Adèle Haenel | Bouquets & Brickbats

26/07/21

Cameo

Shot in 2019 and the winner of several prestigious awards, Quentin Dupieux’s Deerskin is a self-consciously weird film about a middle-aged man’s nervous breakdown and his attempts to reinvent himself as a ‘film maker.’

Bleakly surreal and sometimes just plain bonkers, it seems to be trying to make a point about the filmmaking process itself but, if that’s true, it’s one that virtually drips with a massive dose of self-loathing. To follow Dupieux’s logic, filmmaking is a sham, a perfect hiding place for the untalented. There are always financiers eager to horn in on somebody else’s efforts and the general public are happy to do just about anything so long as there’s a camera pointed at them. Which is all pretty dispiriting when you think about it.

Georges (Jean Dujardin) runs out on his marriage, puts his sports jacket down the nearest toilet and buys himself a fringed deerskin affair for what seems a ludicrous amount of money. The seller of the jacket (probably feeling guilty) gifts him a digital video camera. Georges then drives to a remote, mountainous location somewhere in France and checks into a dingy hotel, where he sets about trying to achieve a very unusual obsession.

He wants to be the only person in the world allowed to wear a jacket.

He also decides to film himself while he’s attempting to make that odd ambition a reality. His wife (quite sensibly) decides to block his bank account, so Georges talks receptive local barmaid, Denise (Adèle Haenel, last seen by B & B in the mesmerising Portrait of a Lady on Fire), into financing his efforts and, when he learns she is also obsessed with editing, even takes her on as his partner/producer.

When Denise urges him to provide her with more raw footage, Georges’ film sequences become increasingly violent, but the ensuing carnage is as throwaway as the rest of what’s going on here, played pretty much for laughs – and the problem is that I feel distanced from what’s happening on the screen and I don’t really care about any of the two-dimensional characters.

Still, at one hour and seventeen minutes, Deerskin is slight enough to chug along to its underwhelming conclusion without losing too much steam. But with all those awards under its belt, I can’t help wondering if this isn’t a case of The Emperor’s New Fringed Jacket.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

25/03/20

Curzon Home Cinema

The current global pandemic has had devastating consequences for so many people that it seems somehow petty to complain that, as ardent movie fans, we’re trying to deal with the much less disastrous irritation of having no new movies to review. But nevertheless, the problem exists.

Of course, films are readily available on streaming services such as Netflix , but there’s not much there that we haven’t already viewed elsewhere – so, when we hear about Curzon Home Cinema, where there’s no monthly contract and where recently released films can by rented for a set fee, we are naturally keen to try it out. Prices range from £4.99 to £9.99 and there are discounts for those who choose to become members. Portrait of a Lady On Fire is our first foray into the service.

This handsome French production has all the familiar tropes of a classic Gothic horror: an empty house in a remote location; dark candlelit corners; there’s even what appears to be a ‘ghostly’ presence haunting its corridors. But writer/director Céline Sçiamma clearly has other intentions and what gradually emerges here is a tragic love story enacted in a period when such love was strictly forbidden.

Portrait painter Marian (Noémie Merlant) arrives on an unnamed island. She’s been commissioned by Lan Contesse (Valerio Golino) to paint a portrait of her daughter, Hélöise (Adèle Haenel), who – after the death of her older sister – is about to be betrothed to a man she has never met. But Hélöise – understandably – really isn’t in the mood to have her portrait painted, so Marian is going to have to spend as much time as she can with her and produce the portrait in secret. Locked up together in the house, with just young maid Sophie (Luàna Bajrami) for company, Marian and Hélöise grow closer by the day…

This is a gorgeous film, featuring beautifully nuanced performances from the two leads and gifted with some sumptuous cinematography. It’s a strikingly feminist story, clearly demonstrating the unfairness of womanhood in the 18th century. But it’s strongest suit is in the depiction of an artist at work, as Marian gradually builds her images from rough lines in charcoal to the finished product. There’s also a stunning set piece where we fully understand the full meaning of that unwieldy title and also a bitter-sweet coda that drives the film’s powerful message straight to the heart.

Curzon Home Cinema is surely the place to procure your cinematic fix.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney