Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Fifteen-year-old Emma ( Lila Gueneau , right) dances with her husband Paul (Thomas Doret) in a scene from the Swiss film,  À bras-le-corps ( Silent Rebellion ), co-written and directed by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo . Still courtesy of Salaud Morriset .  What is neutrality? A conscious effort to recuse yourself from responsibility? Allowing events take their course without consideration of the outcome? Neutrality is an illusion, a pretence, a position taken to avoid conflict with others by formally treating all parties the same but pragmatically engaging with some parties more than others. Neutrality is diplomatic acquiescence. It is how Switzerland conducted itself in World War Two (1939-45). Swiss film director Marie-Elsa Sgualdo sets her debut feature film Silent Rebellion ( À bras-le-corps ) in her native country - specifically a village bordering France in the Swiss Jura - in 1943. Co-written (with Sgualdo) by Nadine Lamari, it follows fifteen-year-old Emma (...

  The traumatic effect of a terrorist attack is explored in French director Alice Winocour’s fourth feature, Revoir Paris ( Paris Memories ). Co-written by Winocour, Jean-St é phane Bron and Marcia Romano, the film stars Virginie Efira as Mia, a journalist turned translator, who having lost her appetite in one restaurant – her surgeon partner, Vincent (Gr é goire Colin) having been unexpectedly called back to hospital (‘my intern is swamped’) – dines in another, L’Etoile D’Or (‘Golden Star’) – when, as she leaves, two women are gunned down in front of her by a terrorist, before more indiscriminate killing ensues. Mia survives but has lost some of her memory of the incident. Returning to the restaurant, she is accused by another traumatised survivor of locking herself in the bathroom and allowing others, unable to take cover, to be killed. Mia is determined to understand what she did that evening, even as it leads to the disintegration of her relationship and takes her into the wor...

Contains spoilers In her third collaboration with director Claire Denis, Avec Amour et Acharnement (‘With Love and Fury’, re-titled in English as Both Sides of the Blade ), Juliette Binoche plays Sara, a radio talk show host who is torn between two men, her partner Jean (Vincent Lindon), an ex-con and former rugby player whose bi-racial son from his first marriage, Marcus (Issa Penca) is raised by his mother, Nelly (Bulle Ogier) and her ex, François (Grégoire Colin) who re-appears in her life first outside the offices of the radio station where she works and then as he goes into business running an agency for young rugby players. Unusually, Denis doesn’t make Sara her principal viewpoint character. Rather, she gives equal screen time to Jean, this also being Lindon’s third film with Denis. Outdoing both of them, Colin re-unites with Denis for their seventh film together, after Nenette et Boni , Beau Travail , Vendredi Soir , The Intruder , 35 Shots of Rum and Bastards . If nothing ...