Toronto Film Fest, Day Nine
Sep. 13th, 2003 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedSophisticated French drama, Radio Haiti documentary and wacky South Korean sci fi/comedy...
Title: Nathalie...
Director: Anne Fontaine
Country: France
P's Rating: Recommended
A very adult drama of the sort only the French seem to make. Fanny Ardant plays a woman who finds out that her husband (Gérard Depardieu) has occasionally cheated on her. Stinging from the knowledge, she ventures into a bordello near her office and strikes an unusual bargain with one of the prostitutes: the young woman will seduce her husband and then report back to her. Emmanuelle Béart plays the prostitute with both daring a vulnerability. What began as a form of revenge develops into a relationship between the two women and forces Ardant to confront what she finds important in her life.
Title: The Agronomist
Director: Johnathan Demme
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Not-so-good
Demme's documentary traces the story of Jean Dominique, the man in charge of Radio Haiti Inter from 1968 until his assassination in 2000, and his wife and fellow journalist Michèle Montas. There is a fascinating story here, of one man's struggle to give the people of Haiti a voice while fighting political corruption and military oppression, but this film doesn't tell it especially well. Information is supplied with no context, threads of the story are dropped mid-stream and precious editing effects are used to little effect. It also doesn't help that most of the footage used is grainy video that looks like hell.
Title: Save the Green Planet
Director: Jang Jung-hwun
Country: South Korea
P's Rating: Okay
Lee is a beekeeper with a unique obsession: he believes that aliens live among us, looking like human beings, and that he must stop them before they destroy the planet. He's fixated on the president of a local chemical company as being one of the chief aliens. Kidnapping the man, he tortures him to discover the location of the arrival of the Prince of Andromeda, the chief alien he believes is arriving during a lunar eclipse. Save the Green Planet is wacko comedy of the sort that only the Koreans seem to do. It doesn't always work--it's nowhere near as good as Attack the Gas Station, another wild Korean comedy from a couple of years ago--but it does have a large number of good laughs, and a surprising heart at its centre.
Title: Nathalie...
Director: Anne Fontaine
Country: France
P's Rating: Recommended
A very adult drama of the sort only the French seem to make. Fanny Ardant plays a woman who finds out that her husband (Gérard Depardieu) has occasionally cheated on her. Stinging from the knowledge, she ventures into a bordello near her office and strikes an unusual bargain with one of the prostitutes: the young woman will seduce her husband and then report back to her. Emmanuelle Béart plays the prostitute with both daring a vulnerability. What began as a form of revenge develops into a relationship between the two women and forces Ardant to confront what she finds important in her life.
Title: The Agronomist
Director: Johnathan Demme
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Not-so-good
Demme's documentary traces the story of Jean Dominique, the man in charge of Radio Haiti Inter from 1968 until his assassination in 2000, and his wife and fellow journalist Michèle Montas. There is a fascinating story here, of one man's struggle to give the people of Haiti a voice while fighting political corruption and military oppression, but this film doesn't tell it especially well. Information is supplied with no context, threads of the story are dropped mid-stream and precious editing effects are used to little effect. It also doesn't help that most of the footage used is grainy video that looks like hell.
Title: Save the Green Planet
Director: Jang Jung-hwun
Country: South Korea
P's Rating: Okay
Lee is a beekeeper with a unique obsession: he believes that aliens live among us, looking like human beings, and that he must stop them before they destroy the planet. He's fixated on the president of a local chemical company as being one of the chief aliens. Kidnapping the man, he tortures him to discover the location of the arrival of the Prince of Andromeda, the chief alien he believes is arriving during a lunar eclipse. Save the Green Planet is wacko comedy of the sort that only the Koreans seem to do. It doesn't always work--it's nowhere near as good as Attack the Gas Station, another wild Korean comedy from a couple of years ago--but it does have a large number of good laughs, and a surprising heart at its centre.
