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    Venice Film Festival Looks: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt And More

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    No amount of star power can truly outshine the beauty of La Serenissima, the ancient republic better known as the city of Venice. But the Venice Film Festival, with its parade of A-listers arriving for movie premieres in water taxis, comes close.Typically held not long after the fall couture shows in Paris, the Venice Film Festival benefits, in pure fashion terms, from being a showcase of the newest garments from some designers. How these elaborate, often form-fitting, confections are transferred so rapidly from Parisian runways to Venetian red carpets hardly matters to looky-loos with their eyes perennially pressed to the glass of fashion.This year’s festival, running from Aug. 28 until Saturday, has not just been an exhibition for new designs, but also of vintage pieces. Some looked as fresh as ever. Garments old and new are among these 15 looks, which will be hard to forget for reasons good and bad (but mostly good).Taylor Russell: Most Modern Retro!Louisa Gouliamaki/ReutersThe actress radiated an icy elegance in a Loewe gown reminiscent of the creations of Jean Louis, a designer who had the lock on high glamour during the golden age of Hollywood studios.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Isabelle Huppert on the Importance of the Venice Film Festival

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      The veteran French actress of stage and screen is the jury president of this year’s Venice Film Festival.Actors often have more than one project on the boil. The French actress Isabelle Huppert takes multitasking to the next level.For the next 11 days (Wednesday through Sept. 7), Huppert is heading up the jury of the Venice Film Festival, watching nearly two dozen movies (together with the other jurors) and handing out awards, including the coveted Golden Lion.In the days and weeks leading up to the festival, Huppert has been working nonstop.Earlier this week, for two nights in a row, Huppert performed alone onstage at the Ruhrtriennale festival of the arts in Germany, delivering the 100-minute monologue “Bérénice” (an adaptation by Romeo Castellucci of the 17th-century French tragedy by Jean Racine).Days before that, she was on a film set in Belgium, playing a fictionalized version of Liliane Bettencourt — the billionaire heiress to the L’Oreal cosmetics fortune — in “La Femme la plus riche du monde” (“The World’s Richest Woman”).Huppert’s résumé is correspondingly impressive. She has more than 120 films to her name, as well as an Academy Award nomination (best actress in 2017 for “Elle”) and quite a few theater productions. She manages to toggle between film and stage acting, appearing regularly in cinemas and theaters around the world.Fresh off the set in Belgium, and busy relearning her lines for “Bérénice,” Huppert discussed film festivals, the future of cinema and the American stage director Robert Wilson in a recent phone interview. This interview was conducted in French and has been edited and condensed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Bérénice’ Review: Crushed by Isabelle Huppert’s Star Power

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      Romeo Castellucci’s production of the classic play by Jean Racine is all about the lead performer — and that’s it.The Isabelle Huppert vehicle is a curious subgenre of French theater. At this point, its ingredients have grown predictable: They include a high-profile male director, like Robert Wilson or Ivo van Hove; a prestigious playhouse; and a central role that casts Huppert as a woman teetering on the edge of reason.Huppert, 70, has adhered to this formula in a diverse set of plays in recent years, from Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” to Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie,” and, in New York, Florian Zeller’s “The Mother.” She was the focal point in all of these, but this season’s entry, a “Bérénice” directed by Romeo Castellucci at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, goes much further.The production does away with any pretense that it is about more than its star. Castellucci and Huppert have equal billing in all publicity material, down to the ticket stubs, and Huppert’s name is literally embroidered into the curtains that frame the stage. Some of the sentences that adorn them are barely legible because of the fabric’s creases, but one of them, a quote from a playbill interview with Castellucci, describes Huppert as “the synecdoche of theater.”Under the circumstances, don’t expect to actually hear much of “Bérénice,” a 1670 tragedy by Jean Racine that is widely considered one of the greatest plays in French. For starters, most of the characters have fallen by the wayside. Huppert is the only performer who speaks, delivering Racine’s alexandrine verse to an empty stage — or, in one scene, to a washing machine.Racine’s play offers a classic choice between love and duty: Titus, who is about to become the emperor of Rome, lives with Bérénice, the queen of Judaea. Custom dictates that a foreigner cannot become empress, however, and Titus renounces their love, leaving Bérénice shattered.Here, a silent, model-like Titus, played by Cheikh Kébé, hardly crosses paths with Bérénice. (Imagine being cast as Huppert’s love interest and only looking her in the eyes during the curtain calls.) Kébé only materializes for a few wordless scenes, along with Giovanni Manzo as Antiochus, a close friend of Titus’s who is also in love with Bérénice.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘La Syndicaliste’ Review: Power Plays

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      Isabelle Huppert plays a union representative swept up in a byzantine conspiracy in this French movie, which is based on a true crime.Sometimes the best reason to watch a movie is because Isabelle Huppert is in it. That’s pretty much true of “La Syndicaliste,” a tangled if certainly watchable French true-crime drama about dirty political doings in the nation’s nuclear energy industry. Filled with men and women with furrowed brows, running and declaiming and sometimes explosively blowing their tops, the movie yearns to be a 1970s-style American thriller but is basically just a vehicle for Huppert’s talents. Even when it’s unclear what her character — a labor representative — is up to, she commands your attention with feverish focus and urgency.Huppert plays Maureen Kearney, a leading union representative of Areva, a state-controlled French nuclear technology company. A no-nonsense, hard-charging official, Maureen takes her mandate seriously — Areva has more than 50,000 employees when the story opens in 2012 — and her resentful male colleagues somewhat less seriously, at least outwardly. She’s brassy and a bit flashy (she likes perilously high heels and slashes of red lipstick) and close to her boss at Areva, Anne Lauvergeon (Marina Foïs), a smooth number who’s about to lose her job because, as she explains, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to replace her before the next election.It isn’t obvious why Sarkozy thinks that firing Anne will help him; she suggests it’s because she’s a woman, stoking the gender war that percolates throughout this movie. Whatever the case, Sarkozy fires Anne, eventually losing the presidency to François Hollande, all of which adds real-world context to the story without illuminating it. The director Jean-Paul Salomé gives the movie a lively pace, but he crowds it with filler scenes, too many characters and political arcana. He also throws in an allusion to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” — cue the blond chignon — that does his movie no favors. (Salomé wrote the script with Fadette Drouard.)“La Syndicaliste” follows Anne as she tries to work with her new boss, Luc Oursel (an amusingly villainous Yvan Attal), a patronizing sexist who cozies up to Maureen even as he busily conspires against her. The extent of his schemes begin to emerge after a whistle-blower sneaks Anne a document showing that a shadowy figure who heads up another state-controlled utility, E.D.F., is clandestinely negotiating with a Chinese consortium to build low-cost plants. (Got it?) The idea is to turn E.D.F. into a world nuclear power and ruin Areva, which Maureen helpfully explains, “will be awful for our employees.”The scheme proves worse for Maureen, who tries to bring attention to the E.D.F. plan, only to be largely met with indifference. As she continues rattling cages, she is met with escalating hostility, and then one grim morning while she’s home preparing for a big government meeting, an intruder puts a mask over her head and rapes her. Much of the rest of the movie involves Maureen navigating the aftermath of the assault as she submits to invasive medical examinations and police interviews that grow progressively antagonistic. The cops are stumped — there are no fingerprints, witnesses or surveillance visuals — and then they accuse Maureen of inventing the rape as a way to gin up sympathy for her political struggles.Based on a 2019 book of the same title by Caroline Michel-Aguirre, “La Syndicaliste” never satisfyingly meshes the story’s corporate-political thriller elements with Maureen’s traumatic ordeal. Salomé’s handling of the rape doesn’t help. The movie opens right after a maid finds the bound Maureen in the basement of her home, and then the story flashes back several months at which point it begins to unwind chronologically. That’s fine, even if the structure is drearily familiar, but it ends up turning the rape into a narrative high point, which is just gross. Huppert, who makes her character’s pain and rage visceral, is enough.La SyndicalisteNot rated. In French and Hungarian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute. In theaters. More

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      15 Fashion Triumphs From Cannes Over the Decades

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      Movies aren’t the only thing to watch. The film festival has made red carpet waves since “being seen” became mainstream.If the Met Gala is the all-star showcase of red carpet entrances, the Oscars the skills championship, and the MTV Video Music Awards the X Games, then the Cannes Film Festival is effectively the playoffs: an extended period in which celebrities show up multiple times in clothes high and low, demonstrating all their moves.And though outfits seem to be getting increasingly extreme with the proliferation of social media, a look back through the history of the festival’s runway (oops, red carpet) — which this year runs May 16-27 — reveals that it was, in fact, ever thus.The Croisette boulevard has always been a catwalk and we, the rapt audience looking on.The actress Elizabeth Taylor grasps the arm of her husband at the time, the film producer Mike Todd, at the Cannes Film Festival, wearing a Balmain gown and Cartier tiara.Malcolm McNeill/Mirrorpix, via Getty Images1957Elizabeth TaylorWhen she attended Cannes on the arm of her third husband, the producer Mike Todd (who was there to promote “Around the World in 80 Days”), Ms. Taylor was Hollywood royalty, and she dressed the part — from the tip of her diamond Cartier tiara to the hem of her white Balmain gown and the fingertips of her opera gloves. The princess dress would forever after be a festival staple (not least on Princesses Grace and Diana when they would take their own Cannes bows).Catherine Deneuve attended a screening of “Les Cendres” by Andrzej Wajda at Cannes in an Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress.Gamma-Keystone, via Getty Images1966Catherine DeneuveMs. Deneuve attended Cannes with her then-husband, the photographer David Bailey, in a long seaside-striped sequin Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress. She was a de facto YSL ambassador before that term had even entered the fashion playbook (back then, the usual appellation was “muse”). She would remain one for decades, loyally wearing YSL onscreen and off. When it comes to casual glamour, however, this dress set the tone, proving the concept was not an oxymoron, but a whole potential genre unto itself.Jane Birkin toted her signature picnic basket as a handbag to Cannes.Gilbert Giribaldi/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images1974Jane BirkinMs. Birkin popped up at Cannes with her beau, Serge Gainsbourg, and a picnic basket as a handbag, toting it not just during the day, but on the red carpet with a glimmering frock. Reportedly discovered in a fishing village in Portugal, it was the Birkin bag before the Birkin bag. It became a symbol of the British star and of a certain je ne sais quoi in boho style and the freewheeling nature of Cannes.Madonna arrived for the premiere of her film “Madonna: Truth or Dare” (known internationally as “In Bed with Madonna”) in a pink Jean Paul Gaultier coat that she shed to reveal a satin undergarment set.Dave Hogan/Getty Images1991MadonnaShe came to Cannes to unveil “Madonna: Truth or Dare” — and herself. Decades before Lady Gaga stripped down to her undergarments on the Met Gala steps, Madonna walked the carpet for her premiere in a voluminous pink taffeta coat by Jean Paul Gaultier — only to drop it at the last moment to reveal a white satin cone bra, knickers and a garter belt set. She jolted the public out of their torpor and started a new era of peekaboo dressing.Sharon Stone came to the premiere of “Unzipped” unbuttoned — a satin skirt parted to uncover a bedazzled romper.Stephane Cardinale/Sygma, via Getty Images1995Sharon StoneIn 2002 Ms. Stone came to Cannes as a member of the film festival jury and revived her flagging profile by walking the red carpet in a different fashion statement every night. But years before that, she made dressing noise when she arrived at the premiere of “Unzipped” in a champagne-colored satin skirt that was, well, unbuttoned to reveal a bedazzled romper beneath. Ever since, shorts have been a festival staple.For the screening of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” Johnny Depp was accompanied by his girlfriend at the time, Kate Moss.Patrick Hertzog/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images1998Kate MossMinimalism came to the Croisette courtesy of Ms. Moss, attending the premiere of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” with her then-boyfriend, Johnny Depp. Ms. Moss wore a black cocktail dress with ostrich feathers at the top and almost no makeup with merely a touch of diamonds and barely-there sandals. She made everyone else look overdone and overdressed, washing the Augean stables of Cannes clean.Tilda Swinton walked the Croisette in a metallic pantsuit.Daniele Venturelli/WireImage2007Tilda SwintonMs. Swinton strode the carpet in a metallic pantsuit, proving that a woman does not need a big dress to make a big statement.Linda Evangelista in a gold Lanvin dress.Kurt Krieger/Corbis, via Getty Images2008Linda EvangelistaMs. Evangelista posed like a gold Greek statuette in Lanvin at the premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Models had become key parts of the festival’s opening evening mix, upping the fashion ante even further.Lupita Nyong’o in a chiffon Gucci dress.Venturelli/WireImage2015Lupita Nyong’oMs. Nyong’o seemed to embody springtime itself in a green pleated Gucci chiffon dress accented with crystal flowers. It was only a few months after Alessandro Michele had taken over as creative director of the Italian house, and the dress heralded the arrival of a new aesthetic and Hollywood love affair with Gucci.Amal Clooney in an Atelier Versace dress.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2016Amal ClooneyMs. Clooney made her Cannes debut in a classic butter yellow Atelier Versace dress with a high slit on one leg, entirely overshadowing her husband, George, at the premiere of his film, “Money Monster,” and, once again, proving style and substance are not antithetical concepts.Rihanna in a Dior couture gown.Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images2017RihannaShe made her first Cannes appearance at the “Okja” premiere in an ivory Dior couture gown with a long matching coat and New Wave-style sunglasses. Two years later, Dior owner LVMH would announce a deal with the artist for her own fashion line, and though it was shut down during the pandemic, her ability to channel cool has never wavered.Kristen Stewart, in a Chanel dress, removed her Louboutins to ascend the stairs barefoot.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2018Kristen StewartMs. Stewart’s short chain mail Chanel dress was a fighting mix of armor and crystals, but what really made news was her decision to doff her Christian Louboutin stilettos and walk up the stairs barefoot. Coming a year after the actor complained about the festival’s unspoken high heels dress code, it was an unmistakable fashion throw down and, well, a step forward for wardrobe equity.Isabelle Huppert in a Balenciaga gown.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2021Isabelle HuppertThe French actress made the ultimate elegant refusal of Cannes convention in a high-necked, long-sleeved all-black Balenciaga gown, matching boot leggings and matching shades. It cut through the carpet froth and excess like a knife.Spike Lee in a colorful suit made by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton.Eric Gaillard/Reuters2021Spike LeeThe sole man in this trendsetting list, Mr. Lee put ye olde penguin suits to shame as jury president, eschewing the usual tuxedo or white dinner jacket for a bouquet of sunset-toned suiting, by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton. He did the right thing.Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a Gaurav Gupta gown.Stephane Mahe/Reuters2022Aishwarya Rai BachchanSometimes, it seems like the wide open skies of the Côte d’Azur encourage even wider skirts on the Cannes carpet, but Ms. Bachchan topped them all in a fantastical creation from Gaurav Gupta that made her look like some sort of alien smoke goddess materializing on Earth. Sometimes, it really does seem like the looks at Cannes are out of this world. More

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      ‘Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris’ Review: High Fashion for the Humble

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      This inspirational comedy starring Leslie Manville and Isabelle Huppert trades in a similar kind of British coziness as the “Paddington” movies, though it’s not nearly as effective.In “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” Lesley Manville returns to the world of high fashion in a reversal of her Oscar-nominated role in “Phantom Thread.” Her deliciously frigid character in that film — the forbidding manager of a British fashion house and foe to Vicky Krieps’s lowborn muse — would go catatonic were Manville’s Mrs. Ada Harris to waltz into the fitting room, asking for a “frock” with her cockney drawl.Unsurprisingly, the formidable Manville pulls off the switcheroo, instilling her role as the genial cleaning lady with a tenderness and grace that far surpasses the feel-good pish-posh that is the film around her.Directed by Anthony Fabian, “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” trades in a similar kind of British coziness as the “Paddington” movies, though it’s not as zany or funny.Mrs. Harris, a widow toiling away in the service of the postwar London elite, has her eyes set on a custom Dior gown and, after a series of fortunate events, heads to Paris to retrieve the garment of her dreams. Despite having found the cash, our heroine must contend with the menacing Madame Colbert (Isabelle Huppert) and the snooty mores of the biz and its patrons.For the other world-weary employees — the kindly, philosophizing model Natasha (Alba Baptista), the lovesick accountant André (Lucas Bravo) — Mrs. Harris proves single-handedly that the rules of society aren’t necessarily ironclad. If a humble maid can get her hands on a dress that costs 600 pounds, what’s stopping Natasha from pursuing an intellectual life, or André from revolutionizing the company to appeal to women from all walks of life?The trope of the laughably frumpy worker bee, filled with optimism and quiet wisdom, is demeaning, and Mrs. Harris’s iteration is no exception. Despite its gleeful showcasing of beautiful clothes and vibrant midcentury Parisian sights, the film is caught between its fantasies and its principles, landing somewhere more annoyingly clueless — and dull — than it ought to be.Mrs. Harris Goes to ParisRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Isabelle Huppert Doesn’t Watch Her Past Films, but She Will Discuss Them

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      The Berlin International Film Festival is honoring the superstar of art house cinema with a lifetime achievement award. She took us through some career highlights.BERLIN — Isabelle Huppert isn’t fond of nostalgia. In her five-decade career, the 68-year-old French actress has appeared in over 120 films, including recurring collaborations with some of the most important filmmakers in postwar European cinema. Her ability to channel brittle vulnerability, intellectual forcefulness and icy hauteur (often simultaneously) in films like Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle” have made her one of the few true superstars of international art house film.The Berlin International Film Festival will award her an honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement on Tuesday, which Huppert will not accept in person after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to a news release from the festival.The festival will still celebrate her career by showing seven of her films, although Huppert said in a recent phone interview that she had little interest in looking back. She explained that the award was “as much about the present and the future than about the past.” She added that she rarely rewatched her old films: “I don’t have time to see new films. Why should I lose time watching my previous ones?”Huppert’s schedule is almost comically packed. She has one film (“Promises”) currently in French cinemas and three more set for release in the coming months. Another, “About Joan,” is screening at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. She is currently shooting “The Union Lady” with the French director Jean-Paul Salomé, and this year, Huppert is going on tour with two plays as well. She also revealed that she was slated to appear in the next film by François Ozon.Nevertheless, Huppert said she saw the Golden Bear “as a recognition for the directors I’ve worked with.” With that in mind, the actress shared insights about her experiences working on the films being screened at the Berlin retrospective. Here are edited extracts from that conversation.‘The Lacemaker’ (1977)In this slow-paced drama directed by Claude Goretta, Huppert plays Pomme, a shy salon employee who embarks on a romance with a university student.Huppert and Yves Beneyton in “The Lacemaker.”Jupiter FilmsI had done films before, but this was the film that defined me as a young actress, because it was so much about interiority. It was a great role as a career starter — one of these roles that imprints itself on you. She is a young lady who does not speak much, who has a relationship with this intellectual. It was very dramatic and emotional, but it didn’t play with the seduction and physicality that is usually connected to young people.I’ve never played soft characters. They were always very powerful, and very intense. They could be silent, but they were never soft. She expresses herself more with looks and with her eyes and her physical attitude than with words. Cinema is the perfect medium for revealing the unsaid, and “The Lacemaker” is really about this.‘Every Man For Himself’ (1980)In this French New Wave classic by Jean-Luc Godard, Huppert portrays a prostitute navigating her clients’ absurd fantasies.Huppert in “Every Man for Himself.”Saga ProductionsMy character was a very unusual way to show a prostitute: I didn’t really look like what you’d expect, and there was a poetry to it. The movie is about money and bodies, not really about prostitution, and there was very little sexuality shown in front of the camera.Godard has a special way of working: There was no script and there were very few people, sometimes just images or music. We went to a shopping mall and bought our costumes. It went against all principles of organization and preparation. I wasn’t intimidated by Godard. I was never intimidated by anyone, at least no directors. If you are intimidated, things become impossible. I was always confident.I like what Godard once said about me: “It’s visible when she is thinking.” That is probably one of the best compliments I’ve gotten in my life.‘La Cérémonie’ (1995)Huppert plays Jeanne, a postal worker in a small town with a grudge against a wealthy family, in this film by Claude Chabrol.Sandrine Bonnaire and Huppert in “La Cérémonie.”Jeremy NassifI’ve always worked with unsentimental directors who make no attempt to make people better than they are, and this was really Chabrol’s specialty. We were exactly in tune, like in music. He asked me which role I wanted and I said the post office girl. Compared to some of the previous characters I had played, she was very talkative. She kills with words and speaks and speaks and speaks.I don’t think much before I act. I just do it. It’s instinctive and very intuitive and certainly I don’t have thorough discussions with the director beforehand. The relationship between a director and an actress is so powerful and fascinating. Why does a director want to film you? Why is he interested in what you are, your face, your body, your way of moving or talking? It’s unconscious and conscious, it’s an invisible and mute language, but it is a language. It’s what I cherish and love most about cinema.‘The Piano Teacher’ (2001)Directed by Michael Haneke, Huppert plays a Viennese piano teacher who has a boundary-pushing sadomasochistic relationship with a student.Benoît Magimel and Huppert in “The Piano Teacher.”WEGA FilmAgainst all odds, Haneke is so easy to work with. He is very pragmatic and concrete. Even in the most daring scenes, the most incredible scenes, it’s about how to place the frame, it’s technical. Some scenes go quite far, but Haneke is a master of making the audience think they see things that he doesn’t show. His direction, his mise-en-scène is very protective for the actors. As an actress, I never felt exposed.I don’t think when you do a film you go, “Oh my God, I’m going to do a provocative film.” Of course, it’s also a game, to go as far as you want, to show things people have difficulty watching. At the end of the day, it’s a very strange love story, but it’s also an exploration of the mystery of love and of how this woman wants to impose her own view of love.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ‘White as Snow’ Review: The Fairest of Them All

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      The director Anne Fontaine spins the Snow White fairy tale into a thriller, with Isabelle Huppert as the jealous stepmother.Whatever rehabilitation wicked stepmothers have undergone of late encounters a setback in “White as Snow.” Isabelle Huppert brings a frost to her role as Maud in the director Anne Fontaine’s darkly playful gloss on the Snow White saga. Lou de Laâge portrays the hotelier’s shy, impossibly lovely stepdaughter and rival, Claire.This is fairy tale as comedically aware thriller. There are red apples; red, red dresses; and long, self-appraising glances into the mirror on Maud’s part. Of course, her jealousy is misdirected. Her husband, Bernard (Charles Berling), is a besotted fool, trying to assuage his own anxieties about aging. But the die is cast, nonetheless.Once Claire finds herself deep in the woods, conveyed there by a hired killer and saved by a hunter with a twin back at a large stone farmhouse, nature gets its redolent due, with farmland and forest providing a backdrop to sexual congress. Claire’s brush with death frees her of any erotic inhibitions but never represses her ample decency and kindness. (How many men does Claire encounter? Seven, naturally.)Quite a few of the film’s pleasures come by way of its fluid tango with the source material. Fontaine and her co-writer, Pascal Bonitzer, manage several didn’t-see-that-coming zags. Nods to Hitchcock abound with the aid of the cinematographer Yves Angelo’s tracking shots and the composer Bruno Coulais’s low foreboding notes.As satisfying as Huppert is, the movie dances on the pinpoint of de Laâge’s performance. The name Claire signifies light and clarity, and there’s a transparency to de Laâge’s portrayal of this innocent who remains thus while discovering a lavish sensuality.White as SnowNot rated. In French with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. In theaters. More