David O'Connell
Please Please Me @ the Sydney French Film Festival
February 5th 2010 20:57
The internet is plagued with infinite comparison of French director Emmanuel Mouret to Woody Allen - I'm loathe to add my opinion to the fearsome mix, but it's difficult not to be one of the mob.
Not for the fact that he writes, directs and stars in his own movies. Not for his bumbling character that seems unable to function normally in the world.
No - perhaps the most direct link from Mouret to Woody is that both directors are beside themselves with glee, packing their movies with beautiful, unobtainable women, as if this was normal, everyday life.
As you can clearly see from the series of stills from the movie, "Please Please Me" is two hours of Mouret looking dumfounded (or flabbergasted) while cute French women pout and make passes at him.
Ah, I jest, I jest - but not by much. Emmanuel Mouret plays a hapless fool that is haziliy given permission by his night-shift working wife to find sexual comfort outside of their relationship. She goes off to work, and he receives a call from a woman he met in a cafe - can he come to party that night?
The series of events that unfold put Mouret through a harrowing experience, inspired, perhaps, by Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut", but with Mouret fumbling through the night like Charlie Chaplin in a bordello.
While Mouret will probably never be applauded for his comic genius, his acting abilities, or his skillful pen, his comedies are pleasing to watch and stress-relieving. He falls short of towering giants like Woody Allen or Claude Chabrol, who make comedies seem effortless while still weighing as much as a ton of bauxite.
Nevertheless, "Please Please Me" is a perfect entry for the French Film Festival - a film that you can invite your not-so-close friends to, just to catch up, putting everyone in a mood that invites a post-cinema coffee and animated discussions.
"Please Please Me" is part of the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival and will screen in Sydney several times between Mar. 2-21, 2010.
I say: Cheerful, pleasant and the perfect antidote to the incessant rain in Sydney this week - catch it at the Festival and you'll be whisked away.
See it for: While most of the physical gags fall flat, there's one with a curtain that made me sputter.
*the first image is from Roomantic, the second from Cinemovies and the third is from Paperblog
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Comment by Matt Shea
On this sort of thing, though, did you hear that Rohmer passed away last month? A little sad, even though the guy had a good innings.