Straight Outta Compton [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

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Straight Outta Compton [2015] (directed by F. Gary Gray, screenplay by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff) is a biopic about the late-1980s early-1990s Los Angeles-based "gangsta rap" group N.V.A.

Perhaps the most important thing that I can say about both their story and the film is that despite a very long list of (legitimate) complaints about the content of their songs and then their often violent / often misogynist off-stage behavior, the group did OFTEN tell the truth, certainly the truth as viewed from their perspective.

And I think I can say that because I LIVED IN LOS ANGELES during those same years, studying for a PhD (in Chemistry) at the University of Southern California, at the northern edge of South Central L.A.  I knew very well the buzzing of police helicopters over my head at night, pretty much _every night_.  And I watched a black man being spread-eagled / arrested at night in front of my student room for rent where I was living.

Later, after I finished my PhD, I still lived in the area during the L.A. Riots following the trial of the LAPD officers in the Rodney King arrest.  I will never forget the smell of the city burning on the first night of the rioting.  And I spent the second night at a priest friend's out in the suburbs near where I was working because I could not get home to the apartment where I still lived at the time (on the east side of Hollywood) because the area was still cordoned off by police who were trying to restore order.  I spent that evening with my priest friend and his Hispanic gang-intervention group standing on a street corner by a shopping center a few suburbs away, chanting to very agitated passerbys essentially "Give Peace a Chance" and I've never forgotten my impression of that angry night as: "So this is how the Apocalypse would look like" as it seemed like there was a near total (if thankfully temporary) unraveling of social order.

While I did not know Compton as well as I knew South Central L.A., I would have to say that comparisons to the notorious Soweto Township in South Africa would _not_ be entirely off-base.  As such, I totally get the sharp, spare-me-the-B.S.(!) language / anger of N.V.A.'s songs and the current film.

Now a fair number of non-blacks who've never lived in an area like Compton / South Central L.A. will simply not understand or _not get past_ the anger expressed in the N.V.A.'s songs and videos (Hence a fair question could be asked: 'Okay, you're absolutely right, but ... if you turn a lot of people off who's going to really listen to you?' But a fair response would probably be: 'Well a lot of those people who don't like us weren't going to listen to us anyway...").  A fair number of observers will also discount / dismiss N.V.A. (and other rappers like them) for their attitude / descriptions AND OFTEN ENOUGH (DOCUMENTED) BEHAVIOR toward WOMEN.  I also _completely_ understand the AFRICAN AMERICAN PARENTS precisely living in places like Compton / South Central L.A. who would be saying: "WE GET IT.  WE SEE IT.  BUT WE _DON'T_ WANT OUR KIDS LIVING LIKE YOU -- with guns, drugs and whores (or living as drug dealers / whores)."

So this is a film that is edgy about a rap group whose music was and remains _very disturbing_.   Parents, this film certainly deserves its R-rating.  But it's NOT a film / story to dismiss.


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BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing


BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez [2015] (codirected by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater and Sabrina Schmidt Gordon) is a documentary about the prolific 80 year old African American writer / poet / educator Sonia Sanchez [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn]  co-foundress of the Black Arts/Studies Movement in California in the 1960s.

The documentary played recently as part of the 2015 (21st annual) Black Harvest Film Festival held here in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Her story could be inspiration to a lot of young educated men and women of color in the United States today because she had to navigate pretty much _every_ professional obstacle that could be placed in front of a woman or person of color to marginalize him/her:

Yes, she was a co-founder of the Black Studies Movement movement in the 1960s and hence had to FIRST DEFEND the very legitimacy of "Black Studies" as field worthy of academic endeavor and THEN had to fight clueless (generally white) university administrators who wanted the works of towering African American figures like Booker T. Washington (an African American leader of the post-Reconstruction Era who built an entire movement around African American self-reliance) and W.E.B. DuBois (the founder of the N.A.A.C.P. !) to be kept _outside_ of emerging Black Studies curricula (LOL ... probably "Uncle Tom's Cabin" would have been "okay" ...)

Then, she became an initially reluctant but as time went on _scathing_ African American opponent to the Black Panther movement also emerging in California in the 1960s for its horrendous marginalization / mistreatment of African American women.

For a time, she was part of the Nation of Islam movement RUNNING SCHOOLS FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSLIM WOMEN within the movement, until she came to realize with hard experience that this Muslim affiliated movement was, after all, (if _not_ explicitly hostile) not particularly oriented toward promoting higher / scholarly education of women.

And she did all this WHILE RAISING THREE CHILDREN -- two sons and a daughter -- in the course of two marriages (both eventually failed) and finally on her own.

What she did have, always, was her writing and her poetry and eventually a rock solid conviction that _violence_ of any kind, was NEVER the solution.

By then, living and teaching at Temple University in Philadelphia she publicly challenged then Philadelphia's African American mayor's 1985 decision to _bomb_ the somewhat odd, to many misguided, black separatist movement "MOVE's" compound in Philadelphia, an action that killed 11 MOVE members including 5 children.  Later, to oppose the 2003 Iraq War along with several other "grannies" (both black and white), she participated in a sit-in at at U.S. army recruitment office after the recruiters wouldn't take _their_ applications to enter the Army "rather than the young ones."

Those who know something about poetry will find her philosophy there fascinating: Sonia Sanchez [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] is famous for her free verse BUT she's also written _entire books_ on and in the style of Haiku and she would insist that her students become masters in form poetry _like but not inclusive_ of Haiku BEFORE going into free verse.  Also in the film, Ms Sanchez insisted that when she speaks, there's always a "sound track" (perhaps only in her imagination) behind it.  And indeed, most of the times when the film showed her reciting poetry, there was a jazz ensemble of one-sort-or-another playing "background."

All in all, I found this documentary about Ms. Sanchez to be a joy.  I found her person to be _very interesting_ and inspirational.  And I appreciate festivals such as this, the annual Black Harvest Festival held here in Chicago, as an opportunity to be introduced to people like her and to other artists, indeed often enough film makers, that I otherwise would probably never have learned about, but can enrich my / other's lives.

Great job!


ADDENDUM:

While this documentary film was _wonderful_, one need not find / see it to learn about Sonia Sanchez [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn].  There's plenty to find about her across the internet, in book stores and in libraries.  Just follow the links I've placed along side her name ;-)


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Shaun the Sheep Movie [2015]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (J. Hessenger) review  


Shaun the Sheep Movie [2015] (codirected and cowritten by Mark Barton and Richard Starzak of Aardman Animations [IMDb]) is a remarkable British children oriented "claymation" feature film about Shaun the Sheep (bah-ed/grunted by Justine Fletcher) and his barnyard friends (all bah-ed, grunted and quacked by various cast members), including a human Farmer credited as simply "the Farmer" (and "grunted" by John Sparkes).  For since the film was made "from Shaun the Sheep's perspective," the Farmer himself as well as all the other human characters in the story ALSO "grunt" their lines.  Hence this is a feature length film -- 85 minutes -- with no dialogue "to speak of" ;-)

I'm reminded here of a two minute "Law and Order" Adult Swim / Robot Chicken "short" [YouTube] which plays-out the entire story arc of a typical episode of the famed Law & Order television series [1990-2010] [IMDb] using nothing but "clucking chickens" (there's a victim chicken, bystander chickens, police investigator chickens, a "person of interest" chicken, prosecutor / defense attorney / judge / jury chickens, TV reporter chickens, etc ...).  I've long considered that two minute short to be absolutely brilliant and yet here the current movie extends this story-telling yarn to an 85 minute long (feature length) film.

Does it work?  Well ... ;-) ... smiling from ear-to-ear as I write this, I think that it basically does, but I'd understand that (many) people would be skeptical ;-).

So then, what's the story with regards to Shaun the Sheep?   Well, perhaps inspired in part by the "Harold the Clever Sheep"[YouTube] sketch of Monty Python's Flying Circus [1969-1974] [IMDb] fame, Shaun, also a fairly "clever sheep," finds the routine at the Farmer's farm to be dismally boring: Every morning that stupid rooster crows, then the dog starts barking, the farmer's alarm clock goes off and soon the farmer's down at the barn with the sheep and proceeds to tick off the same checklist for the day, every day.  That is, he lets the sheep out to pasture -- they graze -- and then he brings them back to the barn again to sleep at the end of the day.  It's not particularly hard work, certainly not for the sheep, but it's quite boring, or perhaps baaaah-ring.

Well, inspired by an advert that he reads on a bus passing-by saying "Take a Day Off" -- apparently though he can not understand spoken human language, Shaun can read ;-) -- Shaun puts together a rather ingenious plan (along with the other sheep) to "take a day off."  (Kind of an Animal Farm [book: 1945] / Chicken Run [2000] meets Ferris Bueller's Day Off [1986] ;-)

First they have to distract the dog.  To do so, Shaun pays off a "shady duck" from the nearby pond with a few slices of bread (amusingly, he has to haggle with the duck over the number of slices ;-).  Then the sheep have to get the Farmer to nod-off.  To do so, they run around in a quick circle behind him as he leads them to the pasture.  As the poor Farmer _counts_ them, first he's a little confused, then becomes drowsy and finally falls asleep.  The sheep then carry him (on their nice fluffy / wooly backs) to an out-of-the-way RV trailer where he could sleep the day away, while THEY (the sheep) get to "take their day off."  The pigs, watching the sheep do all this from their sty, are not amused (actually quite jealous), but they can't do anything about it ;-).

All seems to go quite well, until ... tragically, somehow the RV trailer starts moving and before any of the sheep (or the dog) could do anything about it, the RV trailer starts rolling ... toward "The Big City" (Well that's what the direction sign says anyway ;-).

The RV trailer _crashes_ then somewhere in the city.  The Farmer hits his head and temporarily forgets who he was or where he is.  And, well, come night fall ... he's not back and ... the sheep start to get hungry because ... the farmer's not there to feed them.

What now?  Well they, the sheep and the somewhat jilted / feeling betrayed-by-the-sheep dog have to go to "The Big City" to look for their master.  Much ensues ... ;-)

It makes for an amusing story perhaps teaching children the concept of "unintended consequences."  Here Shaun and his fellow sheep just wanted "a day off" and inadvertently lost (minor spoiler alert ..."at least for a while") the Farmer who took care of them.

Anyway, of course, things have to "end well" and (again minor spoiler alert) they do.  And all come to be happy on the Farm again.

Parents: I do not know if a really small kid would have the attention span to watch this movie all the way through in the theater BUT ... I would imagine that this will become a favorite HOME VIDEO for little kids in the years to come.

Good job, very good and funny job! ;-)


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Ricki and the Flash [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (M. Macina) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

Ricki and the Flash [2015] (directed by Jonathan Demme, screenplay Diablo Cody) has some very well drawn, well acted characters.

The film's lead character, Laura (stage name Ricki) (played by Meryl Streep), who left her far more buttoned-up / conventional (and it turns out far more financially successful) husband Pete (played by Kevin Kline) and their kids to pursue a career in Rock and ... ended up 15 years later playing as "the house band" playing covers of other people's music at a random bar in the San Fernando Valley (Tarzana, California maybe 10-15 miles from the clubs on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, but it could just as well been on Mars...) is a revelation.  In my line of work (as a parish priest...), I've known / worked with Rickis, even "musician Rickis" (this film came out on the weekend of our parish's annual Annunciata Fest that even features a lot of bands very similar to "Ricky and the Flash" ;-).  Indeed, there are moments in the film that I found jaw-droppingly poignant -- about a person that's both so flawed and yet also so sincere / perfect and  _ever_ partly / largely _aware of both_.  Wow ...

There's then Ricki's 20-something daughter Julie (played by Mammie Gummer) who grew-up hating her mom for having abandoned her along with her brothers Adam (played by Nick Westrate) and Josh (played by Sebastian Stan), but, having been dumped by _her_ husband after a very brief marriage was finding herself in a crisis of her own and discovering (partly to her own initial horror) that she had both more of her mom in her than she had realized AND MOM MAY NOT HAVE BEEN ENTIRELY THAT "STUPID" / "INCOMPETENT" / "TERRIBLE" AFTER ALL ...

Then there's Ricki's husband Pete's second wife Maureen (played perfectly by Audra McDonald).  Maureen, A NURSE, is exactly as _responsible_ a person as Laura/Ricki proved irresponsible, hence the almost PERFECT "second spouse" (An excellent recent Irish movie offering a similar dynamic of juxtaposing a terribly irresponsible first spouse and a super-responsible second one was Gold! [2014], though in that cases the juxtaposed first and second spouses were the husbands to a still 30-something Irish woman just trying to do the best for her kid and find some happiness as well).  In the current film, Maureen's become everything that Laura/Ricki was not and had, in fact, achieved the love / appreciation of Pete-and-Laura/Ricki's kids in a way that certainly Laura/Ricki did not (but honestly, neither did Pete).  Has Maureen become a "kind/gentle" EVER "saying the right things" USURPER?  Or was she simply EXACTLY WHAT THE FAMILY NEEDED after the breakup of Laura/Ricki and Pete?

Finally, there's Ricki's lead guitarist Greg (played reasonably well by ACTUAL 1980s-90s era POP STAR Rick Springfield [IMDb] I cut him some acting slack because he's been above all an A-ish-list pop musician rather than an A-list Hollywood actor).  He too has made relationship mistakes, but he too, like Laura / Ricki, "loved the music" above all and hence understood her in a way that none of the others, not even her family, could.

So there're some very well drawn characters here, why not such great reviews?  I personally found Pete and his family to have become WAY MORE FINANCIALLY SUCCESSFUL than necessary or even appropriate to effectively tell the story.   I think that the story would have been far better served if he had been made an accountant, perhaps a restaurant owner or something like that.  As portrayed, Pete had become SO RICH (doing some straight laced but certainly lucrative work -- was he a banker, was he a lawyer?) that I simply found it hard to believe that the two -- Pete and Laura/Ricki -- would have EVER met / seriously fallen in love and produced a family of three kids together before having so radically gone their separate ways.  The film provided no explanation and that proved an insurmountable problem for me.

Then this is a Hollywood film that thus had to "end well."  But Linda/Ricki's world and that of the husband/family that she met are SOOO far apart (and they needent have been so), that it's hard to see how it could work out, and CERTAINLY NOT in the stupidly cheap way (after creating sooo many well drawn characters) that it does in the film.

So there it is.  There are some very well drawn, even unforgetable, characters in this film ... which are then plunged into a story that doesn't altogether make sense.  And it's a shame, because many of the characters in this movie (and the actors/actresses playing them) deserved better.

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Number One Fan (orig. Elle L'Adore) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allocine.fr listing*

LaCroix.fr (C. Renou-Nativel) review*
LExpress.fr (C. Sautet) review*
LeMonde.fr (N. Luciani) review*
Liberation.fr (G. Renault) review*
LaPresse.ca (M. Cloutier) review*

EyeForFilm.co.uk (R. Mowe) review
The Hollywood Reporter (J. Mintzer) review


Number One Fan (orig. Elle L'Adore) [2014] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Jeanne Herry [IMDb] [AC.fr]* along with Gaëlle Macé [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) is a  rather _disconcerting_ (to an American / Anglo-Saxon sensibility) crime, stalker / celebrity "comedy" that played recently at the 2015 Chicago French Film Festival (July 31 - Aug 6, 2015.

Muriel Bayan (played by Sandrine Kiberlain [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) is a humble beautician in some town somewhere in the center of France.  She has two kids but has arguably lost custody of them for reasons not entirely clear.  What is clear is that she's been a BIG FAN of a fictionalized French pop singer named Vincent Lacroix (played by Laurent Lafitte [IMDb] [AC.fr]*).  Indeed, after losing her kids ... she ... goes a concert of his.

Now Vincent Lacroix is introduced to us as a rather typical contemporary celebrity.  He's does enjoy the fame of his public persona (likes signing autographs after his show), he's learned to be careful of overly obsessive fans (we learn later that he had a something of a French equivalent of a "restraining order" apparently put on Muriel some time in the past), and he's tried to build a private life away from the stage with his current "significant other" Julie (played by Lou Lesage [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) and other personal friends.

Yet it's an unstable mix and so, after what had been a "quiet night" at home with friends, Vincent and Julie get into a fight.  As the argument progresses, she actually slaps him first but he responds by pushing her against a book case ... and a fairly large / heavy object (arguably an award ...) falls on her head, badly, and kills her.

OMG ... what now?  "Fortunately" the friends are gone and he's alone there in the house with his now dead wife with the object that killed her lying at her side.  If he calls the police, will they believe it was an accident?  In anycase, the tabloids will have a field day with this.

SOO ... he decides that he's going to try to cover it up.

Enter Muriel, the somewhat simple-minded "fan" who Vincent had some time back placed a restraining order against.  He pulls out one of Muriel's past obsessive fan letters (with her address on it ... she lived somewhere in the same town).  He then wraps the body of his dead significant other in a thick blanket, puts in his his car, and drives in the middle of the night to Muriel's apartment building and rings her door bell.

"Hi this is Vincent Lacroix, I need to talk to you."  Yes, it's the middle of the night, yes, it's VERY ODD that Vincent Lacroix was at her door BUT ... "OMG, VINCENT LACROIX's at MY DOOR!"

Vincent Lacroix asks her then: "Would you do something for me?"  "OMG, yes!"  "I want you to drive your car, tonight, to my sister's in Switzerland.  There will be something in your trunk.  I don't want you to see it.  You have no need to see it.  Just take your car to my sister's ... in Switzerland.  I have everything explained for her in this (sealed) letter.  She'll take your car and come back with it about a half an hour later (Vincent's sister and her husband ran a pet crematorium.  Muriel has no idea of that, but the viewers know).  And then you can go home.  Would you do this for me?" 

Somewhat confused but, starstruck, "OMG after all these years, restraining order and all, here's Vincent LaCroix IN MY APARTMENT," Muriel says yes.

Much ensues ...

What ensues would certainly be disconcerting for a fair number of Anglo viewers: MILD SPOILER here: Fortunately Muriel isn't a total idiot/doormat but she proves no saint or martyr either.  Then of course there's the "great Vincent Lacroix" who clearly turns out to be quite an SOB (that's clear from what I described above).  Add then the two police investigators put on the case (played by Pascal Demolon [IMDb] [AC.fr]* and Olivia Côte [IMDb] [AC.fr]*).  After all, Vincent Lacroix's partner had "gone missing" and it becomes rapidly clear that _something_ had to have happened to her (a sudden stop in her cell phone and credit card activity).  While clearly not incompetent, it becomes clear that they have "other" often random / stupid distractions that compete for their attention as they work on her case.  And finally there's the police investigators' supervisor who seems to be above all concerned that her department "come-in under budget" for the year, RATHER THAN SOLVE CASES.

It all comes to feel very disconcerting.  Here a person has died.  We see how she died, and yes, it was _largely_ as a result of an accident.  BUT the people around, both near (Vincent Lacroix) and progressively far (Muriel), the two police investigators and finally their supervisor, don't seem to care.  All seem to be preoccupied with their own agendas, and well Julie was dead already anyway ...

Even though the film played very much like something of a modern "screwball comedy" ... it really didn't feel like "all that funny" at all ...

So it makes for a rather disturbing film by the end ...


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Handmade with Love in France (orig. Le Temps Suspendu) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allocine.fr listing*
Official website

604Now.com (M. Renaud) review
The Hollywood Reporter (J. DeFore) review
TheMacGuffin (A. Blair) review

All About Work (F. McQuarrie) review
Concrete Playground (S. Trengrove) review
Style.com (S. Adelman) review


Handmade with Love in France (orig. Le Temps Suspendu) [2014] (written and directed by Julie Georgia Bernard [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) is actually a quite fascinating documentary that played recently at the 2015 Chicago French Film Festival (July 31 - Aug 6, 2015) about the often very specialized artisans of Paris who've made / kept the city the center of haute couture (high fashion) in Europe for centuries.

And when I say "highly specialized artisans," I'm not kidding.  Among the artisans featured was Gérard Lognon whose Atelier Gérard Lognon [2]* was Paris' premiere "Pleating House" prior to his selling of his business to Chanel's Paraffection, S.A. a subsidiary created by Chanel with precisely the purpose of buying out these businesses before their owners / chief artisans die and their skills are thus lost forever.

Now what the heck is a PLEATING House??   The Atelier Gérard Lognon specialized in CREASING 3D patterns into previously 2D fabrics, which the fashion houses like Chanel or Christian Dior would then use to give often striking appearance and certainly novel texture to their subsequently unforgettable high-end dresses.  The value of this work becomes OBVIOUS when one sees it on the dresses paraded in the various high end fashion shows shown in the film, but honestly before seeing this documentary "I NEVER EVER would have known." ;-)

Then there's Lorenzo Re, whose atelier does nothing else than sculpt wooden forms for ... hats.  And there's Bruno Legeron whose 4th generation business is one of three remaining Paris shops devoted to _handmaking_ artificial flowers and feathers for dresses.  He tells the film-maker that "before the War" there were HUNDREDS, NOT DOZENS, BUT HUNDREDS of such shops devoted to nothing but making artificial flowers in Paris (and he has the directories to prove it).  And now there are three.

It's all fascinating to think about the next time one goes to Michael's (a "craft store" chain in the United States ;-) ).  But precisely a crafter would appreciate the skills of these people portrayed.

Well, what's happened, what's happening and what's the future?  A lot of these shops, often "kept in the family" for generations, have died for lack of interest / more options on the part of the youngest generation. Then, these shops often require very specialized skills / training that "doesn't come overnight." So "not just anybody" can do their kind of work.  Finally as mentioned above, Chanel has in recent years made it a priority to start buying these businesses out so that some of their people could be trained in the skills of these artisans before they are lost.  Yet, of course, these artisans have been used to "working on their own" / "being their own bosses."  Being subsumed by a subsidiary like Paraffection, S.A. of a "conglomerate" like Chanel is inevitably "an adjustment."  And a number of the artisans expressed concerns about what will be lost as a result of "industrialization" of their work.

A once again quite thought-provoking film about time, skills and change and "progress."


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Tokyo Fiancee [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allocine.fr listing*
CineNews.be listing*

AgendaMagazine.be (L. Joris) review*
aVoir-aLire.fr (A. Champilou) review*
France Télévisions (J. Bornet) review*
Rossiyskaya Gazeta (V. Kichin) review*
Variety (A. Simon) review

Tokyo Fiancee [2014] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (screenplay and directed by Stefan Liberski [IMDb] [AC.fr]* adapted from the novel "Ni d'Ève ni d'Adam" [GR-Fr] / "Tokyo Fiancee" [GR-Eng] [WCat-Fr] [WCat-Eng] [Amzn-Fr] [Amzn-Eng] by Japan-born (to Belgian parents) Amélie Nothomb [en.wikip] [fr.wikip] [GR-Eng] [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) is a generally quite fun Tokyo-set French/English/Japanese language Rom-Com  that played recently at the 2015 Chicago French Film Festival (July 31 - Aug 6, 2015) held here at the Music Box Theater.  It tells the story of the author's somewhat fictionalized alter ego Amélie (played in the film by Pauline Etienne [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) returning to Tokyo as a 20 year old (after having left it for Belgium at five) in hopes of filling the void that her family's departure had made in her life.

During her time in Tokyo where she's simultaneously brushing-up on her Japanese while tutoring French to students, she has a romance with 20-something Rinri (played by Taichi Inoue [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) one of said students.

Young American viewers thus get a "two-for-one experience" in reading the book / viewing the movie.  First one gets to enter the world of a young Belgian 20-something and then experience what she sees of / in Japan while she's there.

I'm almost certain that a young American visiting Japan even for an extended time would probably experience Japan somewhat differently than she (coming from a proud if famously small European country).

Indeed, a inevitable part of her description of her life in Japan involved describing, often quite amusingly, her relationships with the other women from francophone countries that she meets: There's 30 something year old Christine (played by Julie LeBreton [IMDb] [AC.fr]*), a Quebequoise, who worked at the Canadian Embassy and who served as something of a mentoring figure for Amélie during her stay.  Amélie came to her with all sorts of questions that a young 20-something women striking out on her own (especially in a foreign country) would have.  And then there was Yasmine (played by Alice de Lencquesaing [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) an early 20-something year old French woman, portrayed in the way that one could imagine a young 20-something Belgian woman would portray her: as "naturally" somewhat more confident (or more "arrogant") than she, and of course, smilingly "clueless" about coming across that way. ;-)

Rinri, of course, is portrayed as one would imagine a young Japanese man to be: Somewhat more shy / reserved than a Caucasian and then making some often quite amusing mistakes in his French: He keeps Amélie his maîtresse (instructor) which actually translates more commonly to mistress ;-).

Anyway, much often quite gentle ensues...

ONE THING I'D LIKE TO WARN (AMERICAN) PARENTS (of high school aged teens) ABOUT is the quite surprising (to me) AMOUNT OF NUDITY IN THE FILM (especially in the 2nd half of it).  Yes,  inevitabley, Amélie and Rinri do hit it off.  However, in an American RomCom, the trajectory of the romance would be portrayed, even the bed scenes, without (repeatedly) showing the actress playing Amélie topless and even fully nude.  I do know that Europeans tend to have a different view of nudity than Americans do and I suspect that even the Japanese may be more comfortable with nudity than we do.  However, I don't think that showing Amélie topless _so often_ in the second half of the film really added anything substantial to the story.  It even made their sexual relationship feel, after a while, almost boring, as if to ask: "What now?"

However, NOTING THE ABOVE, I still think that the film would be interesting to most American young adults and they would be able to experience, at least for a little bit, what it's like to be both a Belgian (from Western Europe) and what it'd be like to live (at least for a while) in Japan.

So, honestly, a very interesting, and often entertaining film ;-)


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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