I had always meant to watch Au revoir les enfants, by Louis Malle, but it seemed like one of those "art" movies that might be a bit pretentious or tedious. So it was a revelation to watch it the other evening, as it is a great, great movie, one that leaves you changed after you've seen it. It's based on Malle's memories of an event at a Catholic boys school where he was a student, in France in 1943. Three new students had been enrolled, and Malle's alter ego, Julien, made friends with one of them, a boy named Jean. As it turns out, the school's headmaster, Pere Jacques de Jesus, was providing refuge for the three boys, who were Jewish. A disgruntled kitchen helper named Joseph, who is resentful of the boys at the school because they are well-to-do, informs on the three boys, and the Gestapo raids the school. By a mere glance, Julien unintentionally reveals that Jean is one of the Jewish students. The three students and Pere de Jesus are taken away and killed in death camps. As Pere de Jesus leaves, he bids farewell to the students: "Goodbye, children. See you soon."

No matter how much you know about the Holocaust, at a certain level it is still hard to fathom how it happened. This film shows you one of the mechanisms. French society was rife with anti-semitism. The particular Germans shown in this film are pretty decent; it's the French who are the "heavies." The resentment of the kitchen helper, who had been disciplined by Pere de Jesus for petty theft, was enough to turn him against the three boys and to take malicious pleasure in sending them to their terrible fate.

This is a memory told with crystalline clarity and beauty. It removes any distance we may feel from a long past historic event, and replaces it with palpable reality. Perhaps Louis Malle made it to atone for what had to be a terrible, shocking moment in his young life. In the movie, as the narrator, he says "More than 40 years have passed, but I'll remember every second of that January morning until the day I die."

In French, with subtitles.

2012 Academy Awards Nominations Best Picture

The Artist--Jean DuJardin *

The Descendants--George Clooney

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--Tom Hanks *

The Help--Viola Davis

Hugo--Chloe Grace Moretz

Midnight in Paris--Owen Wilson

Moneyball--Brad Pitt

The Tree of Life--Brad Pitt

War Horse--Jeremy Irvine *

2012 Academy Award  Nominations

Adventures of Tintin --Best original score

Anonymous--Best costume design

Beginners--Best supporting actor -Christopher Plummer

A Better Life--Best actor-- Demian Bichir

Bridesmaids--Best supporting actress--Melissa McCarthy

                       Best original screenplay

Drive--Best sound editing

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--Best actress-- Rooney Mara

                                                Best cinematography

                                                Best editing

                                                Best sound mixing

                                                Best sound editing

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2--Best art direction

                                                              Best makeup

                                                              Best visual effects

The Ides of March--Best adapted screenplay

The Iron Lady*--Best actress--Meryl Streep

                             Best makeup

Jane Eyre--Best costume design

Kung Fu Panda 2--Best animated film

Margin Call--Best original screenplay

The Muppets--Best original song

My Week with Marilyn--Best actress--Michelle Williams

                                          Best supporting-- actor Kenneth Branagh

Rango--Best animated film

Real Steel--Best visual effects

Rio--Best original song

Rise of the Planet of the Apes--Best visual effects

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy--Best actor--Gary Oldman

                                              Best adapted screenplay

                                              Best original score

Transformers: Dark of the Moon--Best sound mixing

                                                         Best sound editing

                                                         Best visual effects

Warrior--Best supporting actor-- Nick Nolte

*Still in theaters, not yet released on DVD

I hesitated as to whether to review The Mill & the Cross, because while it is one of the most beautiful and unique movies I have ever seen, it asks a lot of the viewer. It has a slow and meditative pace, and sometimes I found myself wondering what was going on, and towards the very end, to be honest, I was yawning. But it also gives a lot to the viewer, and I found myself thinking about it for days afterwards. Director Lech Majewski takes us into a painting by Flemish master Pieter Bruegel the Elder, called "The Way to Calvary." It was painted in 1564 during a time of turmoil when the King of Spain was sending mercenaries into Flanders to persecute Protestants. The canvas is populated with 500 figures, most of whom are peasants simply going about their ordinary lives. But, meanwhile, Christ is being crucified, and Bruegel conflates the sufferings of Christ with the sufferings of the peasants.

There is little dialogue in the movie, and most of the characters are nameless, with only Rutger Hauer, as Bruegel, Michael York, as Nicholas Johnhelinck, a collector of paintings, and Charlotte Rampling, as Bruegel's wife, who posed for his portraits of Mother Mary, emerging as identifiable characters. But this isn't a narrative--it's a world we are being drawn into, and it is the extraordinary visuals that transfix us. It's to see the most beautiful late Renaissance painting come to life--suddenly, the donkeys start plodding, the children start playing, and the mercenaries begin erecting the cross. We are drawn into the lives of these people, and learn that the red-coated men on horseback are the Spanish mercenaries. Up on the rock, is the windmill, where God, in the form of the miller, surveys all and "grinds the bread of life." At any rate, it's like watching a vivid dream, and if you are up for something completely different . . . here it is!

The above synopsis makes Moolaadé sound impossibly grim, and the subject--of female circumcision--strikes most westerners as repellent. The genius of the film is that it is anything but grim, and seems instead like a magical African fairy tale. There is a young prince (the son of the local tribal chief, returned from Europe), a fair damsel (the beautiful daughter of Colle), and an assortment of gremlins, witches, and ogres. The village itself has a fairy tale quality, with its walled compounds, drum-shaped storage buildings, and its 150-year-old mosque, bristling like a porcupine with wooden stakes.

Part of the charm of the movie is that Sembene takes the time to show us life in the village in a way that is tender and loving: he shows us the scampering baby goats, the mother guinea hens and their chicks, the village mothers washing their struggling babies, and even the little toads hopping by a drainspout. The result is an airiness, gentleness, and lilt to the pace of the storyline that is a pleasure. I also found myself transfixed by the beautiful clothing of the villagers, especially of the women. The humblest woman was a fashion diva wearing vividly colored robes, jewelry, and elaborately wrapped skirts and headdresses.

Sembene was also a writer, and we have a book called African Short Stories (823.0108996 AFR), which includes one of his stories.

Roger Ebert has included Moolaadé, in his "Great Movies Archives," noting that the villagers "...despite some of their practices, are deeply decent and civilized, and Sembene loves them for it." This is the film of a wiseman, and it's a privilege and pleasure to watch it.

Subtitles

If you're addicted to feel-good underdog wins despite-all-odds movies, then The Perfect Game will resonate with you.  The movie is based on the true story of the 1957 Monterrey Mexico Little League team, who traveled to the U. S. and served a piece of humble pie to their American opponents.

On average the Monterrey players weighed 35 pounds less, and stood six inches shorter than their American counterparts. These were impoverished kids who began their baseball careers playing with a ball made of string, and bats honed from a board.  They'd never played on a sand and grass diamond, but improvised a ball field in the parking lot of the local church.  Throw some bigotry into the mix that is the embarrassment of 50's racism in America, and you'll understand why they seemed to be stymied at every turn, almost being deported at one point because of their expired visas.  It's amazing that they overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to compete with well - groomed,  impeccably uniformed American Little Leaguers.  Baseball, after all, is the quintessential U. S. sport.  How arrogant of them to think they could beat us at our own game!

One criticism of the film has been that it is riddled with cliches.   Yes, you have the washed-up ex staff person for the St. Louis Cardinals who reluctantly agrees to coach the team, and the wise and encouraging Padre Esteban played by Cheech Marin (!)  who is the boys' spiritual mentor, and yes, you have the undercurrent ripple of romance.  But truth is stranger than fiction, and no one would have believed the improbable story of a rag tag bunch of immigrants who gelled at the perfect moment and rose to claim a championship.  Just when you're pinching yourself and thinking this can't possibly be true, director William Dear reminds us, by mixing actual footage of the '57 Little League World Series with close-up shots of the young actors. In the same vein that you already knew Secretariat would win the Triple Crown, you can surmise that a movie titled The Perfect Game would end with a baseball record that stands to this day.  That doesn't mean you won't be a Monterrey fan, cheering for them at the breathless moment of the final pitch. 

Boxoffice Magazine had dubbed The Perfect Game "inspiring, richly entertaining, heartfelt...a perfect family movie. "

Joan

A romance novel brought to vibrant life, The Princess of Montpensier is a sweeping drama set against the backdrop of war-torn, sixteenth-century France. Catherine de Medici reigns, and it's a time of warfare between the Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). Our heroine, Marie de Mezieres, is a beautiful young aristocrat promised to the Prince of Montpensier, a young man who she doesn't love. The marriage is part of a bargain between her father and his neighbor. Sent off to war, the Prince asks his trusted adviser, an older nobleman named the Comte de Chabannes, to be Marie's adviser, and Chabannes falls in love with her.  But she is passionately in love with the rakish, brutal Duke de Guise. The pot really gets boiling when the future king of France, the Duke d'Anjou, falls for her, too. Marie is lovely and intelligent, but also very young, willful and a bit vain. Her head is turned by the power of her youth and beauty over this gaggle of powerful men, but she is very much in a man's world, and do any of these men really love her or do they just see her as a prize to be won? Oblivious to the pitfalls, she sails like a beautiful swan to her destiny.

 The castles, the scenery, and the costumes are all simply fabulous, and the acting topnotch. I'm not usually a fan of battle scenes, but the recreations of sixteenth-century warfare in this movie are fascinating. Even the sword fights were something special. Distinguished French director Bernard Tavernier (interview) brings a wonderful freshness of vision to this long ago world. The characters are young people living life at a fever pitch, and their energy gallops and surges through the movie, propelling it to a dramatic finale.

French subtitles

Woody Allen's latest comedy is the most charming film to come out in 2011, from the opening montage that shows Paris at its romantic best, to the infectious enthusiasm its protagonist has for the "City of Love." Owen Wilson plays the typical Woody Allen character (neurotic, literate, and articulate), but he plays to the strengths of his charming personality so that he never comes across as unlikable, but wholly endearing instead. Wilson's character, Gil Pender, is a man in love with the city of Paris more than his own fiancé, but that won't bother you when you notice how much she belittles him every at chance she gets.

Gil, like a lot of people, pines for a better time in an era he is too young to have experienced. Specifically, he is infatuated with Paris in the 1920s when some of the most influential American authors inhabited the same square mile under the Parisian lights. Gil is an author himself, but he has settled for the life of a rich screenplay re-writer, giving scripts that mediocre touch that makes them sell so many tickets. He is currently writing a novel that touches on the same themes of nostalgia that the film does, and his bride-to-be is supportive of it only to an extent. His fiancé Inez, loves the man who writes those scripts, but couldn't care less about the one who actually has ambitions and passion, because let's face it: where's the money to be made from that?

While in Paris on a vacation to meet with Inez's (protective and pretentious) parents, Gil decides to take a walk late at night to soak in the city's landscape. When the bell tolls midnight, a carriage arrives and Gil is whisked away to a party where the people are lavishly dressed and the setting is primitive by today's standards... To say more would spoil the wonderful experience that is seeing Midnight in Paris for the first time.

Woody Allen's script is loaded with enough charm and wit that there is no room for some of his more alienating qualities. It's a romantic comedy at heart, but it is fueled by both Gil and Allen's love for the city at hand. You'll fall in love with what happens in Paris at midnight right alongside Gil, just like you'll fall in love with this film.

-          - Nick

L'Amour Fou

Saint Laurent and Berge had three residences--one was a luxuriously decorated apartment in Paris, another was a walled paradise in Marrakesh, Morocco, and one was a home hidden away in a forest in Normandy. We get guided tours to all three amazing homes, products of Saint Laurent's creative mind. I couldn't help but think, "So this is how the other half lives!" We also get to see snippets of fashion shows, many lovely gowns, and video clips of Paris nightlife.

Catnip for "fashionistas" and Francophiles, L'Amour Fou is a bit too long, and focuses a bit too much on Berge, who is extensively interviewed. Saint Laurent began his career as a 17-year-old prodigy, and went on to revolutionize women's fashion. In spite of his success, he was nervous and moody, and suffered from recurrent depression. We become conscious of the absence of the mercurial, elusive Saint Laurent, who was the genius behind it all--the clothes, the shows, the fabulous homes--and he remains an enigmatic shadow throughout the film.

French with English subtitles.

To get a closer look at some of the fabulous fashions, we have the book Yves Saint Laurent by Jeromine Savignon (746.92).

Terrorism is a bleak and tragic chapter in our world history books, but it is included for a reason. It is within that mindset that one should view Carlos.  Carlos is a 5½ hour film (broken into three episodic chapters) that is as detailed as it is intense. It moves along at a breakneck pace as we follow Carlos across countries and continents, switching currencies and languages with ease. This kind of film transcends the "foreign-language" category because although it is technically a "French" film, it doesn't have a national identity, due to its wide-ranging cast of characters and settings. It is an incredibly thorough portrait of one of the most notorious terrorists of all time: Carlos the Jackal. The script shines the more detailed and idiosyncratic it gets. For example, the nickname "The Jackal" is never uttered throughout the entire film because the script is filtered through Carlos' eyes, and those who knew him best. He might have chosen the name Carlos (for he was born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez), but the public was the one to brand him "The Jackal."

The film is broken into three distinct sections of Carlos' career. The first section depicts his rise to fame when he started out acting on his own in order to gain the attention of the (then) leader of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine),  Wadie Haddad. The second episode depicts Carlos leading a team to kidnap eleven OPEC oil ministers (and anyone else who got in the way) to hold for ransom, his most heinous crime. The final act shows the demise of Carlos' criminal career as he becomes increasingly detached from reality. The film's structure is your typical "rise and fall" story, but with stylish direction and a real-life anti-hero at its center Carlos is a nerve-shattering portrait of one of history's most hated criminals.

The running time may be staggering, but don't let that keep you from checking out this harrowing biopic.   Five and one-half hours may seem like a long time, but it's nothing when it covers the span of two decades. Édgar Ramírez plays the titular terrorist and his performance is something to behold. He not only embodies Carlos physically (by gaining quite a few pounds to portray Carlos' later days), but he plays the role with such conviction and egoism that he actually seems to genuinely buy into his various speeches, which is crucial in portraying the more delusional side of Carlos. Carlos the man was a violent terrorist with ill-conceived rationale, but Carlos the film is a grand cinematic achievement. This tension-filled history lesson is more riveting than any class you'll ever take.

- Nick

Note: This film is unrated because it was released on foreign television, but I can assure you the MPAA would have given it an R rating for language, violence, and adult situations.

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, aka "Mozart," was one of the greatest musical geniuses. At the age of five, he traveled all over Europe by stage coach with his father and older sister, playing for kings and queens. His life story is told in the documentary In Search of Mozart, a dazzling kaleidoscope of music and color.

Director Phil Grabsky became obsessed with Mozart after hearing one of his operas. In the thrall of this obsession, he shows every apartment where Mozart lived, the roads he traveled, and the palaces where he was welcomed as a music virtuoso.Grabsky also interviews the greatest performers of Mozart living today, and the true jewels of this documentary are these interviews. All of the musicians and singers interviewed are born teachers, and show by example on keyboard or by singing why Mozart is so amazing.

In a way this documentary is an investigation into the nature of genius, in particular, Mozart's genius. He was unusual in that not only was he a musical prodigy, but he was a normal person. Apparently many musical prodigies suffer from psychological quirks that render their music unlistenable. But Mozart had a sunny disposition, and much of his music is filled with joy.

Running 2-1/4 hours long, this is a lot of Mozart, but it easily can be watched in two sittings. Or it can be consumed in one long, delicious slurp of gorgeous scenery, beautiful music, and interesting Mozartian factoids. For instance, Mozart was barely five feet tall and had long blond hair. Who knew?

A good follow-up to In Search of Mozart, is Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman. A very much fictionalized account of the life of Mozart that is dismissed by scholars as not historically accurate, many Mozart fans were first turned on to his music through this film. If you can listen to the Queen of the Night sing her famous aria without your spine tingling, you are made of tougher stuff than me!

If you enjoy watching In Search of Mozart, you will be happy to know that director Grabsky went on to make In Search of Beethoven. A similarly dense pudding of letters, musical demonstrations, and location shots, you will come away with a better appreciation of this genius, who many consider to be the greatest composer of all time.