Jacquot, Benoit

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    #MeToo Stalled in France. Judith Godrèche Might Be Changing That.

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    Judith Godrèche did not set out to relaunch the #MeToo movement in France’s movie industry.She came back to Paris from Los Angeles in 2022 to work on “Icon of French Cinema,” a TV series she wrote, directed and starred in — a satirical poke at her acting career that also recounts how, at the age of 14, she entered into an abusive relationship with a film director 25 years older.Then, a week after the show aired, in late December, a viewer’s message alerted her to a 2011 documentary that she says made her throw up and start shaking as if she were “naked in the snow.”There was the same film director, admitting that their relationship had been a “transgression” but arguing that “making films is a kind of cover” for forms of “illicit traffic.”She went to the police unit specialized in crimes against children — its waiting room was filled with toys and a giant teddy bear, she recalls — to file a report for rape of a minor.“There I was,” said Ms. Godrèche, now 52, “at the right place, where I’ve been waiting to be since I was 14.”Since then, Ms. Godrèche has been on a campaign to expose the abuse of children and women that she believes is stitched into the fabric of French cinema. Barely a week has gone by without her appearance on television and radio, in magazines and newspapers, and even before the French Parliament, where she demanded an inquiry into sexual violence in the industry and protective measures for children.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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      ‘Suzanna Andler’ Review: French Riviera Blues

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      This film takes place in a single afternoon, as Suzanna, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, contemplates her bourgeois marriage.The central figure in the French drama “Suzanna Andler” is a woman for whom passion, tragedy and indecision elicit the same response — a shrug. Her voice never raises; her face rarely betrays her emotions. She speaks to her friend, her husband and her lover in the same monotone. Even a raise of the eyebrows is too active for this inert film.Suzanna (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is the chic wife of a wealthy businessman. He neglects her, or they neglect each other, and in Suzanna’s leisure time, she has taken a younger lover, Michel (Niels Schneider). The film takes place in a single afternoon, as Suzanna contemplates renting a summer home with her husband’s money.Michel comes to visit, and his presence pushes Suzanna to consider pending decisions that haunt her. Should she rent the house? Should she leave her husband? Should she drink herself to death? Who cares?“Suzanna Andler” is an adaptation of a play by the writer Marguerite Duras, best known in cinema for her contributions to the screenplay of the 1959 film “Hiroshima, Mon Amour.” The director Benoît Jacquot’s interpretation of Duras’s disaffected characters leads him to keep his images detached. Pans and zooms show the same dispassion that his characters profess. Lovers kiss, and the camera moves away from the action.It’s a test of patience to watch these glass figurines discuss their romantic entanglements, the doll house on the Riviera that they will maybe rent, the bourgeois marriages they will maybe leave. Even the camera seems bored, as if it might wander off.Suzanna AndlerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Casanova, Last Love’ Review: Reappraising a Philanderer

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      Benoît Jacquot’s erotic costume drama envisions the Italian playboy as a weathered sad sack living in exile.The French filmmaker Benoît Jacquot (“Diary of a Chambermaid,” “Farewell, My Queen”) is a master of costume dramas with an erotic bent. He brings the European period piece down to earth by pitting aristocratic whimsy against the uglier experiences of the working class, and he’s never afraid to visualize the, uh, unseemly biological realities beneath all those pantaloons and hoop skirts.“Casanova, Last Love,” his latest foray into the world of powdered wigs and courtly intrigue, is no exception, though it pales in comparison to his fiery women-fronted films.Jacquot reappraises the notorious philanderer by depicting him not as a raucous pleasure-seeker but a weathered sad sack living in exile. In this world, playboys are pathetic and pitiable, which reads like a plea for modern audiences to cut maligned men more slack.
      Framed as a series of flashbacks, the film follows Casanova as he wanders phantom-like around the English court — a much more vulgar place than his usual stomping grounds. He falls for Marianne de Charpillon (Stacy Martin), an alluring but cruel prostitute who claims to have encountered him once before when she was an impressionable 11-year-old girl.Thus begins a desultory cat-and-mouse game that emphasizes the ambiguity of La Charpillon’s intentions, which are complemented by the cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne’s dimly-lit spaces and dreamy, velvet textures.The terrific French actor, Vincent Lindon, usually plays brooding types with a menacing streak but here he imbues his Casanova with subtle poignancy. It’s an interesting performance that nevertheless transforms Casanova to the point that he is no longer a believable womanizer.Perhaps that’s the intention: appearances and reputations are deceptive. Though Jacquot throws into question our presumptions about figures like Casanova, as well as vilified women like La Charpillon, he leaves it at that, leaving us wondering what exactly it was all for.Casanova, Last LoveNot rated. In French and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More