Zazie D'Or 2012

As every year... forget about Oscars, Baftas, Golden Globes, Golden Lions, Golden Palms, Golden Bears, Césars, Goyas, or any other Cinema award you can think of. The most prestigious and most exclusive one, the ZAZIE D'OR, is back again, ready to let you know what was the very BEST of Cinema in 2012! 
Ladies and Gentlemen, the winners are...

The Zazie D'Or for BEST PICTURE 2012 goes to
DE ROUILLE ET D'OS by Jacques Audiard (France)
A woman without legs, a man without words. 
Audiard brings them together and delivers us the most intense love story of the last years.
Simply breathtaking. 

The SPECIAL ZAZIE D'OR 2012 goes to
LAURENCE ANYWAYS by Xavier Dolan (Québéc)
as well as
The Zazie d'Or for the BEST SCREENPLAY goes to Xavier Dolan for the same movie
The story of a man who wants to live his life as a woman.
A revolt? No, more than that: a revolution!
And Zazie proudly co-produced it... In Xavier Dolan we trust!

The ZAZIE COUP DE COEUR 2012 goes to
TABU by MIGUEL GOMES (Portugal)

as well as

The Zazie d'Or for the BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY to Rui Poças for the same film

A modern and gloomy Lisbon versus a vintage and sunny African landscape.

The memory of a love story, of a paradise forever lost, and the magical sound of a silent movie. 
The most unexpected gem of the year.

The Zazie D'Or for BEST DIRECTOR 2012 goes to
JACQUES AUDIARD for DE ROUILLE ET D'OS (France)
Because nobody films as Audiard does: it is intense, captivating, magnificent.
I can't get enough of this. I want more!

The Zazie D'Or for BEST ACTRESS 2012 goes to

EMMANUELLE RIVA for AMOUR by Michael Haneke (France)

Everybody knows how much I HATE this movie, that in my opinion has nothing to do with love, but every time I think about Emmanuelle Riva, I can't help myself: she is undoubtly the one who (at 86) delivered the best female performance of the year. Riva, Mon Amour!

The Zazie D'Or for BEST ACTOR 2012 goes to
MADS MIKKELSEN for JAGTEN (The Hunt) by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)
Mikkelsen doesn't need to do much to show his skills. In fact, it is quite the opposite: the less he does, the better it gets. As an innocent man wrongly accused of the most ignominious acts towards a child, he is able to express the tragedy in a way that leaves no doubt about one thing: his talent. 

The Little Zazie D'or (BEST FIRST FEATURE FILM) goes to
RUNDSKOP (Bullhead) by Michaël R. Roskam (Belgium)
A man who tries to transform himself into a bull... not exactly the lightest subject for a first movie, but certainly an amazing story. Matthias Shoenaerts performance is as good as the one of Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. It's all said.
The Zazie D'Or for BEST DOCUMENTARY 2012 goes to
LE SOMMEIL D'OR by Davy Chou (France/Cambodia)
The heartbreaking story of a cinema that no longer exists, the Cambodian one, erased by the ignorant fury of the Red Khmers. A tribute to the everlasting power of movies.
Chapeau!

The Zazie D'Or for BEST COSTUME DESIGN goes to
Charlotte David for POPULAIRE by Régis Roinsard (France)
The woman already behind the fabulous '60s style of OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d'espions, absolutely deserves a prize for this cornucopia of marvellous vintage dresses from the '50s. I want them ALL!

The JEREMY IRONS PRIZE (Man of my life Award) for 2012 goes to 
MATTHIAS SHOENAERTS (Belgian Actor)
Having seen him in two of my favourite movies of the year (Bullhead and De rouille et d'Os) convinced me that this guy has got something special. Inside and outside.
If you know what I mean... (and if you don't, look at the picture!)

A special thanks, as usual, to Sergio "Saccingo" Tanara, the creator of the Zazie D'Or drawing!

Like a movie

I have lived something special, very special, in these last past weeks. 

It was like a movie.
It was like in The Purple Rose of Cairo, when the most incredible thing happens to Cecilia (the protagonist): the main character of the movie she is looking at for the seventh time, walks off the screen to know her.
After a first moment of disbelief, Cecilia, who spends her time in cinemas, decides to accept the unexpected chance and to live few perfect days with this stranger coming from a movie.
It is a dream, for her. It is simply perfect. Cecilia has this incredible remark: "I just met a wonderful new man. He’s fictional, but you can’t have everything!" 
Days with this man are plenty of surprises, love and tenderness. Cecilia is even invited to join the world of the movie he is playing in, something that was beyond her wildest imagination:

But this is too good to be true and, soon enough, reality strikes back.
Gil Shepherd, the actor who plays the character in the film, arrives in town, worried about what his fictional double, Tom Baxter, can make. He met Cecilia by chance, he understands what’s going on between her and his character, and he starts talking to her and spending time with her.
The situation got confused very rapidly. Gil declares his love to Cecilia: "I haven’t been able to think of anything since we met. I have to have some time to show you what real life can be like if two people really care for each other."
Cecilia is speechless: "Last week I was unloved. Now two people love me and it’s the same two people!" Gil tries his best to convince her, and when Cecilia claims that Tom is perfect, he replies: 
"What good is perfect if the man is not real?".

And then, of course, Cecilia takes the fatal decision. 

She decides to renounce to perfection to go with the real man.
Arriving in front of the Jewel Cinema, where she has a meeting with him to leave for Hollywood, she finds out that Gil Shepherd already left. Without her, of course.
Devastated, crushed, she does the only thing she could do to forget, at least for few moments, the dead feeling she has inside her: she goes into the cinema. Cecilia knows that Gil is not the first, and that he won’t be the last, but the list, all of a sudden, seems far too long to be acceptable. And the sadness invading her thinking about the happiness that could have been there for them, simply unbearable. 

Cecilia sits down in the dark, in front of the screen. Alone. In tears.

The movie shows us Gil Shepherd on his plane to Hollywood: he is looking outside of the window with a doubtful look in his eyes. Does he understand what he has done to Cecilia? Does he feel sorry? Is he regretful? He seems so. Will he change his life to be with Cecilia? Will he do something unexpected and irrational to win her back? No way. 

Even in movies, sometimes, there is no happy ending.
They usually are the ones inspired by real life.

After

Un homme et une femme à Paris, la nuit.
These few words would be enough to describe the movie After, by Géraldine Maillet, that I saw the other night in my favourite Parisian cinema, the Ciné Studio 28.
I read a couple of articles about this movie and I immediately decided not to miss it, because - as I often write in this blog - I like movies made of few elements. I’m much in love with films made without spending millions of euros and where there’s almost nothing going on. They are the most challenging ones, and I’m convinced cinema is still an amazing and fascinating art especially because of this kind of films.

Julie et Guillaume are perfect strangers. They meet one rainy night in an empty Japanese restaurant: she looks sad and nervous, he looks immediately attracted by her. She can’t find a taxi to go home, he offers her a lift with his motorbike, she reluctantly accepts. They stop at a jazzy bar but she doesn’t look at ease. She leaves and she goes home by taxi. Guillaume follows her: he asks her to spend together the hours until dawn, going around Paris, even if “she is not free” (Julie has a wedding ring). The film is the account of these hours.

Movies like After can be very risky: if the screenplay is not good, if the dialogues sound fake, if the actors are not talented, forget about it. You can’t do a movie like this unless you’re really sure of the tone you want to give to your images, the atmosphere you want to create and the feelings you want to provoke in the audience.
Géraldine Maillet, a novelist with a past as top-model, is brave enough to have chosen this kind of story for her first long-métrage (she already made two short movies). The film-maker, who came to talk to the public after the projection, said she wrote the film having in mind Julie Gayet as the woman and Jocelyn Quivrin as the man. When Quivrin tragically died in a car accident in 2009, she found herself in trouble and she had a lot to go through before achieving what she had in mind (she talked about this adventure in a book called "What Tarantino would have done at my place?").

Filmed rigorously at night in 6 weeks and in chronological order, After has a dark and sombre quality. Will the meeting of these two strangers be a happy one? Good and bad things come and go as in a roller coaster, and the public follow quite mesmerized the erratic movements of the two main characters in a city that is far away from the post-card look of, let’s say, Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen. Here there’s another movie that can be taken as a first reference, and it is Extérieur, Nuit by Jacquel Bral, a 1980 movie with Gérard Lanvin, André Dussolier and Christine Boisson (Maillet said that she would have loved to title the film exactly like this).

Christine Boisson in Extérieur, Nuit

Guillaume and Julie are far away from being perfect: he is clumsy and a bit of a looser, Julie is grumpy and distant, they look for each other without really meeting, and they try to understand each other without really knowing how to do that. But it is because of their evident flaws and it is in the very moments they loose their defences (Guillaume screaming during a fake tennis play, sport where he failed to be a champion, and Julie while dancing alone in the middle of the crowd in a techno disco) that the public can feel close to them. The story can be real, or it can be a dream, or a mix of the two things, and you believe in any of the options (and in the “open” end). 

The actors give a fundamental contribution to the beauty of it all: Raphaël Personnaz, the new rising star of French cinema, is perfect as the tender and exposed Guillaume, while Julie Gayet is a fascinating, stunningly gorgeous, and mysterious Julie (we want to see her more often!). To see on a big screen a woman in her 40s with all her wrinkles and her real expression is a precious gift, for which I thank both the actress and the film-maker (and the fact that the guy is at least 10 years younger than her is not even mentioned... yippee!!!).  

If you want to see something unconventional and charming, then don’t miss this movie.

In case I forget

Read in today's Télérama:
"27.000.000 it's the number of people who every year go to the movies in Paris. With 376 screens (of which 150 independents and 89 classified d'art et d'essai), France capital city can proudly proclame to have a cinema network with no rivals in the world. The parisiens can choose among 450-500 movies to see every week. If this is not luck...!"

Just in case I forget how lucky I am to live here...

Invading the Vintage

Vi ricordate il mio post di poche settimane fa sugli Alternative Movie Posters di Stefano Reves Spalluto?

Ecco, quello è stato il primo di una piccola serie che vorrei creare per dare spazio ad amici talentuosi o anche semplicemente a persone sconosciute scoperte per caso, che fanno cose interessanti legate al cinema.

Oggi è la volta di un carissimo amico, Franco Brambilla, che da anni porta avanti un progetto che mi ha sempre molto incuriosita e divertita, quello di Invasione del Vintage!

Di cosa si tratta? Ve lo faccio spiegare direttamente da lui: 

Il progetto Invading the vintage è iniziato nel 2007 e il suo motto è: simpatici alieni invadono le cartoline del nonno. Con il tempo si è evoluto e le cartoline del nonno hanno cominciato ad essere invase non solo da alieni, razzi e robot di fantasia ma anche da personaggi, astronavi e mezzi vari (più o meno noti) del cinema e della tv degli anni '60/70/80... UFO, Dr Who, Spazio 1999 ma anche Barbarella, Robocop, Ritorno al Futuro, Goldrake e naturalmente Guerre Stellari. Da vero nerd 45enne cresciuto davanti alla tv che nei favolosi anni '70 traboccava di prodotti di "fantascienza varia" è naturale e molto divertente progettare nuove invasioni e per il momento non ho intenzione di smettere. Le cartoline vintage sono da sempre stata una mia passione e ne ho raccolte centinaia nei mercatini in Italia e in giro per il Mondo, le figure e gli oggetti che le invadono sono modellate con programmi 3d che li ritraggono tenendo conto della prospettiva e delle ombre della cartolina su cui saranno inseriti... una volta ottenuto il collage tra figure 3d e fondale della cartolina il tutto viene ridipinto per amalgamare meglio i pixel delle cartoline e quelli degli oggetti digitali. Per gli amici ma anche per le mostre a cui partecipo stampo su carta giclee 100% cotone tirature firmate e numerate che incornicio usando cornici recuperate da solai, cantine e mercatini per non perdere l'effetto "quadretto della nonna".

Avendo condiviso fin da subito le immagini sulla rete alcune di esse sono diventate molto popolari e "invading the vintage" è stato ospitato su molti blog e riviste online. 

In Francia ha partecipato alla mostra collettiva "Futur Anterieur" tenutasi alla Galerie Du Jour Agnes B. e Invading è l'unico progetto italiano (su cento selezionati) ad essere entrato a far parte della prima raccolta di Geek-Art: "Geek-art Une Anthologie" di Thomas Olivri. Da quest'anno grazie alla stampa "on demand" sto iniziando a raccogliere le immagini in raccolte e calendari visionabili qui:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/furanko67

Io ho sempre trovato deliziose queste buffe invasioni, tanto più che Franco mette insieme le mie due grandi passioni: il cinema e il vintage. Adoro anche i suoi titoli: Jurassic Riviera,  Millenium Honeymoon, Aliens and Priest. Insomma, non vi resta che partire all'affascinante scoperta di questi mondi paralleli e simpaticamente rétro.

Bon Voyage!

Audrey For Ever!

There is a scene in Manhattan by Woody Allen, where the main character (played by Allen himself) is having a discussion with a friend, and this friend accused him: "Who do you think you are? God?" 

And Woody replied: "Well, I've got to model myself on someone". 

Today, it is the 20th death anniversary of the woman I always wanted to model myself on: Audrey Hepburn. 

Since she became an icon in all these years, we are used to see her face everywhere, on posters, pictures, book covers, advertisements, mugs, bags, and other silly objects, but we don’t have to forget what she really was: a beautiful, inspiring, talented, smart, witty, classy, good hearted, adorable person.

It is very rare to read something nasty about her. 
Apparently, she didn’t just look lovely, she was entirely lovely, outside and inside.
Audrey Hepburn didn’t have an easy childhood: she was raised in Holland during the Second World War, she suffered hunger, she was abandoned by her father, but all this didn’t prevent her to embrace life as it was, to do the things that she really wanted to do.
She was special, this is undeniable. I loved everything about her and I think she was the most beautiful and most elegant woman who ever walked on planet earth. 
Even when she was aging, her class, her smile, her style, kept being incomparable:

There are so many amazing pictures of her that it is impossible to choose just few, as I had to do for this post, but I especially like the ones taken the night she received an Oscar for her role in Roman Holidays by William Wyler in 1953.
Her slim silhouette, her magnificent but simple dress, her tears of joy:

I will always miss you, Audrey!

Une Liaison Pornographique

Non so quale sia per voi, ma per me il lavoro domestico di gran lunga più insopportabile è stirare.
L’unico aspetto che lo rende un po’ meno tragico, è che si può fare mentre si guarda la TV. Di solito, ne approfitto per rivedere dei vecchi DVD (perché, diciamolo, stirare e guardare un film non è facilissimo). Ieri sera, dal momento che mi toccava l’ingrato compito, ho deciso di vedere che cosa offriva il palinsesto televisivo. Arté, che non delude mai, stava trasmettendo La Nuit Américaine di Truffaut. E che ve lo dico a fare che, nonostante conosca i dialoghi a memoria, non sono più riuscita a cambiare canale?
E ho fatto proprio bene, perché dopo quella meraviglia, ho scoperto che c’era in programma Une Liaison Pornographique, di Frédéric Fonteyne (1999).
Questo film lo avevo già visto (e già molto amato) quando era uscito nelle sale italiane, ma ero curiosa di rivederlo: come sarà - mi chiedevo - dopo tutti questi anni? Invecchiato? Meno bello? Meno speciale di quanto ricordi? La risposta sta tutta in questa constatazione: ho iniziato a guardarlo e ho smesso di stirare. Immediatamente. Perché il cinema, quando è bello, va visto bene, in silenzio, al buio - possibilmente di una sala cinematografica - ma se si è a casa, almeno non alla luce di un ferro da stiro!

Parigi, inizio anni ‘90. Un uomo ed una donna (non sapremo mai i loro nomi) si incontrano ogni settimana in un caffè per poi andare in un hotel a fare sesso. L’uomo ha risposto ad un annuncio della donna su Minitel (ecco l’unica cosa veramente datata del film!). La donna vuole dare vita ad un suo fantasma sessuale (non sapremo mai quale), e l’uomo è interessato a soddisfarla. Dopo una serie di incontri puramente sessuali, i sentimenti si immischiano alla vicenda, per la quale non è previsto il lieto fine. Il film è ricostruito attraverso dei flash-back, basati sui racconti incrociati dell’uomo e della donna che sembrano rispondere, anni dopo e separatamente, alle domande di un interlocutore per un documentario, ma di cosa si tratti e chi è l’intervistatore non lo sapremo mai: la sua presenza si limita ad una voce fuori campo. 

Ammettiamolo, ci sono cose per cui i francesi ci sanno proprio fare. 
In un certo tipo di cinema, quello fatto di quasi niente (si sa, i film in cui succede poco sono un po’ la mia passione), di dialoghi scritti benissimo, atmosfere appena accennate, sottotesti suggeriti, mise en scène in cui nulla è lasciato al caso, che volete che vi dica, sono proprio imbattibili. E spesso hanno anche meno paura degli altri, su certe cose. In Italia e nei paesi anglosassoni, per dirne una, il titolo del film è stato cambiato: Una relazione privata, per quello nostrano, An Affair of Love per gli inglesi. Significa proprio nascondersi dietro un dito, non vi pare? (eh, potere della censura preventiva). I francesi su questo sembrano andarci giù molto più tranquilli: se la relazione è pornografica, pornografica sia. Il che, ovviamente, non significa che il film sia porno. Tutt’altro. Ogni volta che l’uomo e la donna arrivano all’hotel, quello che fanno rimane nascosto dietro una porta che si chiude, le uniche scene di sesso che vengono mostrate (queste sì senza nascondere nulla, ma con eleganza assoluta) sono quelle in cui la coppia decide di fare l’amore “normalmente”.

La coppia in questione è quella formata da due attori di gran classe: Nathalie Baye, una delle più brave attrici francesi (che non a caso per questo film ha vinto la Coppa Volpi al Festival di Venezia 1999), e Sergi Lopez, un catalano naturalizzato francese che negli anni si è costruito da queste parti un’ottima carriera. Se il film funziona così bene, lo si deve soprattutto a loro. Perché è una storia che si legge e si interpreta sulle espressioni del loro volto, su dettagli minimi, su pochi e precisi gesti. Finito il film, andando a sbirciare nelle biografie dei due attori, mi sono resa conto con grande sorpresa che hanno ben 17 anni di differenza. Sarà che la Baye a 51 anni ne dimostrava 10 di meno, e Lopez forse qualcuno in più dei suoi 34, ma sta di fatto che nel film questo argomento non è mai minimamente accennato (in altri paesi sarebbe stato, ne sono certa, argomento di dibattito “cougar”).
Qui, semplicemente, ci sono un uomo ed una donna che cercano la stessa cosa, e forse la trovano, ma sono troppo spaventati per poterlo ammettere a loro stessi, figurarsi all'altro.
E' strano vedere lo stesso film a tanti anni di distanza. 
Ci si rende conto di capire delle cose che all'epoca ci erano sicuramente sfuggite. Io quasi non ricordo chi fosse la me stessa che si è seduta al cinema 14 anni fa, ma di sicuro quella che l'ha guardato ieri era un'altra persona, con un vissuto che fa tutta la differenza. Quel finale che all'epoca mi era sembrato tanto triste, e così improbabile, oggi mi sembra la cosa più normale del mondo, mi sembra persino inevitabile. 
Ognuno ha i suoi metodi per capire quanto si è diventati grandi. 
Io, tanto per cambiare, ho il cinema. 

Top 10 of 2012

At the moment, everywhere, in magazines and on the net, it's raining TOP 10 movies of 2012.
I'm always curious to see which are the favourite films of other people, and I'm intrigued by the different points of view. Usually, I express my preferences in February, at the time of my award, the Zazie d'Or, but so many friends asked me about this that I decided to publish my Top 10 List now. 
In fact, I think it is a good idea, first because it is quite difficult to reward all the movies I have loved in one year, and also because I don't always have time to write about certains movies I adored. 
So, this could make some justice to them.
Here they are, Zazie's favourite 10 movies of 2012:

1. DE ROUILLE ET D'OS by Jacques Audiard (France)

2. LAURENCE ANYWAYS by Xavier Dolan (Québéc)

3. TABU by Miguel Gomes (Portugal)

4. CESARE DEVE MORIRE by Paolo & Vittorio Taviani (Italy)

5. OSLO, August 31st by Joachim Trier (Norway)

6. THE DEEP BLUE SEA by Terence Davies (UK)

7. LE SOMMEIL D'OR by Davy Chou (France/Cambodia)

8. TYRANNOSAUR by Paddy Considine (UK)

9. JAGTEN by Thomas Vinterberg (Danemark)

10. BULLHEAD by Michaël R. Roskam (Belgium)

And since I'm making lists, here's a short one of the movies that really really got on my nerves this past year:

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by David Fincher (USA)
2. AMOUR by Michael Haneke (France/Austria)
3. HOLY MOTORS by Leos Carax (France)
Sorry, guys, I didn't get your movies. I didn't get them AT ALL!!!

And you, dear readers, which are your favourite movies of last year?