Monday, June 15, 2009

A delinquent kid, a sado-masochist piano teacher, and a dark family secret: A Brief Journey Into the World of French Cinema

How do you suppose I should translate this? "Je ne suis pas bon particulierement, mais je comprend la vie". (did i even write it correctly?)

I know I've told you before that I've taken French lessons but even during the time that I thought I was getting the hang of it, I suck at the language big time. I could not even say with full conviction the phrase, "Comment ça va?" to a fellow French student because I was afraid that he/she might say other than my expected reply: "Ça va bien, et toi?" and I would not know what to answer next.

That is why my favorite French phrase ever is: "Je ne comprend pas!"

There was a time that I got hooked up with "everything French" that I had to learn the language thinking that this is one way of showing my fondness for French films beside the fact that I really like how the French language sounds.

admit one ticket which they give during the Festival


When one’s craving is fed, one is bound to be happy. But ultimately, it will never be enough. I am mostly like this when I watch a film (especially if it's French!). My craving is insatiable so to speak.

I was at the EDSA Shangri-La the whole Sunday to catch the last day screening of the 14th French Film Festival. I was slopping around the idea of missing the festival entirely since I barely had the time for anything lately and all I ever wanted was to sleep as much as I could. But my inner self is lambasting over "some missed opportunities” so eventually I decided to give in. I left for Quezon City from Los Baños on an early Sunday morning just to catch the first screening of the festival. I invited three friends who would likely to accompany this sudden hunger for great movies but unfortunately, they could not come. So on to the moviehouse I went.

The entrance is free. But as they say, “nothing is really free” and good entertainment is certainly no gratis. Organizers released the tickets two hours before the screening, while I planned on watching every film scheduled for that day I did not know how it would be possible to get the next ticket without getting out of the cinema. Anyway, I managed to do that. Thirty minutes while the movie is ongoing, I had to run from my seat to the queue to get the ticket for the next screening. It was a crazy ordeal but it worked. By the end of the last film, I was physically and mentally exhausted.

Anyway, three out of the five films I've seen in this year's entries are brilliant. They stuck into my head even after I've seen them. Plot- and character- wise, these films were amazing.

Les quatre cent coups (The 400 Blows), 1959
Mabuhay si Traffaut! Bakit ba ngayon ko lang na-discover ang pelikulang ito? Ang tagal ko na itong naririnig pero ngayon ko lang napanood. Traffaut= French New Wave. Ang galing dito ni Jean-Pierre Léaud na ngayon ay 60+ years old na pero gwapo pa din. hehe.

La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), 2001
Isabelle Huppert is stunning. Michael Haneke is superb. This is my second time watching it and I am still debating over it. The plot. The characters. The lingering scenes. The details. Ah, Haneke is one heck of a director. I should see "Code Unknown" and "Hidden" very soon.

Un Secret (A Secret), 2007
Ang lufet ng presentation ng pelikulang ito. Colored ang flashback tapos monochrome ang present. Galing ng sequencing. Kahit na supporting role lang si Mathieu Amalric, astig pa rin siya. Hindi ko malimutan ang role niya sa: Le scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Salamat kay Mar.

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6 comments:

Tonton said...

walang anuman, rita. =)

my gulch said...

merci beaucoup, Mar! ;-D

Anonymous said...

still feel bad about not goin. ano ako, high school?!? pakshet.

good to know u enjoyed it. hehe. lookin forward to the other film fests you mentioned.



Crim the Disappointed

my gulch said...

Crim:
Eiga Sai na this coming July 2! :-D

pieterbie said...

I'm afraid I will have to tell you that your short sentence contains two mistakes.
Firstly particulièrement needs an accent grave on the first e.
And secondly it is "je comprends", you dropped the S.

But then this should be easy for me, I live in a country where 3 languages are spoken, Dutch being the most common, French the second. German is spoken by a minority, some 30.000 souls.

I should take the time to see some more French films. They have a great and undervalued cinema tradition.

my gulch said...

Peter: see? i told you my French sucks, haha! but for that short sentence...did I get the meaning right? I think I wanted to say something like, "I am not that good (intelligent) but I understand (know) what life is"...something like that.

about the "je comprends". you will not believe this but originally, i put an "s" in comprend but chose to dropped it. i got confused i guess. all in all, French becomes more difficult for me because of the conjugation of the verb plus the fact that every word in French has a gender. but anyway, thanks Peter for teaching me. I really appreciate it. :-D merci!

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