opening November 8
Conversations with My Gardener (Dialogue avec mon jardinier)
opening November 1
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Tell No-One (Ne le dis a personne)
Conversations with My Gardener (Dialogue Avec Mon Jardinier)
starring Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Fanny Cottencon and Alexia Barlier
directed by Jean Becker
110 mins. rated M (infrequent moderate coarse language)
French with English subtitles
reviewed by Fr Richard Leonard SJ
The Painter (Auteuil) is a successful, fifty-something Parisian artist who goes back to his roots and returns to provincial France and his childhood home. He has neither the energy nor the talent to keep up the sprawling land around the house, and takes out a small ad to find some local help. Completely by chance, the first applicant is The Gardener (Darroussin), an old school friend whom he has not seen since they were school children in the local village.
As they spend time in each other's company, the painter builds up an impressionist's canvas of The Gardener, who first intrigues and then amazes him by his honest and simple view of the world.
The Gardener's life has been punctuated by a series of unremarkable events. He enjoys modest happiness, and where life has hurt him he carries no bitterness or jealousy. The Gardener judges everything by his greatest virtue, common sense.
The two man characters purposefully do not have character names. They are an everyman duet, negotiating mid-life. Both of them have challenging lives, but the painter's life, while so much more publicly successful and celebrated, is much more unhappy, complicated and quietly desperate. The gardener restores balance to his friend.
Conversations with My Gardener is a gentle and warm film. It has modest, unassuming ambitions, and fulfils them well. And, as you might expect, it also a pleasure on the eye.
Fr Richard Leonard SJ is the director of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
starring Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Mary-Louise Parker
directed by Andrew Dominik
160 minutes. rated MA 15+ (strong violence)
reviewed by Fr Richard Leonard SJ
Jesse James (Pitt) was one of the USA 's first bona fide celebrities - for all the wrong reasons. To those he robbed and terrorised and to the families of those he killed, he was a murderous criminal, but in the sensational newspaper articles and dime novels chronicling the James Gang throughout the 1870s, Jesse was the object of fervent admiration.
Foremost among his admirers was Robert Ford (Affleck), an idealistic and ambitious young man who had devoted his life to the hope of one day riding alongside his idol. He could never have imagined that history would ultimately mark him as the "the dirty little coward" who shot Jesse in the back.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford looks at what a fragile man Jesse James actually was. And it gives us Robert Ford, just 19 and a member of Jesse's inner circle, who was able to bring down such a formidable figure when lawmen across 10 states had tried and failed.
This is a long film, so don't go tired or under time pressure or else you may miss so much of what can be admired in this fine cinematic achievement.
The performances are universally excellent.
Brad Pitt won Best Actor at the recent Venice Film Festival for his role here, but I think Ben Affleck's baby brother Casey puts in an even better turn than the superstar.
Australian director Andrew Dominik, in his first feature film since Chopper, combines visual interest, psychological depth and an unhurried pace, which is never dull, to let this story unfold. Dominik will join the Hollywood A-list with this film.
Roger Deacon's cinematography is worth the admission price on its own. He co-opts the seasons and landscapes to tell its version of the events. Almost every scene is a gem, recreating the world of the wild west of the 1880s with a poetic eye for detail.
Given its title, there is something inevitable about this film, but the actual assassination of James is but the last major turning point into the final act of the drama. Rather than a letdown, this ultimate story is even more gripping than what has preceded it.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is morally complex.
This is a violent lawless world, which some viewers will not want to enter, but the amorality of these mentally ill characters is never glamourised. They are presented as tragic, desperate men doing tragic and desperate crimes. And as with all criminal classes they uphold their own, confused internal moral law and code of conduct.
No one will ever know the whole truth about these men, but Ron Hansen's novel of the same name and this film delve into the private lives of America's most notorious outlaw and his unlikely assassin to offer a new perspective on a legend and address the question of what really may have transpired in the months before that infamous shooting.
This is adult Hollywood cinema at its best.
Tell No-One (Ne le dis a personne)
starring Francois Cluzet, Marie-Jose Crozee, Nathalie Baye, Jean Rochefort and Kristin Scott Thomas
directed by Guillaume Caunet
131 minutes. rated MA 15+ (strong violence)
reviewed by Fr Peter Malone MSC
Tell No One is based on a best-seller by Harlan Coben. This reviewer confesses that Coben is one of his favourite authors. Not only does he construct intricate plots for his thrillers, he also writes tantalisingly enjoyable prose with a gift of the entertainingly incongruous metaphors, often from modern pop culture.
So, what is a writer whose stories generally take place in New Jersey doing with a French film.
Guillaume Caunet is a popular young French and international actor (The Beach) who was fascinated with the novel and decided to adapt it with his writing partner and set it in France.
The adaptation works very well.
The film has received critical acclaim and has won four French Cesars (including best actor and direction) and has also proven popular.
When the wife of a doctor is murdered, the doctor is initially thought to be the killer. But he himself was attacked and has little memory of what happened. Eight years later, some bodies are discovered in the area and he comes under suspicion again. He then receives an email message and some streaming video which suggests that his wife is still alive.
The writers keep Coben's characters - quite a large cast - and the steps of his plot as more and more complexities are revealed.
In fact, the cast is most impressive. Francois Cluzet is excellent as the harassed doctor, with Marie-Jose Crozee as his wife. Character actors include veterans Nathalie Baye as a lawyer, Jean Rochefort as a business tycoon, Kristin Scott Thomas as a friend. Caunet has cast himself as a very nasty type who is killed.
While American adaptations of French films - and there are many- Americanise them and are harshly criticised, so the French have Frenchified - or Gallicised - the American story, and are being highly praised for it!
Interesting, entertaining and substantial.
Fr Peter Malone MSC directs the film desk of SIGNIS: the World Association of Catholic Communicators, and is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting.
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