For It Is Man's Number: audrey tautou

Showing posts with label audrey tautou. Show all posts

Monday, 6 May 2024

Mubi Monday: Phantom Boy (2015)

On the surface, Phantom Boy is a very familiar tale, and maybe the kind of tale that people suffering from superhero-fatigue might choose to avoid at the moment. There's a young boy who finds that he has a special power, allowing him to move quickly, and unseen, around a city that is being threatened by a wannabe-supervillain named The Face. There's more to it than that though, and I would recommend this to people who don't mind trying something a bit different, even if it mixes in many familiar elements.

Leo (Gaspard Gagnol) is the lead character, the titular "phantom boy". Leo has to go into hospital to be treated for cancer, with the one silver lining to that cloud being a new-found ability to astrally project himself around the city. He cannot stay away from his physical body for too long though, otherwise his spirit will begin to disappear. When he ends up sharing some space with a wounded police officer, Alex (Edouard Baer), Leo explains his new super-power, and gives an effective demonstration. This leads to him helping Alex, who is in turn helping an investigative journalist named Mary (Audrey Tautou), who is trying to expose The Face (Jean-Pierre Marielle).

The big attraction here is the lovely animation style. It's clean and detailed, and has a great retro feel, a modern-day adventure with the vibe of something from the 1940s or '50s. From the opening credit sequence to the old-fashioned methodology of the criminal gang, this keeps finding effective ways to round off the corners of what could otherwise have been a more difficult film to enjoy (considering the one-two punch of cancer and child endangerment at the heart of it).

Co-directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol, working from a script written by Gagnol, this is a film that manages to feel both refreshing and comfortingly familiar. Take away the fantastical element and you could easily imagine this being a Tintin adventure. The fantastical elements adds so much though, and it's more than whatever is overtly depicted onscreen. Leo has the constant worry revolving around being able to return to his physical body, and he there is an upside and downside to being able to view others who are unaware of his presence (not unlike those who are ill in a hospital bed, but able to hear the concerned conversations of the loved ones sitting around them). The stakes feel high when it comes to the lives of others being affected, but it's certainly not world-ending stuff, and the desperate need for Leo to help out seems to show his need to stay distracted, and to engage in a battle with an enemy that he can see in front of him.

The voice cast all do very well, a great fit for their roles (n.b. I did watch the original version of this, a dubbed version is also available . . . and Vincent D'Onofrio in the role of The Face seems like an excellent choice there), and the script does enough to make their interactions and character development believable, despite the main premise.

I haven't seen the previous feature from Felicioli and Gagnol, the celebrated A Cat In Paris, but I can assure you that it's been bumped up my list of "ones to watch" after finding so much to appreciate in this. Sweet, tense, and constructed with real care and tenderness, this is highly recommended, especially to those who may have dismissed it based purely on the title.

9/10

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Tuesday, 17 November 2020

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Dan Brown is not Charles Dickens. He's no Brontë. No Stephen King. Even when it comes to thrillers, he's not as good as the likes of Patricia Cornwell, Lee Child, or even (when he's on form) Dean Koontz. But that's not to say that his writing is terrible. He has amassed a huge fanbase over the years, and a lot of that stems from the success of The Da Vinci Code, a thriller that blended some fact with a whole lot of fiction in a way that intrigued readers and made them feel as if they were becoming a bit smarter while the plot became dumber and dumber. That kind of success is very easy to turn your nose up at (especially when you recognise the formula that Brown has used in almost every one of his books, and I have read, and enjoyed, Deception Point, Digital Fortress, and three of his Langdon adventures, the ones that have so far been adapted into movies), but it also happens for a reason. Brown knows how to thread together ludicrous plot points into something that is entertaining and thrilling.

You could say the same of director Ron Howard, who has been at the helm of numerous hit movies throughout his career. It's also easy to turn your nose up at many of his works, but they're often hugely popular for similar reasons. Howard is a pro when it comes to the technical side of things, and when it comes to crafting moments of cinematic emotional manipulation. Has he made any absolute classics? You can be the judge of that, but if he's not made one movie that you would always enjoy if you caught it randomly on the TV then I'd be very surprised.

So Howard directing the cinematic adaptation of the book that really made Dan Brown a household name was surely always a guarantee of a blockbuster hit. Put Tom Hanks in the role of Robert Langdon and what could possibly go wrong? Not much, actually, not much at all.

It's a simple enough premise, a straightforward journey complicated by numerous obstacles and twists. Langdon is called to a murder scene inside the Louvre, and that sets him on a quest to both clear his name and find the Holy Grail, which seems to have had its location hidden away in a number of coded messages over the years. Langdon is accompanied by Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), and hopes to enlist the help of and old friend, Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), as he tries to continue evading Captain Fache (Jean Reno), a self-flagellating albino monk named Silas (Paul Bettany), and others who are in hot pursuit.

Although Howard is in the big chair for this, a lot of the credit should be shared by everyone involved. This is a film that makes it clear just how much care and attention has gone into every department, from the props and design to the casting, and it's also got a gorgeous score by Hans Zimmer. Brown came up with the source material, but Akiva Goldsman does a superb job of making things more cinematic. The twists and turns are nicely handled, the exposition delivered in ways that don't let the film feel as if it has come grinding to a halt, and Hanks and Tautou are a winning pairing in the lead roles.

The supporting cast aren't half bad either. Reno works with an ambiguous character who may have an agenda of his own while he tracks our hero, McKellen has fun with a character who is oh-so-English that it's positively precious, and Bettany is an intriguing presence. Alfred Molina and Jürgen Prochnow also have good parts to play, with the latter involved in a set-piece that emphasises how silly some of the plotting can be, which doesn't necessarily make things any less fun.

It's very easy to mock and dismiss the Dan Brown books. It's also very easy to mock and dismiss the movies based on his books (and I know many complained at the time that Tautou seemed a bit wasted in her role, I think she remains a plus, thanks to her sheer screen presence). Maybe try to see how many positives there are, and simply accept the fact that being a crowd-pleasing work of art is almost always far removed from being the best work of art, but isn't any less worthy when it comes to having made people feel happy and entertained.

8/10