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Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 3, Tiebreaker 2

Not a single one of the top contenders for third place was able to correctly identify last week's quiz. This leads Filmbrain to believe that too many of you are lacking in your Robert Bresson. Fair enough -- for years many of his films were hard to locate in the States, but fortunately this is being rectified. At the moment there are four titles available on DVD, and more are promised later this year. The shot from last week comes from his 1957 film A Man Escaped (Un condamné à mort s'est échappé), considered by some to be his best film. If you've never seen a Bresson film, this is a great place to begin. Based on the memoir by Andre Devigny, this story of a man sentenced to death by the Gestapo during the German occupation painstakingly details every step of his planned escape, and is a perfect introduction to Bresson's method of creating an emotional response without even a hint of manipulation. The DVD from New Yorker Films looks wonderful. A strong, strong recommendation. So, with third place still wide open, here is the second tiebreaker for Round 3. This week -- in which film can you find this funky-colored voiture? As usual, send your guesses to this address. Good luck!

More Berlinale Reviews - Les Mots Bleus & The Beat That My Heart Skipped

[NB: In today's fast-paced world the Berlin Film Festival is now little more than a distant memory, but Filmbrain believes that his reviews will (hopefully) still be of interest to some, especially considering that it may be some time before many of these films find distribution.] The following two films were part of the Competition.

Les Mots Bleus, France Even though Alain Corneau's Fear and Trembling was one of Filmbrain's least favorite films of last year, he thought the once-great director might still have a good film in him -- hopes that were quickly crushed after seeing this shallow, uninspired weepie. Based on the Dominique Mainard novel Leur Histoire, Corneau's drama about a single mother raising a child who refuses to speak is entirely lacking in psychological depth. Sylvie Testud (star of Fear and Trembling) plays Clara, a woman who fears and distrusts words due to a family history that found several members betrayed by them. As a result, she never learned to read or write. She lives alone with her young daughter Anna (the slightly too precious Camille Gauthier), who has never uttered a single word. She's a highly dedicated, caring mother, though it hardly requires a master's degree in child psychology to figure out what the problem is. After being thrown out of school for refusing to speak, Clara enrolls Anna in a school for deaf children, hoping that through sign language she'll be better equipped to express herself. There she meets Vincent (Sergi López), Anna's teacher and a pillar of virtue -- his only shortcoming being that he never found the right woman to settle down with. (Bet you can guess where this is going.) As Anna learns to communicate with those around her, Clara's fear of losing her grows. This leads to an ending that is as ridiculously contrived as it is painfully predictable. Though Sylvie Testud's performance is impressive (she's on-screen nearly every moment) there's only so much she can do with such a saccharine screenplay. It's sad that the director of the great Série Noire has been reduced to making Lifetime Movie Network fare.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrêté), France One of the biggest surprises in the Competition this year was Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped, a re-working of (and vast improvement on) James Toback's debut feature Fingers (1978), staring Harvey Keitel. Like the Toback film, The Beat... tells the story of a young man struggling with a dual existence -- that of hard-boiled thug as well as budding concert pianist, although Audiard opts for a more psychological, introspective approach. The film's greatest strength is its lead actor, Romain Duris, whose performance as Tom had some comparing it to a young Robert DeNiro in Mean Streets -- many believed he was a shoe-in for the Silver Bear Actor award as it was by far the best male performance in a competition film. A nasty, self-centered character with a temper, there's still something likeable about Tom -- even when he's releasing rats under the door of a family he's trying to evict, or seducing his partner's wife. It is this complex duality that makes the Audiard film far superior to the original. As Jimmy Fingers, Keitel was a pure psychopath - a violent rapist whose self-destruction Toback seems to have modeled on Travis Bickle. In Tom, Audiard has created a character who has never taken charge of his own life. His mother, a former concert pianist, died some years back, and now Tom spends most of his time working with his criminal father on sleazy real-estate deals and collecting loan-shark payments. Through a chance encounter with his mother's former manager, he has the opportunity to take up the piano again, and for the first time in his life he feels a sense of purpose. When not threatening squatters with a baseball bat, he studies under the tutelage of a young female pianist (Linh Dan Pham) who has just arrived from China. Though unable to speak a word of French, she is tough on Tom, and not at all intimidated when he flies into one of his rages. It is these scenes, especially in contrast to Tom's nocturnal activities, that keep us on edge -- and Audiard's slow, steady pacing still manages to create wonderful tension. Will Tom succeed at his audition? Will he even make it there? Though the film takes a decidedly different turn at the end from the original, it is both pleasantly surprising and altogether satisfying. As mentioned above, it is Duris' performance that elevates the film to something far greater than a simple remake. Prior to this film, Filmbrain wasn't much of a fan -- Duris often played the good-looking guy (Le Divorce, L'Auberge Espagnole, CQ) with little else to do but...well, look good. His performance has an energy and intensity to it that comes off as so naturalistic -- you notice the character, not the acting. It's a shame the only award it won in Berlin was for its music (which was quite good, however.) The Beat That My Heart Skipped is a clever, suspenseful, entertaining film with a great script that will no doubt find a US distributor -- or at least deserves to.

Same Sweater, New Year

It began on a whim, one year ago today. A guy at work, bored, started a blog. The name simply came to him in a flash, as did the persona. It began with rants about a certain Jesus movie, Godzilla news, and a newfound appreciation for Tuesday Weld. In the year that followed, it grew from a site that people found by Googling "Chloe Sevigny AND blowjob" to one that has found a regular group of readers who seem to enjoy Filmbrain's often-too-passionate musings about things filmic. As he now enters his second year, Filmbrain would like to thank everyone for the comments and emails, as well as the bloggers (especially fellow New York film bloggers) who noticed the madman with a penchant for Korean films. Extra special thanks to David at Greencine and The Cinetrix -- recognition from the two of you meant a whole lot (and still does). As commenter r mentioned earlier today, "Hollywood celebrates Million Dollar Baby and Filmbrain goes Rottweiler on Eastwood's movie one last time. "It's a slap in face to every legitimate film that was made last year..." This almost sounds like a young Truffaut in the early 1950's delivering his attack on French cinema . . . but please keep in mind, Francois made his point about crappy French directors and moved on to articles about great ones such as Renoir, Ray, Hawks..." Point well taken, and appreciated.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 3, Tiebreaker 1

As mentioned last week, we still don't have a clear third place winner for this round of the contest. A large number of you have an impressive ten points (out of a possible fourteen) -- can one of you walk away with the prize this week? In order to avoid an endless series of tiebreakers, the quizzes will be slightly more difficult, or at least that's Filmbrain's intention. This week -- what exactly is going on here, and why? As usual, send your guesses to this address. Good luck!