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Sumptuous light, favorably bathed across richly-drawn characters and their worlds, have long been signifiers of a Patrice Leconte film, yet while such environments exist in the auteur's 1996 comedy-drama, "Ridicule," the words produced within them hold much more prominence.
Marie writes: According to the calendar, summer is now officially over (GASP!) and with its demise comes the first day of school. Not all embrace the occasion, however. Some wrap themselves proudly in capes of defiance and make a break for it - rightly believing that summer isn't over until the last Himalayan Blackberry has been picked and turned into freezer jam!
"Film is the medium that gives room to our fantasies, most of the time harmless, since they are fantasies. The cinema is often more beautiful than life, if only because we write the screenplay." - Leconte
The Hairdresser's husband (1990) is a film so fantastical, so sensual, so romantic, that you can not help but sigh in ached longing...a longing that, deep down, you know is untouchable, but how good it is to be drenched so thoroughly in it in a French hairdressing salon, on sunny afternoons and stormy nights?
Dreamers. Lovers. However they came to be we do not know, and it does not matter. They are so content together, indeed so happy that they seem immune to the ravishing of life's toil. Passion consumes their lives. The day begins with it, and ends with it.
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I would like to urge you gently toward those shelves in your friendly video store that hold the titles of Patrice Leconte. If your store does not carry his titles, then it is not your friend.
TORONTO--At the end of the 27th Toronto Film Festival, six films in six paragraphs, alphabetically:
After Cannes, the Toronto Film Festival is the most important in the world. Last year's festival was ripped in two on Sept. 11. I walked out of a screening, heard the news, and the world had changed. Now comes the 27th annual festival, opening today. Are movies important in the new world we occupy? Yes, I think they are, because they are the most powerful artistic device for creating empathy--for helping us understand the lives of others.
TELLURIDE, Colo. -- There are times when I wonder why I even go to the new movies at Telluride, since the special programs and retrospectives are so valuable. On Sunday I saw a surprise screening of the latest Werner Herzog documentary and then attended his birthday party on the lawn of the Mason's Hall. And an hour later I was watching a beautifully restored print of the 1931 Bela Lugosi "Dracula," with a new score composed by Philip Glass, who conducted a live performance of it with the Kronos Quintet.
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