The wedding of Robert Pattinson and Zendaya turns into a nightmare, a documentary about October 7, Gérard Jugnot returns to popular comedy… The cinema selection from Figaro.
The Drama – To Watch
Drama by Kristoffer Borgli – 1h 46
Love at first sight in a café, first date at a restaurant, uninhibited sex and intellectual connection unfold retrospectively. The lovebirds Charlie and Emma reminisce about their cloudless love story. Charlie works on his wedding speech to Emma’s glory. They rehearse with a choreographer the dance that will open the ball. They taste the caterer who will feed the guests. It is during this well-watered dinner, shared with a couple of close friends, Mike and Rachel, and spiced up with a game of Truth or Dare, that Emma reveals her secret. It’s not a plot twist, it’s almost a pretext. A worm in the fruit. From then on, Charlie looks at Emma differently.
Borgli has shown his actors in “Melancholia” by Lars von Trier, a marriage against the backdrop of an apocalypse that is no metaphor. He could also have shown them “Festen” by Thomas Vinterberg. Borgli nonetheless has his own way of spoiling the party.
Figaro’s rating: 3/4
Read also: Our review of The Drama: mysteries, twists, and lies at the heart of the couple
Plus fort que moi – To Watch
Drama by Kirk Jones – 2h 01
“Plus fort que moi,” by Kirk Jones, recounts the true story of John Davidson, a victim of this little-known disorder. The film begins in the 1980s with a Scottish teenager suffering from initial symptoms (Scott Ellis Watson, trembling with astonishment). At the school, his peers mock him, pushing him around in the playground. In class, he struggles with Yeats’s poems. The principal scolds him, literally. His family doesn’t understand what’s happening to him.
Jones doesn’t whine. His film overflows with tact, warmth, and generosity. The humor plays its part, in banally urban settings, on wet sidewalks, between suburban homes and high-rises.
Figaro’s rating: 3/4
Holding Liat – To Watch
Documentary by Brandon Kramer – 1h 33
Documentarian Brandon Kramer lives in Washington. On October 7, 2023, he contacts his extended family in Israel to get updates. One of his relatives, Yehuda Atzili, informs him that his daughter Liat and son-in-law Aviv are among the 250 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, following the attack on the Nir Oz kibbutz. Yehuda and Chaya, his wife, are Israeli-Americans. Yehuda doesn’t hold Benyamin Netanyahu in his heart, more focused on making war than on freeing the hostages. Tal, Liat’s sister living in Portland, joins Yehuda in the American capital. She berates him.
“Holding Liat” is poignant because it shows the pain of a family. 54 days of unbearable waiting, false hopes, before liberation. But Brandon Kramer also shows the torn family of the Israeli left, each member reacting differently.
Figaro’s rating: 3/4
Read also: Our review of Holding Liat: an Israeli family after the 7th of October ordeal
Silent Friend – To Watch
An imposing tree reigns in a botanical garden in Hesse. It links the three intertwined stories here. In 1908, a young scientist tries to integrate into a boys’ school and becomes a photographer’s assistant. In 1970, a likely still virginal student is infatuated with another student who lives on the same floor. In 2020, the Covid crisis traps a Hong Kong professor of neurology in the deserted Marburg university.
At its core, it’s a love story. Regardless of the characters. Ildiko Enyedi (“Story of My Wife”) films endearing quirks (don’t forget to water every four hours). It’s acceptable to be contemplative at times, between “2001” and Terrence Malick. The infinitely small touches the grandiose. It’s incredible and beautiful.
Figaro’s rating: 3/4
Read also: Our review of Silent Friend, an ode to the senses and nature
