Abel (Roussillon moving and warm) invites their whole family to come together for the first time in years and celebrate the holidays. But this brings trouble with the return of the prodigal son Henri (Amalric who is brilliant) who was banished years before by his older sister Elizabeth (Consigny) who's dealing with her son Paul's (Berling) suicide attempt.
There's also an uncomfortable love triangle between their youngest brother Ivan (Poupaud), his wife Sylvia (a sparkling Mastroianni) and their cousin Simon (Capelluto). Plus Henri's new girlfriend Faunia (Devos who injects the film with a delightful sort of selfaware humor) who is Jewish and refuses to participate in Christian celebrations.
With as much balls as patience, director Desplechin puts all these people under the same roof, along with their feuds, secrets, genetic troubles, illnesses and inner demons, for the space of four days with some brilliant, unexpected results.
"A Christmas Tale" could've easily turned into one of the following: the rehearsal for a reality show, one of those quirky dysfunctional family dramas that rely heavily on eccentricity or one of those sappy American dramas where forgiveness and enlightenment come to the melody of Bing Crosby.
What this film turns out to be is something quite different; an amalgam of sorts of film styles, self conscious references, acting methods, moods, colors and emotions, something that sounds chaotic but actually makes more sense than it should and feels right because it manages to represent the tension that arises whenever families come together.
Sometimes it feels as if Desplechin himself doesn't want for these people to solve their problems (which he probably never intended to do), because instead of uniting their themes, he stresses out how different they are.
Therefore Consigny's scenes, some of which involve an analyst, feel extracted from a Bergman play, Poupaud's have picaresque Truffaut strokes, Amalric's seem to be have been written by Moliére on steroids and a particular scene involving Devos and Deneuve practically screams Hitchcock.
He grabs them, splits them in unorthodox ways, puts them together like he wishes, breaks the fourth wall constantly and even has time to include flashbacks, shadow theater, a wonderful Angela Bassett reference, Charlton Heston shouting in French and an improvised play before dinner. How this odes to individuality play together beautifully like a choir is one of the many miracles in Desplechin's Christmas.