Por una cabeza
Jan. 22nd, 2020 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiI went to see The Rise of Skywalker between Christmas and New Year; in summary, too formulaic and too much end-of-season Total Bollocks Overdrive.
Last night I went to Reading Film Theatre to see La Belle Époque, which had quite a disturbing opening scene - something along the lines of the Bullingdon Club at the Court of Louis XVI, interrupted by a terrorist attack - quickly revealed to be the latest satirical TV project of Maxime, based on his friend Antoine's business of lavish re-enactment offerings, described as "time travel". Maxime wants his father Victor, an out-of-work cartoonist, to join the project. Victor is disillusioned about modern life in general - in Britain we might well give him a surname like Meldrew - and his marriage is also on the rocks, to the extent that he has been kicked out of the apartment by his wife Marianne and is staying in his friend's apartment ... while his friend has moved in with Marianne.
But meanwhile, Antoine, who was helped as a child by Victor, feels the need to repay a debt and offers Victor a complimentary re-enactment evening of his own. Victor, instead of choosing some historical period with famous figures, selects the evening in 1974 when he first met Marianne. In the re-enactment, Marianne is played by Margot, Antoine's girlfriend. Antoine - clearly suffering from OCD or otherwise "on the spectrum" - micro-manages and directs the scenes, obviously explaining their temperamental relationship.
The whole film consists of so many plays within plays - and from time to time those plays breach their layer and spill over into other realities - that it's hard to keep track, but it is funny, whimsical and moving. The feel-good factor is balanced by the earlier scene showing the potential for the format to turn to the dark side, but the conclusion is inevitable and reached cleverly.
Last night I went to Reading Film Theatre to see La Belle Époque, which had quite a disturbing opening scene - something along the lines of the Bullingdon Club at the Court of Louis XVI, interrupted by a terrorist attack - quickly revealed to be the latest satirical TV project of Maxime, based on his friend Antoine's business of lavish re-enactment offerings, described as "time travel". Maxime wants his father Victor, an out-of-work cartoonist, to join the project. Victor is disillusioned about modern life in general - in Britain we might well give him a surname like Meldrew - and his marriage is also on the rocks, to the extent that he has been kicked out of the apartment by his wife Marianne and is staying in his friend's apartment ... while his friend has moved in with Marianne.
But meanwhile, Antoine, who was helped as a child by Victor, feels the need to repay a debt and offers Victor a complimentary re-enactment evening of his own. Victor, instead of choosing some historical period with famous figures, selects the evening in 1974 when he first met Marianne. In the re-enactment, Marianne is played by Margot, Antoine's girlfriend. Antoine - clearly suffering from OCD or otherwise "on the spectrum" - micro-manages and directs the scenes, obviously explaining their temperamental relationship.
The whole film consists of so many plays within plays - and from time to time those plays breach their layer and spill over into other realities - that it's hard to keep track, but it is funny, whimsical and moving. The feel-good factor is balanced by the earlier scene showing the potential for the format to turn to the dark side, but the conclusion is inevitable and reached cleverly.