Mill Valley Film Festival
This latest Merchant Ivory offering, by first-time writer-director Andrew Litvack, is an uneasy amalgam of farce and prestige, as if Almodovar's "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" had been produced by, well, Merchant Ivory. Movie-goers may be lured in by the comedic promise of seeing Dianne Wiest as an opera diva (her other diva turn, in "Bullets Over Broadway", deservedly netted her an Oscar), but Litvack's mishmash of a script and too stately pacing probably won't pay off at the boxoffice.
The story hinges on Thomas Beaumont (Stanislas Merhar), the 23-year-old, sexually confused son of renowned opera diva Elizabeth Beaumont (Wiest), who's in town to perform "Turandot". Cruising the Internet, Thomas gets recruited by a much older man to hide in a closet and watch something. It turns out to be the man's (Simon Callow) murder by his younger lover (Karim Saleh). The next day, Thomas is informed by his mother that the father he thought was dead actually left Elizabeth for another man and has been alive the whole time. That is, until last night, when he was murdered. Yup, Thomas has unwittingly witnessed his father's murder.
He runs off in fear to the nearest psychiatrist's office, that of the titular Dr. Rey, who has just expired from a heart attack during a session with neurotic actress Penelope (Jane Birkin, giving a mannered -- as opposed to stylized -- performance). Penelope mostly does dubbing and voice-over work because of severe stage fright. She appears to be rather bad at it, but everyone around her says she's brilliant. (This is just one example of Litvack's failure to provide appropriate context, so we don't know what to take as a joke and what to believe.) Thomas spends the rest of the movie with Penelope, hiding from the police and his mother and calling various rent-boys to find his father's killer.
Litvack is lazy with his jokes, characterizations, motives, and plotting. We never discover Callow's purpose in hiring Thomas. (Did he know he was going to get killed?) There's a batch of hash brownies that should figure in the plot the way the spiked gazpacho did in "Women on the Verge", but all it does is make Mom and the cops giggle. And the comic conspiracy that ends the movie will puzzle viewers: Exactly what is being covered up, and more importantly, why? Litvack also genre hops to no great purpose. His farce morphs to whodunit, then to thriller (with a puzzling homage to Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill") and, finally, to caper comedy.
Wiest does her best but can't overcome Litvack's enervated languor. There's no snap to her lines or her performance. Bulle Ogier hangs around as Wiest's confidante and director, but the supposedly comic kinks that Litvack provides her character detract from the performance. The film also has Jerry Hall and Vanessa Redgrave lolling around in some unfunny cameos. Cinematographer Laurent Machuel does light the lovely Parisian locations invitingly, and the film has a handsome glow. But Litvack's farce lacks the requisite fizz. Eventually there's only fizzle.
MERCI DOCTEUR REY
Merchant Ivory Prods.
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Andrew Litvack
Producers: Ismail Merchant, Paul Bradley
Director of photography: Laurent Machuel
Production designer: Jacques Bufnoir
Music: Geoffrey Alexander
Costume designer: Pierre-Yves Gayraud
Editor: Giles Gardner
Cast:
Thomas Beaumont: Stanislas Merhar
Elizabeth Beaumont: Dianne Wiest
Claude: Bulle Ogier
Penelope: Jane Birkin
Murderer: Karim Saleh
Bob: Simon Callow
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating...
This latest Merchant Ivory offering, by first-time writer-director Andrew Litvack, is an uneasy amalgam of farce and prestige, as if Almodovar's "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" had been produced by, well, Merchant Ivory. Movie-goers may be lured in by the comedic promise of seeing Dianne Wiest as an opera diva (her other diva turn, in "Bullets Over Broadway", deservedly netted her an Oscar), but Litvack's mishmash of a script and too stately pacing probably won't pay off at the boxoffice.
The story hinges on Thomas Beaumont (Stanislas Merhar), the 23-year-old, sexually confused son of renowned opera diva Elizabeth Beaumont (Wiest), who's in town to perform "Turandot". Cruising the Internet, Thomas gets recruited by a much older man to hide in a closet and watch something. It turns out to be the man's (Simon Callow) murder by his younger lover (Karim Saleh). The next day, Thomas is informed by his mother that the father he thought was dead actually left Elizabeth for another man and has been alive the whole time. That is, until last night, when he was murdered. Yup, Thomas has unwittingly witnessed his father's murder.
He runs off in fear to the nearest psychiatrist's office, that of the titular Dr. Rey, who has just expired from a heart attack during a session with neurotic actress Penelope (Jane Birkin, giving a mannered -- as opposed to stylized -- performance). Penelope mostly does dubbing and voice-over work because of severe stage fright. She appears to be rather bad at it, but everyone around her says she's brilliant. (This is just one example of Litvack's failure to provide appropriate context, so we don't know what to take as a joke and what to believe.) Thomas spends the rest of the movie with Penelope, hiding from the police and his mother and calling various rent-boys to find his father's killer.
Litvack is lazy with his jokes, characterizations, motives, and plotting. We never discover Callow's purpose in hiring Thomas. (Did he know he was going to get killed?) There's a batch of hash brownies that should figure in the plot the way the spiked gazpacho did in "Women on the Verge", but all it does is make Mom and the cops giggle. And the comic conspiracy that ends the movie will puzzle viewers: Exactly what is being covered up, and more importantly, why? Litvack also genre hops to no great purpose. His farce morphs to whodunit, then to thriller (with a puzzling homage to Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill") and, finally, to caper comedy.
Wiest does her best but can't overcome Litvack's enervated languor. There's no snap to her lines or her performance. Bulle Ogier hangs around as Wiest's confidante and director, but the supposedly comic kinks that Litvack provides her character detract from the performance. The film also has Jerry Hall and Vanessa Redgrave lolling around in some unfunny cameos. Cinematographer Laurent Machuel does light the lovely Parisian locations invitingly, and the film has a handsome glow. But Litvack's farce lacks the requisite fizz. Eventually there's only fizzle.
MERCI DOCTEUR REY
Merchant Ivory Prods.
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Andrew Litvack
Producers: Ismail Merchant, Paul Bradley
Director of photography: Laurent Machuel
Production designer: Jacques Bufnoir
Music: Geoffrey Alexander
Costume designer: Pierre-Yves Gayraud
Editor: Giles Gardner
Cast:
Thomas Beaumont: Stanislas Merhar
Elizabeth Beaumont: Dianne Wiest
Claude: Bulle Ogier
Penelope: Jane Birkin
Murderer: Karim Saleh
Bob: Simon Callow
Running time -- 96 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/18/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It's like Deja Vu, this old-fashioned Parisian romance about sex and existentialism.
If you're in the mood for an old-style, art house film with plenty of angst, dark clothing, dirty hair, misdirected passion and the au lait ambience of the Left Bank, and are sorely tired of pretentious alien films, this is a Sunday afternoon diversion for you.
Unfortunately, this picture is often tres dopey and is mottled with generic conventions beyond its philosophical girth. Nonetheless, Leisure Time Films should derive a respectable art house number from the types who view the Village Voice as hip.
In this petite film, artsy student Gregoire (Melvil Poupaud) lugs around a copy of Soren Kierkegaard's to coffee shops and similar settings with which to prey upon disjointed females, in this case fellow student Claire (Chiara Mastroianni). Claire studies psychoanalysis at a U near Paris, but she doesn't go to class much -- her time is consumed with her own medical appointments, and, here's the depth, glowering at her mother (Daniele Dubroux), a night shift doctor (by choice) at a Parisian hospital.
Then there's Sebastien (Mathis Amalric), a burgeoning type who inveigles his way into staying a while with Claire and her mom. Basically, he's a shallow dip who's confused about his sexuality, which, naturally, catapults Claire and La Mom into a huge catfight.
Predictable, tedious and drenched with a shallow psychological predictability, "Diary of a Seducer" is, on the whole, pap for the cultural elite.
There are some delectations, nonetheless. There's no denying the pleasures of seeing Paris and the challenges of viewing conflicted love. Best, Truffaut all-star Jean-Pierre Leaud appears; unfortunately, his role is so trite that one is suspicious of the motive for including him in the cast -- to add marquee luster, we suspect.
On the plus side, writer, director and actress Dubroux has created a film that feels scrumptiously black-and-white. That's owing to the details and the feel for place and time that Dubroux exudes. Technically, the chief congratulations belong to cinematographer Laurent Machuel for his musty, clever lensing, as well as to costume designer Anne Schotte for the subtleties of garb, reflecting overall the pedestrian outlooks of these avant-garde pretendeurs.
DIARY OF A SEDUCER
Leisure Time Features
A production of Gemini Films
With the participation of the National Center of Cinematography and Canal+
Producer Philippe Saal
Screenwriter-director Daniele Dubroux
Executive producer Paulo Branco
Director of photography Laurent Machuel
Editor Jean-Francois Naudon
Sound designer Henri Maikoff
Sound mixer Gerard Rousseau
Art director Patrick Durand
Costume designer Anne Schotte
Music Jean-Marie Senia
Color/stereo
Cast:
Claire Conti Chiara Mastroianni
Gregoire Moreau Melvil Poupaud
Sebastien Mathieu Amalric
Anne Daniele Dubroux
Hubert Markus Hubert Saint Macary
Hugo Jean-Pierre Leaud
Diane Micheline Presle
Robert Serge Merlin
Charlotte Karen Viard
Running time - 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
If you're in the mood for an old-style, art house film with plenty of angst, dark clothing, dirty hair, misdirected passion and the au lait ambience of the Left Bank, and are sorely tired of pretentious alien films, this is a Sunday afternoon diversion for you.
Unfortunately, this picture is often tres dopey and is mottled with generic conventions beyond its philosophical girth. Nonetheless, Leisure Time Films should derive a respectable art house number from the types who view the Village Voice as hip.
In this petite film, artsy student Gregoire (Melvil Poupaud) lugs around a copy of Soren Kierkegaard's to coffee shops and similar settings with which to prey upon disjointed females, in this case fellow student Claire (Chiara Mastroianni). Claire studies psychoanalysis at a U near Paris, but she doesn't go to class much -- her time is consumed with her own medical appointments, and, here's the depth, glowering at her mother (Daniele Dubroux), a night shift doctor (by choice) at a Parisian hospital.
Then there's Sebastien (Mathis Amalric), a burgeoning type who inveigles his way into staying a while with Claire and her mom. Basically, he's a shallow dip who's confused about his sexuality, which, naturally, catapults Claire and La Mom into a huge catfight.
Predictable, tedious and drenched with a shallow psychological predictability, "Diary of a Seducer" is, on the whole, pap for the cultural elite.
There are some delectations, nonetheless. There's no denying the pleasures of seeing Paris and the challenges of viewing conflicted love. Best, Truffaut all-star Jean-Pierre Leaud appears; unfortunately, his role is so trite that one is suspicious of the motive for including him in the cast -- to add marquee luster, we suspect.
On the plus side, writer, director and actress Dubroux has created a film that feels scrumptiously black-and-white. That's owing to the details and the feel for place and time that Dubroux exudes. Technically, the chief congratulations belong to cinematographer Laurent Machuel for his musty, clever lensing, as well as to costume designer Anne Schotte for the subtleties of garb, reflecting overall the pedestrian outlooks of these avant-garde pretendeurs.
DIARY OF A SEDUCER
Leisure Time Features
A production of Gemini Films
With the participation of the National Center of Cinematography and Canal+
Producer Philippe Saal
Screenwriter-director Daniele Dubroux
Executive producer Paulo Branco
Director of photography Laurent Machuel
Editor Jean-Francois Naudon
Sound designer Henri Maikoff
Sound mixer Gerard Rousseau
Art director Patrick Durand
Costume designer Anne Schotte
Music Jean-Marie Senia
Color/stereo
Cast:
Claire Conti Chiara Mastroianni
Gregoire Moreau Melvil Poupaud
Sebastien Mathieu Amalric
Anne Daniele Dubroux
Hubert Markus Hubert Saint Macary
Hugo Jean-Pierre Leaud
Diane Micheline Presle
Robert Serge Merlin
Charlotte Karen Viard
Running time - 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 7/24/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK - Marcello Mastroianni has four of his best roles in years in Raul Ruiz's surreal comedy, "Three Lives and Only One Death", which opens commercially this week after showing at the New York Film Festival.
The actor's presence should shore up the art-house boxoffice for this effort from a director whose previous works ("Three Crowns of a Sailor", "The Golden Boat") have failed to make a dent in the United States.
The film, which the director explains has a "Cubist pattern", interconnects several stories, loosely based on urban myths and some tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mastroianni plays the central role in each: Mateo, a traveling salesman who walks out on his wife, only to return 20 years later; George, a professor of "negative anthropology" who gives up his life to beg on the streets and who takes up with Tania (Anna Galiena), a beautiful prostitute with a secret life of her own; a mysterious butler who is secretly the millionaire benefactor of a young, penniless couple; and Luc, a successful businessman with an imaginary family that one day becomes all too real. The segments are tied together by the use of a "storyteller," played by French radio personality Pierre Bellemare.
The style of the film has rightly been compared to Luis Bunuel, although it lacks that master's preciseness and mordant wit. Certainly, this fantastical effort has imagination to spare, and for a while it's fun to watch as Ruiz spins his web, using low-rent visual flourishes and tricks that are never less than amusing.
But the movie doesn't deliver on its promise, and it never quite takes off the way it should. Many of the characterizations are overly broad, such as the young lovers who make pig noises at each other to signify their passion, or Tania's husband (Jacques Pieiller), who seems to have escaped from a lunatic asylum.
Although a clever sensibility is clearly at work, the stories are allowed to drag on and fail to reach compelling conclusions. The chief value of the film lies in Mastroianni's amusing portrayals; the actor, who too often these days is used merely for his icon-like presence, is a consistent delight.
Header: Wed, Oct 9, 1996, 5, End of Header.
THREE LIVES AND ONLY ONE DEATH
New Yorker Films
Gemini Films, La Sept Cinema and
Madragoa Filmes
with the participation of Canal Plus
and the Centre National de la Cinematographie
Director Raul Ruiz
Screenplay Raul Ruiz, Pascal Bonitzer
Producer Paulo Branco
Photography Laurent Machuel
Editor Rodolfo Wedeles
Music Jorge Arriagada
Color/stereo
Cast:
Mateo Strano, George Vickers, the Majordomo, Luc Allamand Marcello Mastroianni
Tania Anna Galiena
Maria Marisa Paredes
Martin Melvin Poupaud
Cecile Chiara Mastroianni
Helene Areille Dombasle
Andre Feodor Atkine
Running time - 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
The actor's presence should shore up the art-house boxoffice for this effort from a director whose previous works ("Three Crowns of a Sailor", "The Golden Boat") have failed to make a dent in the United States.
The film, which the director explains has a "Cubist pattern", interconnects several stories, loosely based on urban myths and some tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mastroianni plays the central role in each: Mateo, a traveling salesman who walks out on his wife, only to return 20 years later; George, a professor of "negative anthropology" who gives up his life to beg on the streets and who takes up with Tania (Anna Galiena), a beautiful prostitute with a secret life of her own; a mysterious butler who is secretly the millionaire benefactor of a young, penniless couple; and Luc, a successful businessman with an imaginary family that one day becomes all too real. The segments are tied together by the use of a "storyteller," played by French radio personality Pierre Bellemare.
The style of the film has rightly been compared to Luis Bunuel, although it lacks that master's preciseness and mordant wit. Certainly, this fantastical effort has imagination to spare, and for a while it's fun to watch as Ruiz spins his web, using low-rent visual flourishes and tricks that are never less than amusing.
But the movie doesn't deliver on its promise, and it never quite takes off the way it should. Many of the characterizations are overly broad, such as the young lovers who make pig noises at each other to signify their passion, or Tania's husband (Jacques Pieiller), who seems to have escaped from a lunatic asylum.
Although a clever sensibility is clearly at work, the stories are allowed to drag on and fail to reach compelling conclusions. The chief value of the film lies in Mastroianni's amusing portrayals; the actor, who too often these days is used merely for his icon-like presence, is a consistent delight.
Header: Wed, Oct 9, 1996, 5, End of Header.
THREE LIVES AND ONLY ONE DEATH
New Yorker Films
Gemini Films, La Sept Cinema and
Madragoa Filmes
with the participation of Canal Plus
and the Centre National de la Cinematographie
Director Raul Ruiz
Screenplay Raul Ruiz, Pascal Bonitzer
Producer Paulo Branco
Photography Laurent Machuel
Editor Rodolfo Wedeles
Music Jorge Arriagada
Color/stereo
Cast:
Mateo Strano, George Vickers, the Majordomo, Luc Allamand Marcello Mastroianni
Tania Anna Galiena
Maria Marisa Paredes
Martin Melvin Poupaud
Cecile Chiara Mastroianni
Helene Areille Dombasle
Andre Feodor Atkine
Running time - 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/9/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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