jürgen fauth’s muckworld

A guy walks into un bar a pute and tells a beautiful prostitute that he just won the lottery. Would she live with him for a hundred thousand a month? Of course she would. Problem is, the guy (Bernard Campan) has a weak heart, and Daniela, the hooker, is played by Monica Belluci. His doctor warns him: “How many times a day will your heart rate climb to 140? I cannot condone it!” Another problem comes in the hulking shape of Gerard Depardieu — he’s Daniela’s James Lipton. How Much Do You Love Me?, now available on DVD from Strand Releasing, is a sexy, silly romp that, like much of Blier’s work, straddles the line between affecting and absurd, often to hilarious effect.

Combien tu m’aimes? Bertrand Blier, 2005. ***

A woman director working in black and white on a limited budget, a capricious main character with a looming fate, a city that is playground and character at once, a summer’s day full of promise, distraction, and chance encounters, a cast of strangers whose snippets of overheard conversation work themselves seamlessly into the texture of the film, and a fresh New Wave approach to life and art — it’s thrilling to confirm how many similarities Agnès Varda’s celebrated Cleo from 5 to 7 shares with May Spils’ overlooked classic Zur Sache, Schätzchen.

Cleo is now being reissued as part of a shiny new Varda box set from Criterion. May Spils’ films are, so far, unavailable in the US. Zur Sache, Schätzchen is one of my all-time favorites, and I have translated and created English subtitles for the film in hopes of a stateside DVD release. There have been promising stirrings lately so keep your fingers crossed for Zur Sache.

Cléo de 5 à 7. Agnès Varda, 1961. *****

The trailer:

Marcy’s got this one covered: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon
is a charming homage to the 1956 French classic by Albert Lamorisse and
an intimate portrait of a unique Paris family. A blond Juliette Binoche
stars as Suzanne, an accomplished puppeteer who a hires a Taiwanese
nanny (Song Fang) for her gentle seven-year-old son Simon (Simon
Iteanu). Read Marcy’s review of Flight of the Red Balloon.

Le Voyage du ballon rouge. Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2007. ***

• All posts related to the New York Film Festvial

How do we relax from the New York Film Festival’s two-movies-a-day schedule? With an old classic, of course, courtesy of the Criterion Collection. Jim Jarmusch’s episodic 1991 taxi cab confidential moves around the globe while Tom Waits growls and hasn’t lost a bit of its spirit and charm. Especially after seeing a film as cynical as Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, I was struck by how good-natured and kind Jarmusch’s vision was.

In the confined spaces of cabs in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki, strangers are meeting strangers and, with the exception of the “bishop” who has the ill fate of running into Roberto Benigni, good things happen. I was especially pleased to note connections between the episodes and to other movies that I’d previously missed. Since this is a Criterion DVD, I shouldn’t have to mention that the quality of the transfer is first rate. Jarmusch won’t watch his own movies after they are completed, so there is no director’s commentary, but he does answer fan questions. Other extras include commentary by the DP and location sound mixer, a Belgian TV interview with Jarmusch, and essays by Paul Auster and others.

Night on Earth. Jim Jarmusch, 1991. *****

Cute comedy about a plucky country ingénue (Cécile De France) who arrives in Paris and finds work at a cafe that serves an area of theaters, galleries, and concert halls. Three storylines develop: an actress (Valerie Lemercier) who wants to play Simone de Beauvoir, a concert pianist who’s had enough (Albert Dupontel), and an aging art collector (Claude Brasseur) who, much to the consternation of his son (Christopher Thompson), is selling off his collection to afford a young mistress (Annelise Hesme). In the process, they all find love and happiness, or something like it. As watchable as it is forgettable. Also with Suzanne Flon and Sidney Pollack.

Fauteuils d’orchestre. Danièle Thompson, 2006. ***

• Rotten Tomatoes: 75%
• The trailer

Christophe Honoré’s follow-up to Ma Mere is a loving homage to the French New Wave that stays true to its own emotional core. Heartthrobs Louis Garrell (The Dreamers) and Romain Duris (Moliere, The Beat My Heart Skipped) play brothers who find themselves once again in their father’s small Paris apartment, Jonathan (Garrell) as a student, Paul (Duris) in the throes of depression after his breakup with longtime girlfriend Anna (Joanna Preiss.)

Read the rest of my review on About.com. Dans Paris is scheduled for limited U.S. release on August 8.

Dans Paris. Christophe Honoré, 2006. ****

Instead of the trailer, here’s a scene where heartbroken Paul listens to Kim Wilde:

You never know what you’re going to find at Jim Hanley’s Universe, the comic book store on 33th street with one of the best selections of European graphic novels in the city. Yesterday, I picked up a book by a Belgian artist who simply goes by Jason. The Left Bank Gang reimagines Paris in the 20s as a haven for expat comic book writers in the shape of animals. Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Getrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound et al. get drunk, make plans for Pamplona, struggle with poverty and obnoxious tourists and discuss the finer points of narrative captions and where do all the erasers go? It’s very funny and endearing, and then the story spins into a fragmented noir. I’ll be looking for more of Jason’s deceptively simple work the next time I’m midtown. You can browse a few pages here.

Jason. The Left Bank Gang. Fantagraphics, 2006. ****

• Jason at Fantagraphics
• Bookslut Review
• Believer Review
• ComicCritique

…and moi non plus. If there’s a kind of movie I hate to review more than any other, it’s the one that sounds too good to be true. Like a jilted lover obsessively reliving every painful moment, it requires rehashing your embarrassing anticipation and then laying out every deflating pinprick of disappointment. Besides, readers really hate the bearer of bad news. It can sap the joie de vivre right out of you.

So here we go again. Paris, je t’aime sounds like a connoisseur’s delight: two hours of short films celebrating the most romantic city in the world, directed by an impressive roster of international auteurs and starring a legion of favorite actors: Olivier Assayas, the Coen Brothers, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuaron, Christopher Doyle, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant; Natalie Portman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gerard Depardieu, Juliette Binoche, Ludivine Sagnier, Steve Buscemi, Bob Hoskins, Nick Nolte, Ben Gazzara, Marianne Faithfull, Miranda Richardson, Fanny Ardant, Gena Rowlands, Barbet Schroeder, Gaspard Ulliel. Surely, this could be nothing but a pleasure?

• Read the rest of my review of Paris, je t’aime on About.com. The film opens next week.

Paris, je t’aime. Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Emmanuel Benbihy, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydès, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, and Gus Van Sant, 2006. **