Movie Review: Jeannette: The: Childhood of Joan of Arc

Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Bruno Dumont.

Written by: Bruno Dumont based on the play by Charles Peguy.

Starring: Lise Leplat Prudhomme (Jeannette), Jeanne Voisin (Jeanne – Older), Lucile Gauthier (Hauviette 8 ans), Victoria Lefebvre (Hauviette 13 ans), Aline Charles (Madame Gervaise / Sainte Marguerite), Elise Charles (Madame Gervaise / Sainte Catherine), Nicolas Leclaire (Durand Lassois), Gery De Poorter (Jacques d'Arc), Régine Delalin (Isabeau d'Arc), Anaïs Rivière (Saint Michel).

 

Recently, every time I watch a film by French provocateur Bruno Dumont, I always struggle to figure out if he’s being serious, or he’s just screwing with us in the audience – someone behind the scenes chuckling that we’re taking what he’s doing seriously. The answer usually comes back as he’s doing both – and more often than not, he’s doing it well. His earlier films – L’humanitie and twenty-nine palms, were very serious provocations indeed, perhaps too much so. Sometime in the last few years, he seems to have embraced self-parody, making the same types films he always had, but now playing them for laughs in films like Lil Quinquin and Slack Bay (perhaps even Camille Claudel 1915 – a film I struggled mightily with). It’s certainly on display in Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc - it is undeniably one of the most singular movie watching experiences of the year – but I’m not sold that that’s always such a good thing.

 

The film is essentially a two act film, one with Jeannette at 8, and another with her at 13, as we see signs of the religious fury that will push her towards her destiny. As with many of Dumont’s films, the actors are all non-professionals, the awkwardness of their performances being part of the point. Oh, and this time, he’s made a heavy metal musical, complete with hang banging children, and in the second act to keep things lively, he introduces a rapping, dabbing uncle of Jeannette’s.

 

Everything Dumont does here is deliberate. He shoots the film entirely outdoors, usually with only a few characters around – including a pair of twins – Aline and Elise Charles – playing one character (at the same time). There is constant talk about the English invasion ruining the country, and yet we see no signs of any war in the film. The costumes and production design (what little there is) looks cheap and deliberately thrown together – like they showed up on set and had an hour to throw the look of the film together, and this is the best they could do. The singing isn’t particularly great, the dancing is awkward and jerky, the dialogue repetitive, etc. If you didn’t know Dumont, you may well think this was a low rent version thrown together by middle school kids with no money.

 

That is, of course, the point of Dumont’ film – although for the life of me, I cannot quite figure out why it’s the point he wants to make. When you look at his earlier films, you do see a filmmaker trying to be a modern Robert Bresson or Carl Theodor Dreyer, and his later films still very much bare their influence, from the Ordet-like subplot in Slack Bay, to the obvious inspiration of Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, to the way he uses non-professionals, and tries to sap their emotions out of their performances like Bresson. But now, it reads like an elaborate prank rather than a serious artistic impression. He is essentially making an anti-comedy here, and that’s a genre that for me is usually more painful than anything.

 

Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc is unlike any other film you will see this year. Perhaps that’s the reason Dumont made it all – to be different. But perhaps there’s a good reason why you don’t see too many films like every year. For better or worse (and often, it was both), the earlier, more serious Dumont was a man with an artistic vision. He still has one, I just cannot quite figure out what his point is anymore.

Movie Review: Slack Bay

Slack Bay *** / *****

Directed by: Bruno Dumont.

Written by: Bruno Dumont.

Starring: Fabrice Luchini (André Van Peteghem), Juliette Binoche (Aude Van Peteghem), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Isabelle Van Peteghem), Jean-Luc Vincent (Christian Van Peteghem), Didier Desprès (Alfred Machin), Brandon Lavieville (Ma Loute Brufort), Raph (Billie Van Peteghem), Cyril Rigaux (Malfoy), Didier Després (Detective Inspector Machin), Cyril Rigaux (Detective Malfoy).

 

Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay is simultaneously unmistakably one of his films, as it addresses the themes and obsessions that has run through his entire body-of-work, and completely different than anything he has ever made before – because he has completely changed the tone of his latest film. Dumont has always obsessed over absurdities in French society – and often focused, unblinkingly, at a parade of miseries in front of his camera – rapes and murders, often extreme versions of both, have happened in his films, and his camera captures them with unblinking, cold, detachment more often than not. You don’t just watch Dumont’s films, you’re punished by them. Slack Bay tells a story not unlike any of Dumont’s other films – it actually closely resembles his last one, the four hour, made for French TV Li’l Quinquin – except this time, Dumont has framed it all as an absurdist, over-the-top comedy. I’m not sure the film works – I’m not sure that the film had any possible way in which it could “work” – but you kind of have to admire Dumont for making something this bonkers.

 

The film, set in 1910 on the French coast, is about two families. The Van Peteghem’s are wealthy eccentrics, who live up on the hill, and have nothing of any importance to say or do – they obsessed over things that do not matter – the patriarch Andre (Fabrice Luchini) lurches around his vast property taking up time with meaningless observations, and his wife Isabelle (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) obsesses over the cleanliness of the house – driving the staff nuts. Andre’s sister – Aude (Juliette Binoche) exists, I think, only for the joy of watching the normally serious Binoche go entirely over-the-top goofy – the entire performance full of eye rolls and giggling, as she basically says nothing of value the whole time. Down below, right on the water, are the Brufort’s – a poor fishing family, who make extra money transporting tourists across the water (they literally pick them up and carry them over) – and sometimes, they knock out those tourists, kill them and eat them – something the movie tells us almost casually, very early in the proceedings. The only other major characters are the Laurel & Hardy-like detectives who show up to try and figure out where all these missing tourists have gone – which shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, because it appears that these are the only two families in the area. Then again, they are not very good detectives – as one of them is always falling down – and rolling, rolling, rolling, down hills.

 

This community is so isolated, it’s no wonder that eventually these two families are going to come together in some strange way. That happens when Billie (Raph), the teenager daughter of the Van Peteghem’s, falls for Ma Loute (Brandon Lavieville), a teenage Brufort (who also, oddly, is the title character of the film – which was titled Ma Loute in France). Their relationship is, of course, doomed from the outset, but is a way for Dumont to bring these two families into contact with each other.

 

Dumont is clearly trying for some sort of Bunuelian exercise in surreal absurdity – a satire of French culture, both high and low, in which everyone is an asshole and a hypocrite. You have to admire the ambition behind that to a certain extent. Yet, I don’t quite think his surreal satire lands quite as it wants it to. The film is all over-the-map, his target is probably too broad, and so the whole satire seems rather bland instead of biting. It’s still something to witness to be sure – with some great performances sprinkled in (newcomer Raph is particularly good as Billie – the character who really grounds this thing as much as possible) – and it’s amusing to see someone normally as serious as Dumont, repackage his film as an over-the-top comedy. Does it work? Does it have to?

Movie Review: Li'l Quinquin

Li’l Quinquin
Directed by: Bruno Dumont.
Written by: Bruno Dumont.
Starring: Alane Delhaye (Li’l Quinquin), Bernard Pruvost (Commandant Van der Weyden), Lucy Caron (Eve Terrier), Philippe Jore (Lieutenant Carpentier), Philippe Peuvion (Père Quinquin), Lisa Hartmann (Aurélie Terrier), Julien Bodard (Kevin), Corentin Carpentier (Jordan), Pascal Fresch (Mr. Campin), Jason Cirot (Dany Lebleu), Baptiste Anquez (Mohamed Bhiri), Stéphane Boutillier (Mr. Lebleu), Frédéric Castagno (Vétérinaire), Andrée Peuvion (Grand-Mère Lebleu), Lucien Chaussoy (Grand-Père Lebleu), Cindy Louguet (Mme Campin), Céline Sauvage (Mère Quinquin).

With the possible exception of Michael Haneke, there is probably no other contemporary director who punishes his characters – and the audience – as much as Bruno Dumont. His films have been compared to Robert Bresson and Carl Theodor Dreyer– and there is a similarity there to be sure – but Dumont seems much more like an active participant in his films. He isn’t an invisible presence; he seems to be deliberately messing with his characters and his audience. So the word that Dumont had made a comedy was intriguing. There is nothing in the other Dumont films I have seen – L’humanite (1999), Twentynine Palms (2003), Hors Satan (2011) and Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) – that was at all humorous (at least not intentionally – Dumont, at times, is so serious that you cannot help but giggle at the parade of misery he trots out). But his latest, Li’l Quinquin, which started it life as a TV miniseries in France, but has played festivals as a single 3 hour, 25 minute (which is how its playing in limited release – and on Fandor, which is where I saw it), is a comedy in some ways. But it isn’t a laugh out loud comedy with lots of jokes – it’s more of a surreal comedy in the David Lynch way, mixed with Dumont’s typical questioning of the ugliness of humanity. Li’l Quinquin then is a surprising thing indeed – a Bruno Dumont comedy that still feels like a Bruno Dumont film. I didn’t think that was possible.

The movie opens with the grisly discovery of a body – it has been chopped up and found inside of a cow. As the movie moves along, the body count rises, and the bodies are found in various disgusting ways – more in cows, but also in slurry tanks or eaten by pigs, etc. Dumont doesn’t show very much of the blood – and he doesn’t really show any of the violence itself – but that still doesn’t make it easier to take. The movie focuses on two characters – Commandant Van der Weyden (Bernard Pruvost), the police detective in charge of the investigation. Weyden is an bizarre character – he looks like he could play Albert Einstein in a biopic without much makeup or hair work done. He is also a bundle of bizarre facial tics, and a strange walk. I don’t know if Pruvost has these tics and walk naturally, or if he affected them for the movie itself – like almost all Dumont actors, he is an amateur who has never worked before, so I don’t know. He seems like a comic figure – an Inspector Clouseau type – at least at first. But as the movie moves along, I think he proves himself to at least be a competent – if eccentric – investigator. The other main character is the title one – Li’l Quinquin (Alane Delhaye), a boy of about 12, who hangs out with his “girlfriend” Eve (Lucy Caron), and his buddies all day, every day (it is summer vacation). They get into mischief, and always seem to be lurking behind Pruvost every time a body is found.

The movie is long, and broken into four parts – which shows us the miniseries roots. But it doesn’t play like four different episodes, but instead one long movie. The various parts end and the next episode starts seemingly right away – you could remove the title cards and you would never guess the movie was a miniseries. Because the movie is so long, the characters get more complex as it moves along – especially Li’l Quinquin. He seems like a harmless kid – getting into trouble, but nothing too bad – lighting off fireworks, sneaking in where they aren’t supposed to be, etc. But as the movie goes along, and Dumont introduces a different plot thread – that of xenophobia and anti-immigrant feelings towards the Muslim and African immigrants in the small French town – and no one is perhaps more racist than Li’l Quinquin and his friends. Yet, the movie never makes him into a truly “bad” character – he can be a jerk when he’s with his friends, but his difficult home life can explain part of that, and when it’s just him and his girlfriend, he can actually be rather sweet and sensitive. This is a Dumont character through and through – where the goodness and badness lay side by side in one character.

The film is long, but it is never less than interesting. It held my attention throughout its entire runtime. But it never really reaches the next level – that would push the movie from good to great. Perhaps because Dumont knew he had more time than ever before, he introduces so many characters and plot threads, that some seem to get lost in the mix. He also doesn’t seem all that interested in solving the central mystery of who did all the killings – which are clearly related, as all the victims know each other (many of them, intimately). But Dumont doesn’t provide an answer – hell he doesn’t really give us a clue. As Weydon says near the end of the movie – all the suspects have been murdered. In some ways, this links it to some of the best crime films of the last decade – Memories of Murder, Aurora, Police Adjective, Zodiac, etc. But here, it kind of feels like a copout – just one more Dumont provocation. The film overall works – and it’s interesting to see Dumont work in a different mode than you are used to, even if the ultimate destination is the same. But like many of Dumont’s films – I think the film would work better if Dumont didn’t try to provoke as much as he does.

Movie Review: Camille Claudel 1915

Camille Claudel 1915
Directed by: Bruno Dumont.
Written by: Bruno Dumont.
Starring: Juliette Binoche (Camille Claudel), Jean-Luc Vincent (Paul Claudel), Robert Leroy (The Doctor), Emmanuel Kauffman (The Priest), Marion Keller (Miss Blanc), Armelle Leroy-Rolland (The Young Novice).

Director Bruno Dumont is known for his films that take faith and religion seriously, even if he has stated he wants art to replace religion (good luck with that one Bruno). His films are typically filled with long, static shots, populated by non-professional actors, often contain shocking acts of violence and/or sex and have events that cannot be fully explained – at least not by Dumont. More often than not, he leaves it up to the viewer to decide what actually happened.

His latest, Camille Claudel 1915 differs from his previous films in two important ways – one makes the film better, and one worse. The first way it differs is that he has cast the wonderful Juliette Binoche in the title role. Dumont must have realized that the demands of the role would be too much for a non-professional, and he was right. While often his films go long stretches with no one saying a word, Camille Claudel delivers more than one lengthy monologue in this film that would undo most professional actors – but Binoche handles well. Unfortunately, it is the other difference between Dumont’s previous films and this one that ultimately undoes the film. Most of the time, Dumont makes complex movies, that either have no answer at its core or at least leaves it to the audience to decide. In Camille Claudel 1915, he has clearly made a film about an injustice – and leaves no real room for ambiguity. The film is far more simple and straight forward than most of what we normally get from Dumont.

The film centers on a few days in the life of Camille Claudel – an artist in her own right, but one perhaps best known as the longtime lover, muse and collaborator of the infamous Auguste Rodin. The 1988 film, Camille Claudel (unseen by me) tells the story of her life with Rodin in a more conventional, biopic form (and earned Isabelle Adjani an Oscar nomination – a rarity for a foreign film) – and ends before this film even begins – which is 20 years after her relationship with Rodin ended, and two years after her stay in a mental asylum, where she was placed by her family- represented here by her little brother Paul (Jean-Luc Vincent). The film deals with just a few days in her life as she waits for Paul to arrive, confident that he will see she doesn’t belong there, and take her away.

The film makes is abundantly clear that Camille does not belong there at all. True, she is a little paranoid but that’s about all. But compared to the rest of the residents of the asylum, she is clearly healthy. Dumont’s penchant for using non-professional actors is present in the film – as Dumont films in an actual asylum and used actual residents there to highlight the difference between them and Claudel. To a degree this is effective – it clearly highlights the difference between Camille and the other residents of the asylum. But to me, it took me out of the movie, as I could not help but think Dumont was exploiting these poor people, who quite clearly have little to no idea what is going on around them.

The reason to see the film is Binoche – who is wonderful as Claudel. Yes, she is paranoid, but she in no way belongs in the asylum where she is placed. Twice – once near the beginning and once near the end – Dumont gives Binoche long, impassioned monologues where she pleads her case for her own insanity – only to have those pleas fall on deaf ears. Binoche lays herself bare in the role, and she delivers a wonderful performance. Unfortunately for her, the rest of the movie does not match her level of excellence.

It’s clear from the beginning of the film that Claudel does not belong in the asylum. The movie makes this point over and over again, as it really has no other point to make. We sit around and wait for Paul to arrive, so we can have the big confrontation the movie is building to, yet when he does arrive, the movie grinds to a halt. This is because we are introduced to Paul, and have to sit through his own long monologue (a voice over of what he’s writing at first, and then his long prayer as he kneels by the side of the road). Paul is precisely the type of religious figure Dumont usually avoids in his movies – a one note fanatic, who is easily dismissed because his sense of religion is so dogmatic and unyielding. We know Camille has no chance convincing Paul to sign her release papers – but she holds out hope in vain.

I suppose one could argue the movie is effective. Dumont’s point is to make us feel as claustrophobic as Camille herself – confined to her small room, with no privacy, no distractions from the drudgery of her day-to-day existence, surrounded by people who either cannot or will not listen to her or treat her as a normal person. And he does that. And Binoche, as always, is wonderful in the lead role. But Camille Claudel 1915 left me somewhat cold. It didn’t engage me intellectually like most of Dumont’s films do, because everything in the film is so straightforward and simple. Camille Claudel didn’t belong in a mental institution, but was put there anyway where she suffered for 30 years. That’s a tragedy to be sure, but Dumont’s film is too cold to be effective. It is precisely the type of film he doesn’t usually make – and now we know why.