Trio of French movies

1) Le Placard (The Closet) by Francis Veber: Rating 10/10

20 minutes into the Closet, I wanted to bet that the director was the same person behind the 1998 French Hit, the Dinner Game. And sure enough, I was right. This was because both the Closet and the Dinner Game have an underlying similarity involving astute observances about how people really judge/manipulate others. Both those movies had Thierry Lhermitte playing a character who likes to have fun at the expense of others, a person who likes to toy with other’s emotions just because he can. The only current Hollywood director I can think of who makes such movies is Neil LaBute (Examples include The Shape of Things, Your Friends and Neighbours, In the Company of Men).

The Closet starts off with François Pignon (played by Daniel Auteuil) on the verge of getting fired. Despite working hard for 20 years in a Condom factory, Pignon is considered a boring person by his co-workers. And the macho Felix Santini (a fanstastic performance by Gerard Depardieu) considers Pignon an idiot and can’t wait to be rid of him. His job was the only thing holding Pignon together after his wife left him two years ago and his son refuses to acknowledge him. So when he learns he will be fired, he wants to kill himself. Thankfully his neighbour saves him and helps him with a plan to save his job. The neighbour suggests that Pignon fake coming out of ‘the closet’ -- that way he won’t get fired. And sure enough, the plan works. But things get complicated and Pignon’s dull life gets kick-started with a bang.

The movie shows how even the tiniest behavior can be judged in numerous ways by other people, and how delicate human relationships really are. It is a fine thread that everyone is walking on and sometimes it just takes a little bit to push someone off the edge or even help them to safety. There are good performances all around and the impressive Jean Rochefort (who really would have made an excellent Don Quixote in Terry Gillaim’s abandoned movie) is the company director who is baffled by Pignon’s sexual orientation.

Note: What is a sign that a foreign movie is really good? When Hollywood wants to remake it! Sure enough, the Closet is going to be remade in 2006 with Gurinder Chadha as the director.

2) Belphégor (Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre) by Jean-Paul Salome: Rating 5/10

By the end of 2004, Jean-Paul Salome is going to be better known for his movie Arsene Lupin (based on a popular French comic book about a thief who robs the rich). But in 2001, Salome directed the beautiful Sophie Marceau and the impressive Julie Christie in this Horror movie about a soul that resides in the Louvre. The trouble starts in 1935 when an evil soul escapes from a 2000 year old Egyptian Mummy casket (being transported to Marseilles). Somehow the casket makes it to the Louvre where the soul strives to make it to the nether world. In order to do so, the soul must inhabit a human body, piece 7 pieces of Egyptian artifacts, and perform an ancient ritual to complete the journey to the other world.

In the end, the movie is nothing but a gloried journey through the halls of the Louvre (and even then only the same 2-3 halls are filmed repeatedly). One of the biggest problems with my movie copy was that it was dubbed. Dubbing is always a bad idea and the original French movie with English subtitles might have better but I still doubt if it would be any more entertaining. The movie is hardly scary and is dull at parts.

3) Vidocq by Pitof: Rating 10/10

This was a surprinzingly well done movie. The movie is set in 1830 Paris at a time when conspiracies and science ran amok. The movie is shot in manufactured sets with a Digital Camera -- in this case, the combination works. One can tell that the sets are fake, but the digital camera gives everything a closer and realistic feel -- the close-up's are effective and everything seems to be surreal. Overall, the movie does feel straight out of Alan Moore's From Hell -- cobble stoned roads, a mysterious killer on the loose, opium dens, detective on the case, etc.

The movie is about the search for a mysterious killer, the alchemist, who wears a mirror-mask and dons a long black cape. The Alchemist is responsible for killing a few notable men on the Parisian society. The movie starts off with Vidocq (played by Gerard Depardieu) on the case of the alchemist when he and the Alchemist fight a duel which results in Vidocq getting killed. Then the story is told in flash-backs and how Vidocq managed to get on the trails of the Alchemist. The rest is better watched......

Note: At times, the movie set-up feels like another French movie, The Brotherhood of the Wolf. But that movie fell apart at the end, and the ending is where Vidocq manages to stay afloat.
Also, the director Pitof (birth name, Jean-Christophe Comar) made his Hollywood debut in 2004 with Catwoman. I might just have to check out Catwoman just to see what Pitof did with that material.