Annette and Petite Maman

 Brief thoughts on a couple of French films from '21

Annette

Carax’s movies have often been exercises in Brechtian detachment, easier to analyse than get emotionally wrapped up in, but almost all of them contain individual moments of pure aesthetic bliss (the boat ride under the fireworks in The Lovers on the Bridge, Denis Lavant running to David Bowie in Mauvais Sang, or playing the accordion in Holy Motors) based primarily around music, so the idea of a full on Carax musical promises much. It’s therefore both surprising and obvious that Annette finds Carax just as emotionally distant, a yet just as good, as ever.   

The way this film plays with artificiality, in the music, the set design, the staging, the way characters perform and lie to each other, represents some of the most accomplished and intelligent filmmaking of the year, with every scene introducing new ideas or deepening themes, often purely visually. The cast, particularly Adam Driver, do excellent work operating between these levels of performance and unreality, often manifesting their most interesting acting opposite a puppet (also giving a great performance).

Outside of the opening number the music by Sparks is, in my opinion, bad, but the way Carax constructs this movie its failure to connect becomes part of the larger puzzle (see Driver and Marion Cotillard singing “we love each other so much” over and over in a way that never quite convinces you whether they believe it or not). It takes a truly great filmmaker to take the work of a band this annoying and somehow turn it into a beguilingly great experience (sorry Edgar Wright).   

Petite Maman

Perhaps no modern filmmaker is as good at generating empathy as Celine Sciamma. So much is done at the beginning of this film with such economy of style, that within ten minutes even the stoniest of hearts will be softened to clay; she makes this stuff look so easy. This mid-Covid production works as a kind of between-course palate cleanser after the earth shaking Portrait of a Lady on Fire supercharged Sciamma’s indie reputation. If anything this 72 minute tale of intergenerational friendship and processing loss is a little too light, too cute, too delicate, but its hard to deny the minimalist power of the camerawork or the clever doublings and parallels of the writing.