list.co.uk/film
Film REVIEWS
DRAMA/WAR INCENDIES (15) 130min ●●●●●
This commendable and impressive Franco-Canadian drama arrives fresh from scooping seven Genies (Canada’s Oscars). Set in the Middle East and dramatising an endless cycle of violence and retribution, it’s an unashamedly didactic piece of filmmaking that’s heavyweight enough to justify its numerous accolades. Adapted and directed by French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Maelström, Polytechnique), Incendies is based on Lebanon-born, Canada-resident dramatist Wajdi Mouawad’s play, the title of which translates as ‘Scorched’, signifying a land destroyed by conflict. Opening in modern-day Montreal, it begins with brother-sister twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) being read their recently deceased mother’s will and being given a pair of sealed letters written by the woman who escaped from the war-torn Middle East (the fictional Fuad, a thinly-veiled Lebanon) to bring her children up in North America. One letter informs Jeanne and Simon that their father didn’t die the heroic death they were told he did, the other tells the twins they have a long-lost brother in Fuad who they are to find as their mother’s dying wish.
What follows unfolds as a slow-burning detective story that flips between Jeanne and Simon’s efforts to find their sibling, who’s identifiable only by three black dots tattooed on one of his feet, and flashbacks to their mother’s involvement in the civil war that destroyed her country. Villeneuve dispenses with large chunks of dialogue from the, apparently, very talky play and replaces them with a series of striking and very cinematic images. The result is a film with a powerful anti-war message that shows rather than tells and ends up being all the more vivid for that. (Miles Fielder) ■ Selected release from Fri 24 Jun.
HORROR MOTHER’S DAY (18) 112min ●●●●●
THRILLER POINT BLANK (A BOUT PORTANT) (15) 84min ●●●●● COMEDY POTICHE (15) 103min ●●●●●
Following on the heels of bloodless remakes of cherished 1980s slasher flicks like The Stepfather and Prom Night, Mother’s Day is a nastier but more accomplished beast. This home invasion drama is a reboot of the 1980 Troma original, and is propelled by an intense performance by Rebecca De Mornay. A reprisal of sorts of her role as the evil babysitter in The Hand That Rocked the Cradle, De Mornay plays the ruthless matriarch of a crime-loving family. Her three sons have just botched a bank-job, sustaining a bloody injury in the process, and invaded the house of suburbanites Daniel and Beth Sohapi (Frank Grillo and Jaime King).
With a group of partygoers held hostage
downstairs, the Sohapis have to figure out how to best the vicious mother and her murderous brood. Director Darren Lynn Bousman makes good his escape from helming three episodes of the Saw franchise by sustaining the ensuing tension, with nail guns, boiling kettles and an unexpected wig-removal to keep gore-hounds happy. But it’s De Mornay’s film; with her prim and proper mom-knows-best homilies juxtaposed with her ferocious sense of the Sohapi’s weaknesses, she ably makes Mother’s Day a cut above the average horror. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 10 Jun.
Fashion photographer turned filmmaker Fred Cavayé (Anything For Her) would have thrived in the old Hollywood studio system. His films operate with the speed and single-mindedness of a runaway locomotive. Give him a high concept premise and he will wring every ounce of tension from it, drag you to the edge of your seat and send you home shaken and stirred. Cavayé’s Point Blank (A Bout Portant) is a suitably
breathless nail-biter told with the dynamism of a Bourne thriller. Ubiquitous French star Gilles Lellouche is trainee nurse Samuel. His tender ministrations save the life of career criminal Sartet (Roschdy Zem). Soon, ruthless henchmen have kidnapped Samuel’s pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya). If he wants to see her alive again and live to enjoy fatherhood, he has to break Sartet out of intensive care and evade half the cops and criminals in Paris as the unlikely duo run for their lives.
Point Blank maintains a pulse-racing forward momentum with chases, narrow escapes, twists and betrayals. You may want to pick it apart afterwards but Cavayé ensures that your are lost in the moment as it unfolds. (Allan Hunter) ■ General release from Fri 10 Jun.
Catherine Deneuve has a gift of a role in this deliciously subversive farce from the prolific François Ozon. Deneuve is Suzanne, the ‘potiche’ or trophy wife, blithely content to be a domestic goddess in the shadow of insufferable husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini). It seems that feminism has yet to reach the distant shores of smalltown France, even in 1977. When Robert is stricken with ill health someone has to step in and take charge of the family umbrella factory. Suzanne rises to the challenge, rediscovering her power and potential to the degree that nothing will ever be the same again. The basic plot would be sufficient to sustain a crowd-pleasing comedy but Potiche has hidden depths and unexpected layers as it revisits a time when men were chauvinists and women were about to show them who was really the boss. All the characters have their little secrets, nothing is quite as you might have expected and Ozon has a rare talent to deliver serious dramatic conflict with a tasty layer of froth. A scene that invites Deneuve to share the disco floor with town mayor Gerard Depardieu is indicative of the silliness and pure pleasure to be found in this irresistible Cinderella story. (Allan Hunter) ■ Selected release from Fri 17 Jun.
26 May–23 Jun 2011 THE LIST 85