WOMEN IN UNREQUITED LOVE: Movie review of Violette

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Warning: SPOILERS

Violette_1_largeViolette, the new biopic of French feminist writer Violette Ludec (she was a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre and Jean Genet), is a beautiful film to watch. From a technical standpoint, I think anyone would be hard pressed to find much fault with it. The cinematography is gorgeously, if not depressingly, dark; the sets and costumes faithfully rendered; the music score is enticing; the story is never uninteresting.

At the same time, when it was over, I have to be honest and say that I never really had an emotional connection to the title character. Read the rest of this entry »


THE FRENCH THEY ARE A FUNNY RACE: Part Duex, Movies at the Col-Coa Film Festival: 9 Month Stretch and Me, Myself and Mum by Howard Casner

Are you sitting down?

 

9-month-stretch-sandrine-kiberlain-albert-dupontel-nicolas-marieYou maybe ought to be sitting down for this.
You see, there’s this judge. And she’s female. And she doesn’t like men and thinks they are all cowards because of something her father did to her mother, yadda, yadda, yadda. She is all work and no play, doesn’t drink or have sex. And she’s up for a major promotion.
But then on New Year’s Eve, against her better judgment, she lets her colleagues talk her into joining the party. She gets down and boogies; imbibes a bit too, too; leaves the merrymaking ministry in a haze…and six months later discovers she’s pregnant.  And can’t remember how it happened or with whom.
No, no, that’s still not it. Don’t get up yet. You probably should stay seated. Read the rest of this entry »