But just when you’re about to give up on the future of men making films in France, there comes Abdel Kechiche’s LA GRAINE ET LE MULET|THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN (July 27 at 12:40 pm). I must confess I was ready to bail on this after about a half-hour of its drawn-out, naturalistic scenes of strident family squabbles and nagging women. I’m glad I persisted, because the seemingly aimless miseries of its hardscrabble cast of Arab immigrants coalesce into a dark and hilarious vision of human absurdity.
After getting laid off from his job at the shipyard and being faced with the dissolution of his extended family, Slimane (Habib Boufares) tries to turn things around by turning a derelict boat into a floating restaurant. At first the plan goes well, despite money problems and resistance from the snooty city bureaucracy. Everyone pitches in, from Rym (Hafsia Herzi), the resourceful daughter of Slimane’s girlfriend Latifa (Hatika Karaoui), to Souad (Bouraouïa Marzouk), Slimane’s ex-wife, who cooks a mean fish couscous. What results, however, is like Big Night by way of the myth of Sisyphus, and with Buster Keaton from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum tossed in. A sublimely orchestrated catastrophe, in other words, but you keep expecting the women will save the day.
Related:
Power suit, Interview: Ludivine Sagnier, A Girl Cut in Two, More 
- Power suit
Claude Chabrol initiated the French New Wave with Le beau Serge and Les cousins, and for a decade after his work was as shiny as anyone’s.
- Interview: Ludivine Sagnier
As sultry French starlets go, 29-year-old Ludivine Sagnier is as advertised.
- A Girl Cut in Two
The title of Claude Chabrol’s 2007 black comic morality tale — La fille coupée en deux — serves as a playful reminder of the role women usually play on the screen.
- Une Vieille Maîtresse|The Last Mistress
Catherine Breillat’s film is an adaptation of Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly’s 19th-century novel and perhaps her first that doesn’t transform sex and cinema into punishment.
- Lemming
Combining the generic precision of Claude Chabrol and the perversity of Michael Haneke, Dominik Moll makes some of the creepiest films in Europe.
- French disconnections
Last year's Boston French Film Festival featured Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two , and that, combined with this year's Chris Marker retrospective at the Harvard Film Archive and Agnès Varda's fine new The Beaches of Agnès , made it seem almost plausible that the New Wave might rise again.
- Quantum mechanic
Little Solace for Bond fans
- Seven heaven
Who are the world’s greatest living narrative filmmakers, what I call the Magnificent Seven?
- Unmitigated Gaul
The French pride themselves on their revolutionary spirit, no less in film than in politics.
- Seasonal adjustment
After weeks of tormenting audiences with gems like Failure To Launch and The Shaggy Dog , Hollywood seems ready to shake off the Oscar doldrums and unveil its spring collection.
- Autumn peeves
With pundits already reading political significance into summer blockbusters like The Dark Knight (“Is Batman a stand-in for George Bush? Discuss.”), the meatier movies of fall arrive not a moment too soon.
- Less
Topics:
Features
, Celebrity News, Entertainment, Francois Berleand, More
, Celebrity News, Entertainment, Francois Berleand, Guillaume Canet, Habib Boufares, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Paul Gaudens, Roxane Mesquida, Buster Keaton, Jacques Rivette, Less
