Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  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...

  Robust ( Robuste ) is the debut feature of French co-writer-director Constance Meyer, who had served as a third assistant director on Jonas Carpignano’s Mediterranea and directed a series of shorts of increasing acclaim, including Rhapsody (2016) and La Belle Affaire (2018). In the latter, she worked with G é rard Depardieu, one of France’s greatest screen actors, who in his prime could play any role and make it convincing, but who now resembles a shipwreck, damaged beyond repair, sunken in his own personal abyss. The joy of D é pardieu the actor – as opposed to the man who claimed Russian citizenship for tax purposes in 2013 and who has been accused of the sexual assault of a young actress in 2018, not to mention instances of drunk driving and urinating in a cabin that have marked the last decade or so – is that there is still an artist’s curiosity and a willingness to appear vulnerable on screen. We sense – or perhaps project – a desire for the actor to be reconciled within h...

  Audrey Diwan’s second film as director, L’ é v é nement ( Happening ) is a tightly controlled, grab and don't let go adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s 2000 novel. Diwan, who has worked on the screenplays for BAC Nord , HHhH and La French , directed by C é dric Jimenez, infuses the film with the accelerated heartbeat of a thriller. You utterly root for the protagonist, young student Anne Duchesne (Anamaria Vartolomei) as she seeks an abortion at a time (1960s France) when such acts were criminalised. Abortion remains a controversial issue. Although today it is illegal in all forms only in twenty-four countries (source: World Population Review ), in another thirty-seven countries it is permitted only if it saves a mother’s life. In the US, up to twenty-six states are seeking to outlaw abortion, with eight states having unenforced bans in their statute books. Abortion was only legalised in France in January 1975, when a woman who could request it before the tenth week of pregnancy. P...