jürgen fauth’s muckworld

From highly enjoyable exercises in pop style (8 Women) to over-conceptualized constructs that left me completely cold (5×2), Francois Ozon’s films are hit-or-miss. Misgivings about his adaptation of the novel by Elizabeth Taylor arose the moment the snooty Berlin box office dude made fun of our choice of movie — was this really going to be “Rosamunde Pilcher hoch zehn,” a terrible melodrama that we hadn’t packed enough tissues for?

Yes and no. The story of Angel Deverell (Romola Garai), the precocious grocer’s daughter who transforms herself into a successful writer only to lose it all to love, war, and the unpredictable currents of taste is indeed what we used to call a Schmonzette, an overblown melodrama that should be the object of our ridicule, and that of ticket takers everywhere. Anybody with a hankering for rustling fabric, lavish sets, trembling bosoms and tragic turns of events is certainly welcome to enjoy Angel at face value.

But Ozon manages to keep a generally winking attitude even while he’s presenting a fully functional romantic epic. Through the use of rear-projection, a lush score, and especially Romola Garai’s finely tuned performance, Angel has its melodramatic cake and keeps its post-ironic distance, too. The movie itself very much resembles the preposterous stories with which Angel Deverell makes her fortune — and is thus also a target for the snide comments of smarter people within the movie. With the help of an editor’s wife played by Charlotte Rampling and grim painter Esmé (Michael Fassbender), Ozon provides sophisticated commentary on the film from within the film. As recreation of a (mostly) defunct genre, Angel feels less self-conscious than Todd Haynes’ faux-Sirk Far From Heaven; thanks to Romola Garai, it is also more engaging.

Angel does not have a U.S. release date yet.

Angel. Francois Ozon, 2007. ****

The trailer:

Palm Pictures is releasing this made-for-TV documentary about photographer Peter Beard in August. It’s an unassuming portrait of a versatile artist that made me feel that it would be lovely if TV was in the habit of introducing fascinating people every day instead of carpet-bombing us with familiar bores. An adventurer, playboy, fashion photographer, and friend of Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Mick Jagger, Beard moved down the road from Karen Blixen and documented his life in Africa in photographs and gorgeous collage diaries. A little googling reveals a fact the documentary politely omits: Beard was born to a wealthy family and could afford to concentrate on his art and travel thanks to a large trust fund. Good for him.

Scrapbooks from Africa and Beyond. Guillaume Bonn and Jean-Claude Luyat, 1998. ***

• Peter Beard’s Official Site
• Peter Beard: Fifty Years of Portraits
• Men’s Vogue Interview with slideshow
• Books by Peter Beard

My first time épater la bourgeoisie: dinner party at my father’s boss’s place, late seventies. I was the misbehaving ten-year old who couldn’t stop whining about the science fiction movie that was going to be on TV, with James Bond! The boss’s wife had a heart and turned it on: Sean Connery in a red leather thong, and then a giant flying head comes floating by and starts talking about the penis is evil and the gun is good.

That was about as far as we got, but it left a lasting impression: movies could wig people out. Even without the boss’s dinner party, Zardoz is great campy midnight fun.

Zardoz. John Boorman, 1974. ***

Great & twisted. Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde are both fantastic. Wicked.

Hell yes–Dominik Moll (With a Friend Like Harry) is back with Lucas Laurent, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Charlotte Rampling in a twisted & unsettling story. I don’t want to ruin this for anybody, so the less you read, the better off you are. Just trust me & see this when it comes out.

Here’s the chat Marcy and I did on this.