A Shaded View on Fashion Film

Following on from my article on Diane Pernet earlier this year, I attended her Fashion Film festival yesterday, catching the Competition sections entitled 'Reflection' and 'Communication'. The festival aims to showcase moving image works featuring fashion, a domain so traditionally associated with the still image. I think it's a great idea and I saw some massively inspiring clips. Below are some of my favourites and you can read more about the festival here.

Way Too Blue - Pelican Video

This blew me away - takes fashion advertising to a whole new level, although I wish I could have appreciated it when it came out (05/06) and the track wasn't overplayed!



Gareth Pugh AW09 - Ruth Hogben

This is what happens when 2 immensely talented creators join forces - astounding, especially at 6:40.



Mareunol's Nightmares

This struck a chord - love the girl hanging on the washing line.

Flora Gucci - Chris Cunningham

Was a bit disappointed to realise that this was an ad at the end! But Chris Cunningham strikes gold again.



Making of



Le Coq Sportif - Born to Film

Alas this isn't available to embed but you can watch it here. It was less the video than the incredible music that enchanted me here. The track (Boxon Say Hello by Eclier) is available to hear on Spotify.

Finally I was dazzled by "Chapter 12: Velvet Revolution" by Andrea Splisgar - it was premiered at the festival and unsurprisingly isn't available online yet but as soon as it is, I'll let you know.

Looking forward to the Award Ceremony at the Pompidou Centre now on October 8th...

About Elly

Last night I went to see this rather good Iranian film.

Incidentally, with that little phrase I am excited to possibly announce the beginning of a new era of good international cinema, which should usher out the strange urges I've had to see American toss recently.

I don't think I would have plumped for it had I not seen the trailer a coupe of weeks earlier, and observed that it looked like a pretty interesting thriller. I've been telling myself to check out some Iranian cinema for a while, and this seemed like a good starting point.

The below review may contain some plot spoilers, although nothing will be revealed that you can't already gauge from the trailer, and I won't reveal the end, of course.

At the time of writing, no UK distributor has picked it up, so any UK readers may well forget anything I reveal by the time it comes out on DVD.

So the story begins with a large group of couples (4, I think), plus some small children, arriving at a remote beach cottage where they plan to spend the weekend. Aside from the couples, there are 2 single people there - the rather dishy Ahmad, and Elly, the tutor of key character Sepideh's children. It turns out that following Ahmad's divorce, Sepideh is keen to set them up.

Everything is going well until the following day Elly confirms that she was only able to stay one night and needs to leave. But Sepideh implores her to stay. Before Elly's proposed departure, she is asked to keep an eye on the children for a little while. Suddenly one child runs over to the parents, very distressed, and shouting her brother's name. He is in the sea and in danger. Thus ensues a mad dash to rescue him. As soon as they have pulled him out of the water they realise that Elly was supposed to be watching the children, and she too is missing. The rest of the film revolves around trying to figure out what happened to Elly - is she in the water or could she have left without telling anyone? A web of intrigue ensues.

It's a fairly classic thriller narrative but I really enjoyed watching it play out in unfamiliar territory. I've never really seen Iran on screen, except in the news. It interested me to see that while some features were unexpectedly western (our key characters are all very pleasing to the eye), and others more predictably Iranian, they didn't shy away from some uncomfortable situations and, dare I say it, stereotypes - for example, two of the women are at different points humiliated by their husbands (indeed, the likeable Sepideh is physically attacked) in front of their friends. I might have expected that a film with international ambitions would attempt to dispel this myth about a husband's dominance over his wife in Iran. Furthermore, Sepideh's abusive husband looks considerably older than her which raises some eyebrows about how on earth she may have ended up with him.

All in all I really enjoyed the film - for the first time in a while I didn't feel the 2 hours drag - and I'm recommending it. A deserved winner of the Silver Bear at Berlin this year - I hope it can translate festival success into a healthy international audience (hmm).

Les Regrets

I had been secretly looking forward to this film for a while: I'd enjoyed Yvan Attal in 'Ma femme est une actrice' and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi in '5x2' and I don't mind a decent romantic drama from time to time. So I ended up going to see it with a friend last night, the opening night.

In French there is the perfect word to describe this film - 'bof'. It's an expression of indifference - a bit like saying 'whatever', but not quite.

So the gist is Mathieu (Attal) spots Maya (Bruni-T) from across the street one day. Evidently they know each other. She sees him, doesn't speak to him but ends up inviting him over for a glass of wine. And so, predictably, despite them both being married, begins their affair.

But at every critical turn of the relationship, we have a nice cliched 'volte-face'('about face') where the character leaves the other one and you think it's all over, then halfway down the road they turn around and go back for a passionate clinch.

Lots of sex, as you'd expect from the director of L'Ennui which I saw a while back.

One of the most interesting things about this film was the way it dealt with modern communication - namely, text messages. There was some very classic and European about this film - by which I'm referring to the way that such films are often hard to date, as if they are removed from a time frame. Yet so often contemporary films fail to acknowledge the role of modern communication in our lives: pretty much everyone texts, and emails, and yet we rarely see it on screen. Texts particularly can be so instrumental in the development of a liaison or reltaionship, and yet we just seem to be ignoring them! Maybe LCD screens just aren't sexy enough?

Anyway in this film I was pleasantly startled to see that when the recipient was reading his/her text, we heard a voiceover from the sender. It was a really small thing, but it really stood out, and I liked it. Indeed we did view a screen from time to time, but the voiceover helps to mix it up.

It's very European-naturalistic - very little make-up, lots of tortured faces - both the lead actors look about 10 years older than in the films I mentioned in the first paragraph. But even the direction continues the naturalism with lots of those scenes that are redundant narratively, but help to set the scene. We also avoid confrontation scenes, like the one between Mathieu and his wife which we feel we are building up to. But i like that. Not giving us exactly what we want and expect.

There's nothing remarlable in the plot. I think the title pretty much give it all away. It was an entertaining little ride, but I'm not going to be shouting about it from the rooftops. Perhaps it's for the best that it doesn't look like it's going to make it to anglophone shores any time soon.

Unlimited cinema

About 3 weeks ago now, I finally invested in the unlimited UGC card. For a one-off fee of 30euros, then 19.80 per month, I can now see as many films as I like at UGC/MK2 (chain) cinemas and a selection of independent cinemas in France (and even abroad, where there is a UGC chain) with no restrictions whatsoever. 19.80 is practially nothing for someone like me who can go to the cinema 2 times a week with ease. I don't know how many other countries this exists in, but it doesn't surprise me that France makes the effort to make as much cinema accessible to as many as possible.

But typically, as soon as I get it, I survey the cinematic landscape and realise that there is practially bugger-all interesting on at the moment. I'm hoping tha tit's going to pick up soon though.

In the interest of making this blog more visual, here is a UGC card.

J'attendrai le suivant

I'm obsessed with this short film at the moment: