Mubi Monday: The Truth (2019)

After the absolute brilliance of Shoplifters, I was willing to see anything that director Hirokazu Koreeda would do next. I'm sure many others felt the same way. Not that Koreeda hasn't been delivering great movies now for decades, but Shoplifters was so good that it just put him right back in my mind as a bit of a master of cinema. And I'm sure others feel the same way.

Anyway, The Truth is Koreeda's English-language debut. And it's mostly in French. Catherine Deneuve plays a famous actress, Fabienne Dangeville, who is being visited by her daughter (Lumir, played by Juliette Binoche), her son-in-law (Hank, played by Ethan Hawke), and their child (Charlotte, played by Clémentine Grenier). The timing coincides with the release of Fabienne's autobiography and her latest role that has her playing . . . a mother. And the truth is ripe for exploration at this time, especially as Lumir calls into question so many things in the alleged autobiography that didn't actually happen the way they are described.

I think it's fair to say that The Truth may well disappoint a lot of people after Shoplifters. It's nowhere near as good as that film, and it doesn't seem to make any of the main points as effectively and beautifully as we're used to seeing these things done by Koreeda, who once again takes on both the directing and writing duties (although Ken Liu is credited for a short story used as the basis for the film that Fabiene is working on).

The weakness of the material, however, is at least partly compensated for by the quality of the leads. Deneuve is a grand dame of cinema, of course, and I can't think of any role she's had that I've disliked. This gives her some great moments, showing a woman so invested in her acting career that she will move from a moment of honest emotion to figuring out how best to use those feelings in a specific scene in her movie. Binoche is a perfect "opponent", staying strong enough to wrestle things back to the truth that the title of the movie promises. Hawke is very good in his role, although his character feels quite unnecessary for most of the runtime, and Grenier is just fine as the beloved child of the group. Manon Clavel does well in a supporting role, and Roger Van Hool helps to mix things up a bit when he appears onscreen.

What you end up with, ultimately, is a character study that steadily turns into a mood piece. But the mood never really feels like one worth giving so much time to. The core of the film is a standard family confrontation, and the dressing around it all never seems vital. It all infuses the core, undeniably, but a few tweaks could have left a lot of things the same without the extra layering that doesn't add enough to make it all worthwhile.

It's a very enjoyable film, full of moments that will impress fans of the main cast. It's just not a great film. And, perhaps a bigger contributing factor to my opinion on it, it's just not close enough to being as good as Shoplifters.

7/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Ani-MAY-tion Month: Persepolis (2007)

Perspolis is a perfect mix of thought-provoking content and cinematic entertainment. Showing the life Marjane (Chiara Mastroianni), who we see develop from a little girl into a strong and confident woman processing the turbulent, repressive and often horror-filled world around her. Marjane, you see, grew up in Iran and witnessed the Islamic Revolution and great change. Unfortunately, that change wasn't all for the better, although it may have seemed that way at the time.

Depicted mostly in black and white throughout, Persepolis manages to effectively show a number of horrors without ever being too explicit, but also without coating everything in sugar and honey. It really gives viewers a good general idea of how people live under the shadow of an oppressive regime by showing how Marjane at first explores her environment with childish curiosity, and then eventually rebels against much of it with a strength developed over the years.

Writer-directors Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi (with the latter translating her autobiographical graphic novel) do fantastic work. The animation is stylised, yet all of the main characters feel like very real, well-rounded human beings, which is so vital when showing how people have been held down, and often dehumanised, in the context of the movie.

Mastroianni is very good as Marjane, while her real-life mother Catherine Deneuve does a great job in the role of her onscreen mother. Simon Abkarian is Marjane's father, but Danielle Darrieux steals a number of scenes (or, at least, her animated character does) as Marjane's grandmother, the savvy matriarch of the family who proudly watches her granddaughter find her voice when it's most needed.

I was very pleased that I'd finally given Persepolis a watch as the end credits rolled. I'd been made to think about many freedoms we take for granted, I felt as if I'd learnt a little bit more about some quite important world history, and I'd been hugely entertained by an animated woman steeling herself ready for a new stage in her life by singing "Eye Of The Tiger" enthusiastically, if amusingly out of tune. But I also know that there's more I should look into, that this is just one small part of events that shouldn't be forgotten. I will be hoping, at some point, to educate myself further on the central subject, and that's, arguably, where Persepolis succeeds most.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Chiara-Mastroianni/dp/B000YAA68W/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1400896224&sr=1-2&keywords=persepolis