In vino veritas

Yesterday night I had dinner at some friends’ place in Rue Monge, 5ème arrondissement of Paris.

My friend Patricia and I were supposed to bring the wine, but we couldn’t find a store near them and so, since she was carrying a lot of bags, I told her to go straight to our friends’ place, while I would have gone in search of the wine.

I started walking, but strangely enough the famous “Nicolas” sign wasn’t anywhere to see. My only chance was to go towards Rue Mouffetard, a street full of shops. Once I approached the road, I realized that something was going on. At first, I just thought that half of the population of the 5th arrondissement was out, taking an apéro en terrasse, but then a young woman got close to me and politely asked me to go on the other side of the street, because "it wasn’t possible to go any further". I probably looked at her in disbelief, because she looked back at me and she asked me the same thing in English. It was just at that moment that I understood I stumbled upon a film set.

The little piazza and the final part of Rue Mouffetard were plenty of big trucks, technicians and curious people. They were filming in front of a fruit & vegetables little store, not particularly nice, I have to say. At first, I just thought they were shooting an advertisement and I didn't pay much attention. Plus, on the opposite side of the street, I finally saw the wine store sign. I managed to cross the piazza, and once arrived where the people were gathering, I recognised Owen Wilson standing outside the shop. Oh, this is a movie, after all... and it must be a Wes Anderson one! – I thought. But then somebody near me started whispering: C’est Carla! I looked back: as a matter of fact, Carla Bruni Sarkozy was talking to Owen Wilson. Oh, this must be the new Woody Allen movie, then! My eyes now were looking for him. And there he was, one of my favourite film-makers, watching what he just filmed on a small screen. He was so concentrated: he looked like the outside world didn’t matter to him at all. I know this could sound stupid, but in a way it felt so natural to have found the set of a Woody Allen movie just around the corner, here in Paris. Because this is how life should be. The whole time, I mean. I could have stayed there forever, just looking at the lovely mess all around.

But then I remember my friends waiting and my mission: the wine! I entered into the shop: every single person, the owners as well as the customers, instead of looking at each other or at the bottles of wine, was looking outside the shop windows. Everybody was talking about what was going on in the street. The Parisians, for once, put aside their proverbial discretion and were talking to strangers.

Since what time have they been filming? – I asked to the shop guy.

Since 5 pm. Are you Italian? My accent ruined the whole thing, again, I thought.

Yes, but I have the wrong surname’s colour, I replied.

He looked at me inquiringly: he didn't pick up the joke.

He couldn’t know that, instead of having a Bruni in front of him, he just had a Bianchi.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

 

 Having a soft spot for Wes Anderson, I was ready to love his new movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I wasn’t prepared to adore it.

Based upon a children novel by English writer Roald Dahl (the very first book that Anderson received as a gift when he was 7 years old), the movie has been made in a very sophisticated yet very sweet stop-motion animated technique. 

Mr. Fox, his wife Felicity and their son Ash live a decent life in a decent hole but Mr. Fox, who promised to his wife two years earlier to give up stealing poultry as a job, is dreaming big dreams and he decides (against his lawyer’s advise) to buy a new home inside a lovely tree.

Once settled down, Mr. Fox (now a journalist) is unable to resist to the temptation of stealing from his new neighbours, the awful farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Helped by his friend, the opossum Kylie, and by the sweet and smart Kristofferson (Mr. Fox’s nephew), they managed to steal many products from the three bad guys, but then they have to face their terrible revenge. To escape from it, Mr. Fox and his family dig a deep tunnel under the three farms, finding a bunch of other animals whose houses have been destroyed by the fury of Boggis, Bunce and Bean. After many adventures (more stealing, a flooding, a starvation problem, and various attacks), Mr. Fox and his friends will be able to outflank the enemies and be happy again (with great news coming along…).

I’ve always loved obsessive filmmakers.

Artists that, no matter how many movies their career is made of, will always talk about the same few things.

Let’s say no more than three themes per film, and Anderson is definitely one of them.

What he has created, film after film (6 in total), is a very personal world, parallel to the real one, where you can recognise the same characters, the same kind of situations, the same sense of humour, the same difficulties to face, the same happiness to look for. The fact that Anderson often uses the same actors to play in his movies just magnifies this sensation: Jason Schwartzman, the Wilson brothers, Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston, to name few of them, are part of the Anderson family. The filmmaker even writes his stories with the same people, especially with his friends Noah Baumbach and Owen Wilson.

In his cinema, the complexity of family's ties is central. As well as the difficulties of growing up. Very often, there is a character that feels at odd with the rest of humanity: usually a hyper-sensitive, hyper-intelligent, not very sporty, totally nerd, funny and romantic guy who is in trouble to find his place into his family and into the real world (my favourite one is still Max Fischer from Rushmore, but little Ash from Fantastic Mr. Fox is another good example of it).

In this last movie, it is incredible to see how much andersonian looks the world imagined by Dahl.

 

 And somehow, having animated puppets instead of human beings, gives to Anderson's world a deeper resonance, a lighter breath and a heightened sensibility. For sure, the "voices" chosen were pivotal in creating these great effects: George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, Jason Schwartzman as Ash, Willem Dafoe as Rat, Bill Murray as Badger... they're all more than perfect, but the little miracle here is the adorable Kristofferson's voice (courtesy of Wes Anderson's younger brother, Eric).

A last word about the music, that in Anderson's cinema always plays a very important role and it is amazingly used.

In Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was happily surprised by a song written and performed by Jarvis Cocker (now that I think about it, he is SO perfect for Anderson's universe!) but even more delighted to hear a couple of scores by Georges Delerue taken from two different Truffaut’s movies: Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent and La Nuit Américaine.

This last one is actually the same used by Zazie for her tribute to Truffaut in one of her first posts for this blog.

Well, Mr. Anderson, it looks like we have faith in the same God...