Summer Movies

Summer is never considered a good time for movies: who wants to hide in the darkness of a cinema when outside the sun is shining and you can have a cocktail lying down on a deck chair? 
Well, I do. I like to go to the movies anytime, all year long. Sunny, rainy, snowy days, any day is perfect for a good film.
In case you have the chance to live in Paris and you want to relax and enjoy a couple of hours comfortably seated in a fresh spot (air conditioning, anybody?), here are Zazie’s suggestions for the best movies in town:

AMY by ASIF KAPADIA (UK)

If you are an Amy Winehouse fan, you probably don’t want to miss this documentary on her life and (tragic) death. 

The film-maker received a worldwide praise for his biopic on another famous figure, the Formula One pilot Ayrton Senna, and now he has pointed his camera towards this outstanding artist, victim of her own fame and self-destructive nature.
Kapadia had access to unseen archive footage of Winehouse (even from her teenage years), coming from friend and first producer Nick Shymansky. The parabola of the singer is clearly shown and it is easy to understand that behind her craving for love there was a lack of the same thing when she was child (thanks, mum and dad!). But the worst influence of all has been the one of her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, a real piece of shit. He is the one who introduced her to drogues such as cocaine, crack and heroine (thanks, honey!), not to mention all the rest. To witness the inability of Amy Winehouse to take care of herself and to sink into depression and any kind of addiction is painful and unbearable. And it is heart breaking to hear her incredible voice and to understand what she could have done with it if only things had turned out differently.
What a shame.

HILL OF FREEDOM by HONG SANG-SOO (KOREA)

If you are an Eric Rohmer’s fan or if you love movies where there is no much going on (I personally adore them), this is the summer flick for you. 

Kwon comes back to Seoul after a period of illness recovery in the mountains, and she finds a bunch of letters from a Japanese guy, Mori, waiting for her. The two had a short affair a while before and Mori, who is in love with Kwon, has decided to surprise her and to visit her from Tokyo without any notice. Since Kwon is not there, Mori spends his days writing letters seated in a café, the Hill of Freedom. In the meantime, he gets to know people who live around Kwon’s place: the waitress of the café and the guests of the small bed & breakfast where he is staying. Will the couple be able to get together?
This is one of the sweetest movies I have ever seen in my life, and God knows if we need a bit more of tenderness and kindness in this world. The way the story is told (Kwon has dropped the letters in the stairs so she is reading them in a random sequence), the way the characters speak (in the most elementary English, since the Korean characters don’t speak Japanese and Mori doesn’t speak Korean), the funny and delicate dialogues, make Hill of Freedom an irresistible and incredibly poetic feel-good movie.
Zazie is crazy about it!

INFINITELY POLAR BEAR by MAYA FORBES (US)

If you love tenderness, then there is another movie you don’t want to miss: Infinitely Polar Bear. 
Written and directed by Maya Forbes, the film is autobiographical and infinitely touching. Forbes relates her childhood and teenage years spent in Boston with a manic-depressive/bipolar father who was taking care of her and her younger sister while their mother was studying and working in NY trying to provide a better future for her daughters. Cameron, the father, is as crazy as irresistible. He tries his best but life with him is a rollercoaster, both practical and emotional, where big crises mix with moments of bliss. Basically: it’s a mess, but a beautiful one.
I have to admit that I went to see this movie for one particular reason: Mark Ruffalo. I always loved this actor but since I am following him on Facebook, I’m just crazy about him. He genuinely looks like a fabulous human being and every time he is posting something I feel the urge to forward it to the world!
His performance is astonishing here, but also the rest of the cast is very good: Zoe Saldana as the mother and the two adorable young actresses Imogene Wolodarsky (who is Forbes’s real daughter… hello Mr. Freud!), and Ashley Aufderheide.
Please don't miss this tender thing!

LA ISLA MINIMA by ALBERTO RODRIGUEZ (SPAIN)

If you loved True Detective – Season 1, you’re going to adore La Isla Minima by Alberto Rodriguez. 

Set in 1980 in the marshlands of Andalucia (filmed as if it was Louisiana), the movie tells the story of two detectives, very different in age and style, who are called from Madrid to inquiry the disappearance of two girls. When the girls are found raped and killed, the investigation turns from complicated to grim.
Superbly filmed, this perfect film noir has been last year’s big hit in its own country (winner of 10 Goya prizes, the Spanish Oscars). The sticky atmosphere, the contrast between the older detective (who used to work for Franco’s militia) and the idealist younger one, the sense of oppression mixed with the difficulties of a country that is trying to switch from a dictatorship to a democracy are the juicy elements of this story.
The actors playing the two detectives are absolutely amazing: Javier Gutierrez and Raul Arevalo (if you think you already saw his face the answer is yes: he was one of the three dancing stewards in Almodovar's Los Amantes Pasajeros).
A seasonal must-see!

 WHILE WE'RE YOUNG by NOAH BAUMBACH (US)

If you like Woody Allen, you’ll probably love the new Baumbach’s movie. 

Cornelia and Josh are a married couple in their 40something, without kids, very wealthy and working in the documentary field (he’s a documentarian, she’s a producer). They met by chance a married couple in their 20something, Jamie and Darby, and they become friends. Jamie wishes to be a documentarian too and he declares to be a super fan of Josh’s work. Very impressed by the young couple’s life-style, Josh and Cornelia start to slightly change their own way of being. This is going to have consequences, of course.
I have to confess I was a bit disappointed by this movie, since I was so crazy about Frances Ha, Baumbach’s previous film. I think the screenplay has evident flaws: there is something missing here, as if the film-maker wasn’t completely sure of what he was trying to say. Pity, because it is an enjoyable movie, with some great ideas and some incredibly funny moments (the meeting with the guru that makes you puke your demons was my favourite one!). And the cast is super good.
So, even if it is not perfect, it’s still a very good Summer Movie. Go for it!

Top 10 of 2013

It's raining TOP 10 Lists, dear readers, and Zazie (who's been to the movies 84 times last year) is looking forward to letting you know which are the films she simply ADORED in 2013...

1. LA VIE D'ADELE - Chapitres 1 & 2 by Abdellatif Kechiche (France)

2. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS by the Coen Brothers (US)

3. 12 YEARS A SLAVE by Steve McQueen (US)

4. FRANCES HA by Noah Baumbach (US)

5. LE TEMPS DE L'AVENTURE by Jérôme Bonnell (France) 

6. BEFORE MIDNIGHT by Richard Linklater (US)

7. L'INCONNU DU LAC by Alain Guiraudie (France)

8. WADJDA by Haifaa Al-Mansour (Saudi-Arabia)

9. NEBRASKA by Alexander Payne (US)

10. BLUE JASMINE by Woody Allen (US)

While these are the movies Zazie really COULD NOT STAND in 2013:
1. THE GREAT GATSBY by Baz Luhrmann (US)
2. L'ECUME DES JOURS by Michel Gondry (France)

3. TRANCE by Danny Boyle (UK)

And you, dear readers, which are the movies you've been crazy about in 2013?

Looking for Richard

I follow just one rule with this blog: writing about cinema. 
I have made, in all these years, just one exception (for the publication of my brother’s last novel). But today, I am about to add a second. 
The reason is simple: today is a very special person’s very special birthday. 
When I watched Frances Ha, some days ago, there was an interesting scene.
Frances, who is about to go to Paris for the first time in her life, asks to some friends she’s having dinner with: "Is Paris the city with that museum made of funny tubes?"
Yes, Paris actually is the city with that very weird museum, and I can tell you that those funny tubes also happened to have changed my life for good.

The two architects behind those mad tubes are in fact my boss and the man who, of all the many fascinating, amazing, inspiring people I have met through my job, is without doubt the most fascinating, amazing and inspiring of all.
His name is Richard Rogers (Lord Richard Rogers, to be precise), who turns 80 today, and I have decided to use my blog to publicly declare all my love to him.
First of all, Richard looks so young to me that he could easily be turning 20, today.
I LOVE Richard because he is generous, genuinely interested in other people, curious, funny, gentle, really smart, incredibly handsome, super cool, super stylish (oh, the way he dresses! oh, these wonderful bright colours he colours his - and ours - life with!) and he is even sexier than Michael Fassbender! Look:

Happy Birthday, Richard, e cento di questi giorni!!! 
Your biggest fan, 
Zazie 

Ps If you happen to be in London between today and October 13, don’t miss the exhibition that the Royal Academy of Arts dedicates to Richard’s works: Richard Rogers – Inside Out 
Simply unmissable!

Frances Ha

I am crazy about movies quoting other movies.
Because I feel the joy of having found soul mates, people who go through their lives constantly thinking about cinema, talking about cinema, making cinema referring to other cinema. Basically, cinema freaks like me, who can’t conceive life without the filter of movies.
When I watch films made by people like this, I feel like they’re telling me: Hey you, welcome home!
It doesn’t happen every day, but it does happen.
It is something I have constantly felt looking at the last Noah Baumbach’s movie, Frances Ha, written by him and by the main actress of the film, Greta Gerwig. 

The two, who already worked together in the previous Baumbach's movie, Greenberg,

are now a couple à la ville.

Sophie (Mickey Sumner) and Frances (Greta Gerwig)

Frances Ha tells the story of Frances, a 27 years old girl who lives in Brooklyn together with her best friend, Sophie. While Sophie works for a publishing house, Frances has a precarious job: she is an apprentice dancer who dreams to integrate a dancing company but always fails at it. When Sophie announces to her that she is moving to Manhattan with another friend, Frances's world starts progressively to collapse. She looses the apartment, the job and, after a monumental fight, also her best friend. It will take time, to Frances, to put together all the pieces that will bring her to become Frances Ha.

New York filmed in black and white: it is so Manhattanesque that you almost believe to have heard a Gershwin music somewhere, but instead, quite surprisingly, what you really hear is a piece called “L’école Buissonière” by Jean Constantin, taken from Les 400 Coups by François Truffaut. The whole music, as a matter of fact, is taken from Nouvelle Vague films, with a prominent presence of Georges Delerue and a hint of Antoine Duhamel. 
I have prevented you: this is home.
It is home to the point that, when Frances starts walking/dancing on the streets of New York on Modern Love by David Bowie, the image of Denis Lavant in Mauvais Sang by Leos Carax naturally arises, overlapping the one on the screen. 

Modern Love - Baumbach Version

Modern Love - Carax Version

And how is it possible not to think about Samy Frey, Claude Brasseur and Anna Karina in Bande à Part by Jean-Luc Godard when Frances is sharing the apartment together with Lev and Benji? Nobody will be surprised if these three would start running together in the corridors of the MET…

Bande à part - Baumbach Version

Bande à part - Godard Version

... and, of course, during her short trip to Paris, somebody wants to invite Frances to a party where there is a guy "Who looks like Jean-Pierre Léaud!"

Thus said, Frances Ha is not a good movie because of its hommages to the Nouvelle Vague universe. You can (of course!) see the movie completely unaware of them and enjoy it immensely. Frances character is super interesting: captured in one of those weird moments of life where adulthood should be installed but in fact is not already there, this young woman invades the screen with her clumsy gestures, her free-flowing monologues, her disarming need to be loved and to find her place in the world. Slightly irritating at first, gripping while struggling to survive among many difficulties, absolutely charming in her candid attempts to assert herself. The moment where, completely drunk, she explains what a relationship should be for her, is a little masterpiece, and Gerwig is astonishing in this made-to-measure role.
But be careful: this is not a rom com or a chick flick, this is a modern movie about a young woman whose first need is not to find a man but to find herself. 
Undatable, as her friend Benji keeps describing her? 
Maybe, but also very irresistible!