Life of Riley: Alain Resnais’s final film (Kino, $19.99 Blu-ray, $17.99 DVD), which premiered just three weeks before his death, is an effervescent comedy that sees the French cinema giant accepting his transition with grace, laughter and sardonic self-awareness. Adapted from the English play of the same name by Alan Ayckbourn, it charts the machinations of George Riley, a … [Read more...]
French take on Woodyesque cinema a tired rom-com
Most movies about pop-cultural obsessives -- those individuals who live vicariously through other people’s art, films and music -- are usually about young-to-middle-aged men untethered from relationships and, in many cases, social decorum: High Fidelity, Diner, Free Enterprise, Cinemania, Watching the Detectives, Play it Again, Sam. These movies were always about men; women … [Read more...]
Charming French whimsy, by way of Finnish auteur
As charming as it is preposterous, a French fable called Le Havre arrives this week by way of Finland, the home of writer-director Aki Kaurismäki, whose idiosyncratic style is evident throughout this tale of that current events topic -- illegal immigration. Le Havre, the industrial port city in Normandy plays a vital role in this story of a likeable freelance shoeshine guy, … [Read more...]
French pianist Vincent original, impressive in Delray recital
Playing the music of Franz Liszt, who was born in this month 200 years ago, usually gives a pianist free rein to indulge his inner keyboard wild man. And yet Guillaume Vincent, who was born only 20 years ago Sunday, brought to his reading of Liszt’s epic B minor Sonata qualities such as introspection, deliberateness and mystery, casting this showpiece in an unfamiliar but … [Read more...]
French film lions bring weathered charm to ‘Potiche’
An alternative title of Potiche could have been Men on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In this, the latest film from French directorial chameleon François Ozon, the men are the irrational ones – clingy, petulant and generally bewildered – while the film’s female protagonist, played by Catherine Deneuve, is the film’s rational, resolute, forward-thinking, confident and wholly … [Read more...]
French-accented chamber program brings vigor to Ibert trio
At its most important, the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival is about discovery, in hearing something worthwhile that its musicians have brought out of the libraries or fresh off the stocks for its loyal audience of nearly two decades. In the first installment Friday of its third week of concerts, the musicians returned in a largely French program to the work of Jacques Ibert, … [Read more...]