Yes, it is that time of the year, dear readers, the moment I let you know which are my favourite films of the past 365 days. In 2015, I beat a personal record: I've been to the movies 92 times, and maybe it is because of that, but a simple TOP 10 wasn't enough... Looking at my list, all I can tell you is that, for me, the most important thing is to get out of the cinema completely shaken. By an idea, a feeling, a mise-en-scène, a laugh, a word, a sound, a gesture. Something special. Otherwise, let's admit it, life is too short for wasting it over bad, lame or useless movies. Here's Zazie's list of the movies you shouldn't have missed in 2015: 15 - The Man from U.N.C.L.E. by Guy Ritchie (UK)
I swear this was the biggest surprise of 2015. I went to see it without any expectation and I enjoyed every minute of it. It is brilliant, intelligent, funny, well directed, the actors are irresistible and it has the most wonderful vintage touch (it is set in Berlin and Rome in 1963). James Bond can get his pension!
14 - Vincent n'a pas d'écailles by Thomas Salvador (France)
If you think super-heroes are coming just from the US, well, you need to change your mind because France has his super-heroe too, and he is the funniest and the sweetest one you can ever imagine: Vincent. This was the most cheerful film of the whole year. Vincent n'a pas d'écailles mais il a la grosse pêche! 13 - La Isla Minima by Alberto Rodriguez (Spain)
This is an unforgettable film mainly for his atmosphere, for the rot you can smell, coming from the wet soil as much as from the people around. The two policemen are so well sketched (and the two actors who played them, Javier Gutiérrez and Raúl Arévalo, so good) that are able to eclipse any True Detective of the world. Que viva España ! 12 - Les Cowboys by Thomas Bidegain (France)
A very sad movie on a very actual theme: the story of a young girl leaving behind her family and her life to embrace a new religion that will take her (for ever) apart from the world she knows. Thomas Bidegain's (Audiard's screen writer) breakthrough is a precious and sorrowful thing. The last scene is the most intense one I've seen in ages. Believe me. 11 - Louder than bombs by Joachim Trier (US)
The first American movie of the Norwegian film-maker Joachim Trier is about secrets, family relationships, the inner life of people, the worst fears in life, and the deep solitude we can feel being part of this strange world. His universe is so particular and well defined, that you just want to lose yourself in it. Simply mesmerising. 10 - Life by Anton Corbijn (US)
Anton Corbijn has the special power of making interesting and original biopics, a genre usually devastated by common places and boring details. Here he has the guts to resuscitate James Dean (the absolutely astonishing Dane DeHaan) and the facts behind the famous picture in Times Square under the rain. The rest is history... 9 - Maryland by Alice Winocour (France)
An ex-soldier suffering of post-traumatic disorder becomes the body-guard of a rich business-man and his family (a wife and a kid). The so-called “Belgian Brando”, Matthias Schoenaerts, gives another amazing performance as a troubled, fragile and simple man lost in his obsessions: his boss wife and the sounds he hears in his head. The most incredible use of sounds after Punch-Drunk Love. Alice Winocour, the woman behind the camera (and Mustang's co-writer) really rocks! 8 - Youth by Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)
The most visionary of Italian film-makers strikes back after the world-wide success of La Grande Bellezza with a much more accomplished and mesmerising film. Youth is about the passing of time, of beauty, of desire, but also a meditation on vocation and talent. The images are luxurious, magnificent and inspired. And Michael Caine as the main character is the best possible choice (but I have also adored the brief appearance of Jane Fonda). Flamboyant, is the word. 7 - La loi du marché by Stéphane Brizé (France)
Happiness is not an option in this Dardennesque, rigorous film about a man who has lost his job and all the rest together with it, starting from dignity. A very tough film to watch (the scene of the job interview by skype made me want to run away) but a very rewarding one. Vincent Lindon and Stéphane Brizé, who already broke my heart with the wonderful and underrated Quelques heures de Printemps, delivered here an unforgettable film. 6 - Sicario by Denis Villeneuve (US)
Denis Villeneuve’s cinema is one of the most interesting of these last years. With just a bunch of titles: Incendies, Prisoners and Enemy, he proved to be a superb film-maker. Sicario is his best work to date: he puts a woman (great Emily Blunt!) at the centre of the movie obliging the audience to a complete identification with her and he shows us one of the most terrifying stories set on the border between the US and Mexico. The best direction of the year, a visual and human shock. Breathtaking. 5 - Mustang by Deniz Gamze Ergüven (Turkey)
This was a breath of fresh air, a driving force that can’t be easily stop: the one of 5 Turkish sisters ready to fight against a mean, archaic and macho’s mentality to have back their freedom and their lives. Written by two women, the Turkish Deniz Gamze Ergüven and the French Alice Winocour, the film represents France to the Oscar as Best Foreign Film. The reality is: it represents any place in the world where women still have to fight to have what they simply deserve. Girls Power!
4 - Dheepen by Jacques Audiard (France)
Jacques Audiard must have put a smell on me: I go simply nuts every time I see one of his movies. He’s got something that other film-makers don’t. A sense of the direction, a capacity of talking about human beings’ darkest corners and that mix of prosaic and poetic elements which is the “Audiard’s touch”. Palme d’Or at the last Cannes Film Festival (he already deserved that for Un Prophète but, hey, better later than never!).
3 - The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece/Ireland)
In a not-so-far away future, singles are not accepted anymore. Men and women who can’t find their soul-mates within 45 days, will be transformed into animals. The genial idea of Greek film-maker Yorgos Lanthimos gives birth to one of the most unsettling, original and brilliant movies of these last years. One of those works that divides audiences in two. As the French say: ou ça passe, ou ça casse. I have personally adored it. 2 - Saul Fia by László Nemes (Hungary)
The best movie about the Holocaust ever made. You don’t spend two hours at the movies, you spend two hours in Auschwitz. The experience is far beyond cinema, and it is almost unbearable. If you manage to arrive till the end, you’ll see what a man is capable of. When it’s over, you don’t know if you’re still alive, but you’ll see the world with different eyes. First feature film of a 38 years old guy,László Nemes. Mazel tov! 1 - As Mil e Uma Noites (Vol. 1-2-3) by Miguel Gomes (Portugal)
There are the other movies and then there is this one: a monster, a protean creature, a space oddity. 6 hours long divided into 3 volumes, As Mil e uma noites is a new form of cinema, the weirdest mix of fiction, documentary, real life, poetic vision and mythological tale. How Miguel Gomes had such an incredible idea to talk about the economic crises that recently hit Portugal in this way, it is a great mystery. The most wonderful of all.
As you must have guessed, this is a masterpiece.
Happy New Year, my dear readers! I wish you a 2016 plenty of happiness, of nice things and, of course, of great cinema. I am not ready yet to disclose my Top Ten movies list for 2015, but I thought I could write an alternative and "lighter" one, just to start in a good way this long sequence of new days: the best MOVIE POSTERS of 2015! Movie Posters are a real art. One image could say a lot about the movie you're about to see: it could be funny, witty, colorful, magnificent, dark, scary, it could be a drawing or a photograph, it could suggest the theme, it could remind of a certain atmosphere, it could be extremely evocative. En entire world in just one poster. And my favourite ones for 2015 are: HORS COMPETITION (ça va sans dire...) MACBETH by Justin Kurzel with Michael Fassbender It started with the "Coming Soon"...
It continued with the "All Hail"...
It ended up with the poster...
Long live our King!
5. MUSTANG by Deniz Gamze Ergüven
The five Turkish sisters who are not afraid of looking at you on this poster, are not afraid either of living their life dangerously and of going against a suffocating and macho mentality. And they go far, very far, to the point that they could be winning an Oscar because of their courage. I feel like running like a Mustang just looking at this picture. Girls Power!!!
4. DHEEPAN by Jacques Audiard
I am so much in love with this picture. It is so simple and yet so powerful. You don't see the face of any of the characters but they are all there, three strangers obliged to become a family. The man's hand trying to protect the wife and the daughter from the dangerous life out there, and then the colors of their clothes, so warm, so bright. This image gives me hope, like Audiard's cinema.
3. THE LOBSTER by Yorgos Lanthimos
As crazy as you can get. The perfect example of a perfect conformity between the content and the container. Lanthimos disturbing reflection on the contemporary society and its obsession for couples life is genially reproduced in the movie poster. How ridiculous these people look without the other? How lonely they are? One of the best movies of the year by far. Not to mention the poster!
2. MARYLAND by Alice Winocour
I am totally crazy about this poster. I think Maryland has been one of the most underestimated movies of the year (and I feel guilty not to have written a post about it). On the picture, the vision of what it could look like a normal family walking on the beach, is disturbed by the presence of the gun in the man's jeans (the gorgeous back belongs to Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts). Maryland is a very subtle, disturbing and clever movie, like this picture. I hope you didn't miss it.
1. LOUDER THAN BOMBS by Joachim Trier
This has been an evidence since the very first time I saw the poster, back in Cannes. These three girls performing incredible jumps in the air and the composition of the picture put together with the title, look absolutely stunning to me. In France, where the movie has been recently released, the title has been changed because of the November attacks: they have called it Back Home and they put a more reassuring picture of a mother and a son, sleeping close by. I think it's a pity. I personally would have kept it. To give this message: our laughs, our being together in a bar or in a restaurant, our friendly conversations, our voices, will be louder than bombs. Now and ever. Happy New Year, dear readers!
Something strange happened to me with this post.
After a couple of months since the publication of my critic about Louder than bombs, I have received a message from the platform hosting my blog to advise me that I had violated some kind of copyright.
Never happened to me before.
I guessed it was about some pictures I have published.
The post was put in the drafts section and they asked me to change the violation.
The problem was that I didn’t know which was the incriminated picture/s.
I got back to the draft to understand better and I don’t know what I did but all of a sudden my post wasn’t there anymore.
All it was left was the title.
I felt so depressed, because now I don’t have neither the strength nor the time to write it again.
And it won’t be the same post, anyway.
I am particularly sorry, because there was a nice story attached to it.
After a few minutes that I put it on line, last December, I received a message on my twitter account from Devin Druid, the actor who plays the youngest son of Gabriel Byrne and Isabelle Huppert in the movie.
Even if my post was written in Italian, he understood I wrote something super good about him, which was the case (hashtags santi subito!).
His message was a simple emoticon, a shy flushed face, and it was so cute!
I’m so sorry my words about him are gone forever…
… but well, I guess there’s nothing I could do about the old post now.
Probably I just need to be more careful about the pictures I publish (so difficult to understand who’s the photographer behind the pics you find on internet, by the way… especially the ones taken from the movies).
Meanwhile, all I can do is to strongly suggest you to watch Louder than bombs, a really great movie!
No, don't worry dear readers.
This is not a review of the movie 300 by Zack Snyder… especially because I can’t say I have watched it. To tell you the truth, I did, but in a very particular way. Meaning: I watched just the scenes played by Michael Fassbender, while all the rest of the movie was seen… well, fast forwarding... I know, I know, this is very bad!
I’m just using 300 movie poster because this is Zazie’s 300th post!
Yes, the little Blog de Zazie is growing up: 300 posts, almost 210.000 views, more than 600 ILIKEon the Facebook page, almost 600 followers on Twitter, almost 1.000 followers on Pinterest and all this in 6 years of activity.
For being the blog of an unknown cinema freak, this is a pretty good result, don’t you think?
To quote Jane Eyre: Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, that I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!
As a matter of fact, if there’s something we don’t lack here at the Blog de Zazie, is love.
For cinema and for you, dear readers!
So THANK YOU for being there, wherever you are... you're in my heart! Zazie
Everybody knows I’m a huge fan of Jacques Audiard’s cinema. So, when the man who wrote with him movies like Un prophète, De rouille et d’os et Dheepan, French screen-player Thomas Bidegain, decides to write and to direct a movie of his own, of course I’m very interested to see it. I was about to go to the avant-première of Les Cowboys, scheduled in a Pathé cinema on Monday, November 16, when November 13 happened. And the rest is history. La sortie of the movie has been postponed of a couple of weeks. I wonder if, with a plot like this, Bidegain thought how fortunate or unfortunate his movie was to get out at this time…
Georges (Finnegan Oldfield) and his dad (François Damiens)
1994, somewhere in Eastern France: Alain Balland and his wife Nicole, together with their daughter Kelly and their son Georges (called the Kid), are a normal family with a passion for country music and “cowboys” life. It is during a local country festival that Kelly, 16 years old, disappears. Her friends tell the family not to worry: she probably is with her boyfriend Ahmed, whom existence Alain and Nicole ignored. At home, in Kelly’s room, they discover some letters written in Arab, finding out to their great surprise that Kelly became a Muslim. It is the beginning of a never ending search: Alain starts to look for his daughter everywhere, driving in France, in Belgium, travelling into the Middle East Countries, very often along with his son. When Alain dies in a car accident, Georges keeps looking for his sister, while the terrorists’ attacks start to shake the world: 9/11, then the bombs in Madrid, then the attacks in London… will his sister be lost for ever?
Alain (F. Damiens)
Bidegain has surely written a story which has now a particular resonance in our lives, but besides its background, I personally think that the subject at the core of this movie, much more than the Muslim thing, is the desperate search of a father for his daughter. The determination, the persistence, the ferocious stubbornness of Alain to find Kelly (to the point of ruining what it is left of his family) is particularly disturbing. It is also true that his need to give a sense to what it’s happening, to put a name on things that were unknown to him just the day before, could reminds us of the progressive awareness of occidental men towards the Muslim world. When the search passes from Alain to his son, things are enormously changed, and Georges experiences a further step, infinitely more complicated and intricate. The war and the economic interests, the international relationships between countries, the birth of a new kind of terrorism.
L'Americain (John C. Reilly) and Georges (F. Oldfield)
Bidegain has made a strange kind of western, a modern epic tale where a gloomy countryside and the clash of cultures take the place of gold and meadows, filmed in a very sober way but with an Audiard touch! The man, I guess, observed the film-maker at work and he has taken a good lesson from it. The cast is excellent here, with a very intense François Damiens, the comic Belgian actor who is really amazing in dramatic roles, a very good young promesse of French cinema, Finnegan Oldfield, as his son, and the always great John C. Reilly as the "American". When the film is over (and the end is one of the most emotional ones I’ve seen lately), the last surprise: a magnificent country version of Smalltown Boy by the Bronsky Beat performed by the film-maker himself (sacré Bidegain!). And the song lyrics sounded particularly pertinent, I have to say: Mother will never understand Why you had to leave For the answer you seek Will never be found at home The love that you need Will never be found at home Run away, Turn away, Run away...
