Day 6

SOUS LES TOITS DE PARIS (Hiner Saleem) - 45

[My first encounter with Saleem, and I was usually either mildly amused or mildly puzzled. I imagine that's the reaction, what with the actively confusing compositions. (E.g. Marie Kremer and junkie boyfriend looming over ominously. Is it sex, or some kind of workout?) At other times, the Tati-esque formal gamesmanship lends the film a kind of balance. (If we get to see Kremer take a shower, we must also see Michel Piccoli do same...) Also, half the frame is often left empty, a la Tsai. Also, behavioral intelligence only really occurs when big opportunities for it to occur come along. (Piccoli, on the phone with son, says "It's not serious" when he's obviously quite stressed.) Unique, but not necessarily good.]

SUMMIT CIRCLE (Bernard Emond) - 64

[Nuanced isn't the right word for Emond's way with actors, so it's a bad idea to expect variation within a shot. (I did in LA NEUVAINE and was bored stiff.) Prolonged blank stares abound, actually, but the trick is that they're usually a replacement for something more conventional. When the heroine is on the job, for example, you couldn't intuit any sign of stress from her neutral, dignified way of dealing with customers, but as we can see from the insert recording the data of her work--her last call took 14.1 seconds, it reminds her--the stress is present; she's just good at dealing with it. And though SUMMIT CIRCLE is ostensibly a criticism of the callousness of big business, Emond deploys this sort of strategy across the board. (The protag's boss, announcing a load of lay-offs, is allowed to totally retain her dignity in the midst of jeers from those whose lives she's in the process of ruining.) Unfortunately, also like LA NEUVAINE, Emond also pointlessly mixes up the chronology--he and Guillermo Arriaga should have lunch. (Then breakfast, and then--oh shit!--dinner.) I had mixed feelings until the final scene, which pays off in a big way, though doesn't benefit from the aforementioned screenplay problems.]

WATER LILIES (Celine Sciamma) - 77

[Sciamma, who quite out-Breillat'd Breillat for me at TIFF '07, seems to have attempted a direct assault on every coming-of-age cliche known to man, and mostly succeeds. First in need of mentioning is Louise Blachere, who allows herself to look like an idiot and a sexual object in the name of a great performance: Anne, the chubby friend, is the opposite of benign, here obnoxiously gluttonous and there fetishized in contrast with her bony pal, Marie. Marie herself toes the line between guile and guilelessness, and Sciamma's intuition for letting the "lessons" she learns be both cruel and sensible is almost perfect. (What better motivation to win a new friend over than the loss of an old one?) Floriane is sluttiness under a microscope, a spot-on portrait of when it works and when it doesn't. The sole missteps are also the most feminist-friendly moments in the film. (Would Anne really have done what she did in response to her long-time crush coming clean with his feelings? Seems more like a cheap opportunity for Sciamma to celebrate Female Assertion.) Sure hope Sciamma ditches the girl power stuff and continues digging into thornier territory, because the latter is mighty rewarding.]