Welcome to the Nelson Film Society!

Quality alternative entertainment

Nelson Film Society is pleased to be able to bring you another year of first class films from around the world. Our programme will feature works by the acclaimed cinema-artist Norman McLaren of Canada – a great friend of our Len Lye. Dr Terence Dobson of Canterbury University will introduce these films in a special address at the Suter Art Gallery. German films are again strongly represented with six contemporary films facilitated by the Goethe Institut. Then, with the assistance of the French Embassy, we have four more by their great auteurs. Support from the New Zealand Film Commission will allow us to screen a beautiful New Zealand feature film – Apron Strings directed by Samoan-born Sima Urale. And, we have programmed three movies from the ‘classic era’ of world cinema. Finally, we have managed to secure some Festival films that missed out on a Nelson screening. And, once again, we will present an evening of ‘Live Cinema’ from the silent era supported by Gabor Tolnay on the piano!

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[07 Mar 10] :: Thursday 15th April - La France - Suter Theatre 6p.m.

LA FRANCE
(Serge Bozon, France, 2007) 102 minutes

In the once-upon-a-time fairy tale called LA FRANCE, a World War I movie like none other, French soldiers move through darkly verdant landscapes worthy of Henri Rousseau. There are no lions or dreaming guitarists in this nocturnal green world, only shadows, phantoms, twinkling stars and discordant harmonies created by the whirring animals and exploding bombs. There are, however, several stringed instruments, and every so often, when this already strange land seems ready to settle into eerie silence, these soldiers break out their instruments and into jangling, plaintive song.

Not any old war ballad — mournful refrains about devastated lives, say, or road-tattered boots — but melodic riffs on the 1960s pop song Gospel Lane by the British duo Robbie Curtice and Tom Payne. (That tune, which plays over the end credits, will be familiar to fans of Belle and Sebastian.) There is something obviously discordant about this infusion of pop into the generally hallowed realm of the war movie, which greatly adds to the pleasure and mystery of La France. Much like its expressive cinematography, which ushers you deep into the night, the film’s impudent genre sampling — it begins as a woman’s picture before morphing into a romantic war musical — is an invitation to boldness.

The movie, which was written by Axelle Ropert and directed by Serge Bozon (who also wrote the lyrics for the original songs), opens with a long shot of small figures running somewhat chaotically down a hill toward the camera. You soon discover that the figures are women who have been unsuccessfully trying to catch sight of the front. Soon enough, one woman, Camille (Sylvie Testud), receives a distressing letter from her husband — he warns that she’ll never see him again — and she decides to search him out. Persuasively disguised as a boy, she leaves her cloistered world and heads into the gloam, where she meets a band of soldiers under the command of a cool, seemingly aloof lieutenant (Pascal Greggory).

Although the soldiers initially regard Camille with skepticism and worse (some fear she’s a spy, which she is, in a fashion), one gives her a castoff uniform, securing her disguise further. In time, she melts into the group, fading into their ranks, much as the men seem to melt into their surroundings. Mr. Bozon, working with his talented cinematographer (and sister), Céline Bozon, accentuates this sense of immersion by often filming the characters at a distance, a vantage point that at times turns the gray-blue uniforms into so many daubs of color on a dappled landscape. As the men thrash and push through one forested glen and thicket after another, their uniforms start to seem less like a soldier’s usual camouflage and more like skins.

Mr. Bozon never explains his film’s evocative title — though, like all countries, France is as much a state of mind as a geographical place — nor why he includes these lovely, incongruent yet perfect songs. Most are sung from a female point of view (“I, the blind girl ...”), which may be a reference to Camille and her mission. Yet while the tunes jolt you out of the war movie that Mr. Bozon skillfully leads you into, they are finally no stranger than those sung by Fred Astaire when spoken words prove inadequate. In this dark fairy tale, filled with feeling and cinematic allusions — the soldiers float down a river like the runaway children in The Night of the Hunter — it is the indelible image of lonely and lost men that speaks the loudest.
- Manhola Dargis, The New York Times, 11 July 2008.

posted on 07 Mar 10 @ 23:56 Show all news