My own personal Rendez-vous with French Cinema

"Rendez-vous with French Cinema" is the name of New York's famous two-week festival of new French cinema, held every February at Lincoln Center. For my decidedly less glamourous rendez-vous, I had to drive out to a 30-screen multiplex in West Houston (the bad part of W.Hou.) to see two French films that no doubt played in New York many years ago. (Once the lights went down, I could have been anywhere--NYC, Paris -- or so I kept telling myself).

Je Ne Suis Pas pour la etre aimé (2005)
D: Stephane Brizé

I'll give you the one-sentence synopsis of this poorly-titled film ("Not here to be loved"?) if you promise not to say "Why would I want to see that tired premise again?" A lonely middle-aged man finds his world shaken-up when he starts taking tango lessons! Believe me, this movie is nothing like the many variations of "Shall We Dance?"

It opens unpleasantly: following the lead character as he goes about his business: delivering legal notices, evicting tenant -- like a French Repo Man -- then visiting his father: a bitter and ungrateful old coot living a plush nursing home. He shows so little personality you wonder why the attractive classmate (played by the lovely Anne Consigny*--last seen winningly in both A Christmas Tale and The Diving Bell & the Butterfly) bothers to befriend him (other than to discourage a more persistent suitor: a short and ultimately petty loser who just doesn't get that she's just not that into him!).

But when they dance, clumsily and slowly, they connect in a way that innocuous small talk would never reveal. Dance is such an intimate activity, and as shot here--from the waist up, for the most part--it wordlessly reveals the true feelings of these repressed characters. This absence of dialogue carries the film for the last ten minutes to its satisfying conclusion. (You don't see that in a Richard Gere-Susan Sarandon movie!)

* Side Note: her character is one reason why I haven't given up hope on nabbing a Frenchwoman. From the movies I see, these French babes go for one of two types: the out-of-work schlub (balding and depressed), or the old timers (you know, those guys whose faces have 'character.') You remember the old guy who seduces the lovely Ludivine Sagnier in "A Girl Cut in Two"? In the next movie, he's married to and is cheating on Isabelle Huppert! What's up with that!?

Les soeurs fâchées (2004)
D: Alexandra Leclere

I chose to see this movie (whose inapt English version is titled "Me & My Sister") based only on the barest of synopses (and the fact that it was French). Imagine my delight when the opening shot is a close-up of Isabelle Huppert ... gargling! (I'd be happy if every French movie started that way!) Shye plays Martine, a rich, sophisticated Parisian (i.e., great clothes, but a total bitch) who reluctantly hosts her younger sister Louise 'from the country' (Le Mans) for the weekend. As played by the veteran Catherine Frot, Louise's innocent enthusiasm and lack of guile charms the jaded Parisians ... and infuriates her desperately unhappy sister. Think of Louise as a French version of Poppy: Sally Hawkins's sunny British optimist in "Happy Go Lucky."

The two actresses play off each other wonderfully -- and as femmes d'un certain age, they bravely reveal their faces in close-up, warts and all (take note, Nicole Kidman!) As in the previous film, the film's central conflict is resolved wordlessly: all you need to know is revealed in the actor's faces in an ending that is bold, satisfying, and tres tres French!