Bad Seed (1934)

AKA Mauvaise Graine.

If you want me to watch a film then telling me that Billy Wilder is involved is one easy way to do it. I was tempted by Bad Seed anyway, it seemed like a fun little crime flick, but then saw that it was the directorial debut of Wilder (credited here alongside Alexander Esway, although the involvement of Esway has since been mentioned as a way to simply secure financing).

Pierre Mingand plays our lead character, Henry, a young man who is upset when his father (Paul Escoffier) decides to stop funding his happy-go-lucky lifestyle and takes his car away from him.  Henry has a date to keep with a young woman, which is part of his motivation for stealing the car when he sees it parked up with the keys left in it. This sets in motion a chain of events that get Henry involved with a gang of car thieves, and has him growing close to Jeannette (Danielle Darrieux), the sister of young compulsive tie-thief, Jean (Raymond Galle).

While this is a feature debut, while it's a French film before he found his feet in Hollywood, and while it's a pretty lightweight bit of fluff, I would argue that there's still something here to signify the talent of Wilder. The dialogue may be more sparse than usual, but it's often quite sharp and witty (co-written by Wilder, Jan Lustig, Max Kolpé, and Claude-André Puget), and things are presented with a great blend of economy and assuredness.

Mingand is a decent leading man, and the rest of the cast make up a memorable selection of supporting characters as things start to focus in on the relationship between him and Darrieux, who is also very good at portraying someone criminal enough to be dangerous, but also happy to one day leave that life behind her. While I have already named Escoffier and Galle, it's also worth adding a compliment or two for Michel Duran, Georges Malkine, and Gaby Héritier, as well as Marcel Maupi, who plays someone desperate to see results from the police when he becomes a victim of car theft.

It's all quite predictable, and all quite safe (this is a crime thriller with some main characters you hope will see the error of their ways and start a new chapter in life before the end credits pop up), but it's also very easy to enjoy, particularly in a couple of main scenes that show how brazen the car thieves are. I would say that this is ripe for a modern remake, but suspect that it's a bit pointless when you consider how many of the individual elements here have been recycled and reworked in a variety of movies, from crime thrillers to rom-coms. If anyone DOES want to have a go at it . . . I'll be interested in seeing the final result. It might be hard to beat this version though.

8/10

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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