Zazie d'Or 2013

Oscars? Golden Globes? Golden Lions? Golden Palms? Golden Bears? BAFTAs? Césars?
Totally has been! Totally out of fashion! The most prestigious cinema award worldwide is – no doubt about it - the one and only ZAZIE D’OR!
Last year, Zazie has been 84 times to the movies and this, dear readers, is the BEST OF IT ALL:

The Zazie d’Or for BEST PICTURE 2013 goes to
LA VIE D'ADELE by Abdellatif Kechiche (France)
They are two girls in France but they could have been a boy and a girl in Japan or two boys in Alaska. Kechiche proves (thanks to two actresses en état de grace) that the first love and the first pain of love are universal and unforgettable. M A G N I F I Q U E !

The SPECIAL ZAZIE D’OR 2013 goes to
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS by the Coen Brothers (US)
A folk singer, a cat named Ulysesse, a bunch of beautiful songs, a cold winter in the NY of the 60s. And the genius of the Coen Brothers to turn a disastrous series of events into the most pleasant cinema moment of the year. W O N D E R F U L !

The ZAZIE COUP DE COEUR 2013 goes to 
12 YEARS A SLAVE by Steve McQueen  (US)
Before seing this movie I had no idea what being a slave meant. After having seen it, I do.
Very much so.

Zazie would like to give a special prize to the entire cast of this movie for their excellent performances: CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, LUPITA NYONG'O, MICHAEL FASSBENDER, SARAH PAULSON, BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, PAUL DANO, PAUL GIAMATTI, they are all amazing. BRAD PITT, I am afraid, IS NOT included (but we thank him, anyway, because without his presence the money to produce the film would have never been found).

The Zazie d'Or for BEST DIRECTOR 2013 goes to
NICOLAS WINDING REFN for ONLY GOD FORGIVES (Thailand)
This is a prize that will surprise many of you, I know. Nobody liked this movie except me and few other people. Well, j'assume! I have always loved his cinema, and I adore the way he films. I am completely under his spell. I can stay in front of the screen for hours if Winding Refn is behind the camera.

 

The Zazie d’Or for BEST ACTOR 2013 goes to
BRUCE DERN for NEBRASKA by Alexander Payne (US)
You don't need to have made the Actor's Studio to give the performance of the year. You don't even need to be young and beautiful, to loose 30 kgs, to have a handicap or a mortal illness. Sometimes you just need to be Bruce Dern in a black & white movie. This one.

The Zazie d’Or for BEST ACTRESS 2013 goes to
CATE BLANCHETT for BLUE JASMINE by Woody Allen (US)
Yes, I know, she has already won all the prizes in this world. I’ve tried to find somebody else, I thought a lot about the girls of La vie d’Adèle, but then I had to admit it: the most unforgettable one, is her Jasmine. There's nothing I could do about it!

The Zazie d'Or for BEST SCREENPLAY 2013 goes to
RICHARD LINKLATER+JULIE DELPY+ETHAN HAWKE for BEFORE MIDNIGHT by Richard Linklater (US)

These three people have done something unique in cinema history: they have created a couple 20 years ago and they told us their story ever since. We have grown up with Jesse and Céline: we have shared with them the joys of youth, the doubts of maturity and now the difficulties of the middle age. The dialogues of these movies should be studied in every cinema school, because they're simply perfect. 
I hope we will meet them again!

 

The Zazie d'Or for BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 2013 goes to
BRUNO DELBONNEL for INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS by the Coen Brothers (US)
Delbonnel, the man behind the magic light of movies like Faust and Le Fabuleux déstin d'Amélie Poulain, works for the first time with the Coen brothers and the result is more than special: the vintage patina of the '60s combined with the cold light of a NY winter is absolutely splendid!

The Zazie d'Or for BEST DOCUMENTARY 2013 goes to

STORIES WE TELL by Sarah Polley (Canada)

I adore Sarah Polley's cinema. Here she relates an incredible personal story: the discovery of her father not being her real father and her search for the natural one. In a strange mix of fictional super 8 films and interviews with the "real" people, she drags us into a very touching family history plenty of emotions, funny moments and universal questions about ourselves.

The Zazie d'Or for the BEST ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 2013 goes to
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS by the Coen Brothers (US)

What can I say? I'm listening to this record in a loop since the day I watched the movie for the first time (back in October 2013...)

The LITTLE ZAZIE D’OR (Best First Feature Film Prize) 2013 goes to 
HAIFAA AL-MANSOUR for WADJDA (Saudi Arabia) 
I have the greatest respect for a woman who is trying to make movies in a country where cinema doesn't exist and where women barely exist. She has filmed all the street scenes hidden inside the back of a truck, proving that, sometimes, revolutions can start with a little girl and her bike. W la Liberté!

The JEREMY IRONS PRIZE (Man of my Life Award) 2013 goes to
Irish actor GABRIEL BYRNE
In Le Temps de l’Aventure by Jérôme Bonnell, Byrne proves to be the sexiest 60something on planet earth. In the movie, he takes a commuter train to go from Calais to Paris because he is afraid of the tunnel under the English Channel. If you assure me that I’m going to meet somebody like him on a train like that, I swear to avoid the Eurostar for the rest of my life! Gabriel, here I come...

And for you, dear readers, what has been the best of 2013?

Inside Llewyn Davis

As you know, I love film-makers creating their own world.
An entire universe reduced to the scale of a microcosm, where you can recognize people, streets, rooms, songs, jokes, themes, words. A landscape that becomes familiar year after year, movie after movie: a place you can easily call “home”.
The Coen Brothers have been home for so many years, now, that I feel like I have known them since high school, or even before. From Blood Simple on, I have never missed a single appointment with one of their films. I grew up with them and I hope to get old with them, especially because they are like good whisky: the older, the better. 

Ethan & Joel Coen

In October the Cinémathèque Française presented a complete retrospective of their work and held a special avant-première of their newest movie: Inside Llewyn Davis, Grand Prix du Jury at the last Cannes Film Festival.

The Coen Brothers were there and your Zazie was there too, of course! 

The film is out today in all French cinemas (in the United States will be released only in December) and I strongly suggest you not to miss it. Before the screening, Ethan & Joel Coen, later joined by actor Oscar Isaac (who plays the main role in the movie), had a conversation with Bernard Benoliel of the Cinémathèque.
They talked about their way of making movies: the first idea, the sources of inspirations (which can be different: a book or a news read in a newspaper, or the willing of seeing two specific actors playing together), how they write their dialogues, how they use storyboards, how they managed to produce their films.
When Isaac arrived on stage, to the question: “Do they always agree with each other while filming?” He answered: “Oh, no, I used to do whatever the last one came up and asked me to do!” While the Coen brothers explained how the choice of Isaac for the role almost imposed itself because it would have been impossible to find another person who could be such a good actor and a good musician at the same time.

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen and Bernard Benoliel

Oscar Isaac, Ethan & Joel Coen, Bernard Benoliel

Gaslight Café, Greenwich Village, New York 1961.
A man is playing a folk song in front of the audience: he is Llewyn Davis, and we are about to follow his life for few days. Llewyn is not exactly having a great time: his solo career (he used to be part of a duo, but the other guy killed himself) is not working at all, he doesn’t have a place to live, he doesn’t even have a coat to protect himself from the cold winter, and the girlfriend of one of his best friends is expecting a baby from him. And the worst part is: this is just the beginning. It looks like there is no end to the disasters Llewyn Davis is able to create or to go towards to. Will he find a way to escape to this catastrophic spiral? Who knows…

Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac)

Llewyn Davis character is quintessentially Coenian. 
He is, in fact, the epitome of Coens heroes: a perfect loser. A looser so stubborn in his pursuing of the worst, that is impossible not to love him for his humanity and his weakness. This is where the Coen Brothers are so good at: sketching a character full of flaws but in such a witty and smart way that the audience is immediately captured and taken with him. Life is awful, the world is a bad place, music doesn’t pay the rent, love is hard to find, but hey, a good sense of humour can save a man from the worst catastrophes.

The mise-en-scène, here, is pure joy: the reconstruction of the NY folk scene in the ‘60s is far from being flat or slightly false (as it is often the case in movies set in the past). The warm colours and splendid light provided by the French director of photography Bruno Delbonnel (Faust and Amélie, c’est lui!) make every scene beautiful and real, and the Coen brothers film in a masterly manner.

Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), Jim (Justin Timberlake) and Al Cody (Adam Driver)

The movie's key element, though, is the music. When the film is over you just want to run to the first CD shop (do they still exist, by the way?) and buy the Original Soundtrack. 
The Coens did the right thing choosing Oscar Isaac to play Llewyn Davis: he is really incredible, both as an actor and as a musician. The rest of the cast is amazing as well: John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, Adam Driver… they’re all p e r f e c t. Personally, I can’t stand Carey Mulligan, and I think she plays in a particularly dull and overdone way here. Plus, without short hair, she is totally uninteresting. This is, in my opinion, the only faux pas of the entire film.

As it happens to me with every movie I really love, I kept thinking about Inside Llewyn Davis for ages. 
I kept having flashes of some scenes: the NY streets under the rain, Llewyn face filmed very closely, the black twins smiling in the underground. And every time I felt a kind of nostalgic pang: when could I go back there again? I have to wait until the next Coens movie, I know.
But at least this is not an Adieu. Just an Aurevoir...