Canadian Film Review: An Eye for Beauty (2014)

* *
Director: Denys Arcand
Starring: Eric Bruneau, Melanie Mercosky, Melanie Thierry, Marie-Josée Croze

Beautiful people doing ugly things in beautiful locations. An Eye for Beauty, the latest from Canadian master Denys Arcand, will give you a serious case of house envy, but inspires little beyond that. A listless drama about the emotional destruction wrought by an affair, Arcand reunites with actress Marie-Josée Croze for the first time since 2003's The Barbarian Invasions, for which she won Best Actress and he Best Screenplay at Cannes, and then gives her nearly nothing to do, which is a particular shame since she's always the most interesting person on screen whenever she appears. A rare misstep for Arcand, An Eye for Beauty is as emotionally empty as it is gorgeously photographed.

Canadian Film Review: Ararat (2002)

* * * 1/2
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Arsinee Khanjian, David Alpay, Christopher Plummer, Marie-Josée Croze

What is truth and is it so delicate that it can be lost in the telling? Many of Atom Egoyan’s films center around this idea, the concept that truth can never quite be absolute, that it shifts according to perspective and is sometimes lost completely. Ararat is no different and is perhaps Egoyan’s most intense attempt to engage with that idea. Centering on the Armenian genocide which, depending on who you ask, did or did not happen, Ararat is an intricate and moving film.

Canadian Film Review: Maelstrom (2000)

* * * 1/2
Director:Denis Villeneuve
Starring:Marie-Josée Croze

Some movies (and books and albums, etc.) have a time-release effect so that it isn't until a while after you've seen them that you really start to feel their impact. I liked Maelstrom when I was watching it - it's imaginative and well-made, not to mention superbly acted - but it wasn't until after I'd had some time to think about it (I couldn't stop thinking about it, to be honest) that I really started to "get" it. Writer-director Denis Villeneuve made Polytechnique, one of my favourite films from 2009, and is the man behind Incendies, a film from this year that I'm very much looking forward to seeing. I think I'd better start catching up on his earlier work.

Maelstrom announces itself pretty much immediately as a weirdo-indie art film, focusing in its opening moments on a soon-to-be-gutted fish who will act as our narrator. The story he has to tell centers on Bibiane (Marie-Josée Croze), who is steadily succumbing to the pressures in her life, which include a recent abortion and the legacy of her famous mother. She drowns her sorrows in drugs and alcohol and sex, but her hard partying is catching up to her. One night she hits a man with her car and flees the scene. The man dies as a result of his injuries and Bibiane's life spirals further out of control as she attempts to cover up her crime. This eventually leads to her driving her car into a river, after which she comes to the conclusion that her survival is a sign that she's been given a second chance.

Though she's decided to move on, she can't quite tame her curiosity about the man she killed, which leads to her meeting his son, Evian (Jean-Nicolas Verreault). They fall in love but her guilt weighs on her and when the truth comes out, their relationship comes to a crossroads. At different times, and in their darkest hours, both Bibiane and Evian encounter a man who tells them that if no one else knows the truth - either that Bibiane has killed someone or that Evian has fallen in love with the person who killed his father - what difference does it really make? It's the tree falling in the woods version of morality.

Villeneuve constructs this story in a very tight, closed-in kind of way. Everything that happens - even the most seemingly minor detail - matters and the narrative is constantly folding itself back to show all the little connections that have served to tie Bibiane and Evian together since long before their actual meeting. The device of having the fish be the narrator might seem a little precious at first, but it gives the story a magic realist tone that helps keep it from sinking to the darkest depths (which it easily could, given the things that happen through the course of the story). All in all, the screenplay is very strong and Villeneuve's direction helps keep it moving along at an efficient and effective pace.

The driving force of the film, however, is Croze who delivers an extraordinary performance. She plays Bibiane at the height of intensity from beginning to end, but she never goes over the edge and into overacting territory. Her scenes with Verreault are captivating, following the pair as she tries to contain her guilt and as it finally gets the better of her and she must confess. It all leads to a very strong ending to what is, overall, a very strong film.

Review: Tell No One (2008)

* * * 1/2
Director: Guillaume Canet
Starring: Francois Cluzet, Kristin Scott Thomas, Marie-Josée Croze

My reaction to most of Tell No One can be summed up in pretty much three words: Wait, what? Oh. This is to say, the plot is convoluted. It twists and turns and comes around then goes back again and even at the end, when everything is explained and wrapped up nicely, you can’t help but wonder if something is still missing, if maybe it wrapped up a little too nicely. It’s an effective mystery/thriller and with all that twisting and turning, it’s astonishing that it never goes off the rails.

The film begins in the French countryside where Alex Beck and his wife Margot (Marie-Josee Croze) are enjoying a romantic getaway. One night they go swimming and have a fight. Margot returns to the house and moments later Alex hears her screaming. He goes after her but is knocked out and spends three days in a coma during which Margot's body is found, the victim of a serial killer. Eight years later, long after the investigation and trial of the supposed killer, questions remain, particularly the question of how Alex, who was knocked out while climbing out of the water and fell back into it, dragged himself up onto the dock while comatose.

Two bodies are found buried nearby the country house and the discovery leads to more evidence, more questions, as far as the police are concerned. Alex, too, has questions. He’s been receiving mysterious emails which lead him to believe that Margot is, in fact, alive and the closer he looks into the details of her death, the more convinced he becomes that it was faked as part of an elaborate plot. For obvious reasons, I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot because discovering it in all its intricate – albeit somewhat “soapy” – glory is part of the reward of watching the film. I will say that in the course of unraveling the mystery, there’s a really great chase sequence that, unlike a lot of movie chase sequences, actually seems to take a toll on the protagonist.

The story, based on a novel by Harlan Coben and adapted by Guillaume Canet, is well constructed. It manages to give the audience nuggets of information here and there – some of it false, some of it true – without tipping the whole thing and making the conclusion obvious. It takes time to lay a solid foundation for the mystery to stand on, tossing out bits of information which at first seem to be of little importance but help to illuminate much of what we discover later. For example, pay close attention to the fight that Alex and Margot have at the beginning of the film because it ties directly to a revelation near the end.

The film suffers, somewhat, from having a villain who comes directly from stock but, truthfully, the villain doesn’t play much of a role in the story. It’s more a Hitchcockian wrong man forced to go on the run story and the focus is very much on the protagonist and his efforts to clear his name and discover the truth. He’s aided in this by his sister, Anne (Marina Hands), her wife, Helene (Kristen Scott Thomas), the lawyer they hire to defend him and, eventually, one of the police officers investigating the situation who thinks that, maybe, Alex looks a little too guilty and that that’s the clearest sign of his innocence. All the players are well-cast and I particularly liked Scott Thomas, whose character is Alex’s confidante in addition to being his sister-in-law. The character could easily have been forgettable, given that she spends most of the film simply acting as a sounding board for Alex’s theories, but Scott Thomas lends her a commanding presence that ensures her importance to the story as a whole.

All told, this is a very engaging and robust film. I don’t know that the final shot, which veers a little far into sentimentality, does the film any favors, although I suppose that it fits with the dreamy quality of the opening moments. I’m still convinced that I’m missing something, though that may be because some of the elements which seem like throwaways actually are (if anyone can tell me what purpose is served by Helene’s comment that Anne thinks she’s having an affair, I’d appreciate it because as far as I can tell that never comes up again and is there simply for the sake of detail).

Canadian Film Review: The Barbarian Invasions (2003)

Director: Denys Arcand
Starring: Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau, Marie-Josée Croze

The Barbarian Invasions is a film so delightful and charming that you forgive it for the clichés on which its story hangs. There are a lot of things about the film you’ve probably seen before: a group of old friends reuniting and both celebrating and lamenting the way their lives have changed; the libertarian father and his distant, conservative son who is determined to be nothing like him; the Casanova whose former lovers come together, in this case to give him a proper send off. But, these familiar elements are perhaps a credit, rather than a debit to the film. We feel instantly comfortable in this world, as if we know these people – and that’s how the film gets to you.

The film begins with Rémy (Girard), a college professor on his deathbed. We are made immediately to understand that he’s had a… colourful love life as we watch his latest lover berate him for his history of infidelity. Rémy knows he doesn’t have much time left and doesn’t bother much in the way of an apology. He knows who he is and what he’s done, and he’s made peace with it even if she hasn’t. As the film progresses, his ex-wife, two of his former lovers and a couple of his lifelong friends will join him to spend his final days in reminiscence. Also on hand, albeit reluctantly, is his son Sébastian (Rousseau). Sébastian, who has always resented Rémy’s laisser-faire attitude towards relationships is determined to be different from his father, is determined, in fact, to have nothing to do with his father until some intervention on the part of his mother. Sébastian is shocked when he arrives at the hospital and the film is, at least in part, a condemnation of the Canadian health care system, which is presented here as overburdened and unorganized.

Sébastian goes about trying to make Rémy more comfortable, first by bribing someone at the hospital so that he can move Rémy to a floor that has been left entirely vacant after renovations, and then by bribing some of Rémy’s students into visiting him, making him believe that he’s made an impact on their lives. Sébastian does these things less out of love for his father than out of a need to do something, anything, to control this situation which leaves him feeling so powerless. He further takes control by bypassing traditional medicine, which has lost its effect on Rémy, to find something to ease his pain. A nurse suggests heroin, which Sébastian procures through Nathalie (Croze), the daughter of Rémy’s friend/ex-lover. Croze is wonderful as Nathalie, warning Sébastian from the outset that he shouldn’t trust a heroin addict to be reliable (a point she later proves) and later shooting up with Rémy.

This is a very conversational film, which is part of its charm because these people are so good at talking. They talk about art and politics, about love and sex, and they do so in such a way that you believe that these people have been drifting in and out of each other’s lives for decades. There are stories told in the film that seem to have nothing to do with the narrative – one friend tells of a meeting with an ex-girlfriend, Rémy tells a story about visiting China and attempting to flirt with a beautiful woman by praising the Communist government, only to discover that that system has led to much suffering on her part – but which nevertheless fit so well with the film as a whole. This is a film that not only acknowledges that its characters have thoughts and ideas and read books, but pauses to listen to them talk these things out.

The performances in the film are excellent across the board, especially those of Girard, as the dying man coming to terms with a life lived to its fullest, and Croze, as the damaged woman hurtling towards her own destructive end. The film ends on a note that is ambiguous, but also perhaps appropriate. There’s been some suggestion that Nathalie’s troubles are rooted in part by the hedonistic lifestyle that was enjoyed by her mother (and Rémy, and the others like them) when she was growing up. The film ends with her and Sébastian sharing a moment that you begin anticipating as soon as they meet. To get involved might destroy Sébastian (or, at least, his image of himself), but it might be Nathalie’s salvation. Life can be messy that way, and we don’t know for sure what will develop from this brief encounter. But to end on that note, with this loose end left untied, is the best way for a film like this to conclude because it suggests that life carries on, which is what The Barbarian Invasions has been trying to convey to us from the very beginning.