QPORIT: February 2014

Thursday, February 27, 2014

THE AMERICANS

THE AMERICANS Season One was terrific. I think it should have been all over the Golden Globes and Emmys.

Season Two (Wednesdays at 10 on FX) started tonight with a great show: tense, violent, suggestive, complex.

KERI RUSSELL

at the Hamptons International Film Festival 2005

Photo by Eric Roffman

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys play Elizabeth and Henry Jennings, a married couple, raising their two children in Washington DC. This nuclear American family is living the American Dream during the later years of the Cold War. Except this dream is something of a nightmare.

They are actually deeply implanted Russian KGB agents. They conduct lethal anti-American operations, while maintaining a perfectly normal life in the suburbs across the street from an FBI counter-intelligence officer, Stan Beeman (played by Noah Emmerich) with whom they socialize.

This season, Stan is trying to identify and eliminate two deadly KGB operatives, and Elizabeth and Henry's young-teenish daughter is getting curious about her parents.

Every operation they take on is high-stakes, exciting, and the possibility of being discovered seems to escalate with every episode. In addition, the premise of the series itself, with the two lead characters being vicious anti-American killers, constantly teeters on the edge of exceeding acceptable limits of sympathy. How do you maintain empathy -- even root for -- characters who in most shows would be the villains, not the heroes?

This series is on a level with RAY DONOVAN and BLACKLIST. Those shows feature great actors leading the action. Keri Russell, I think is brilliant in her complex role. (In fact, I would love to see her focused, strongly motivated (but evil) energy create Lady Macbeth in what could be a breath-taking production.)

THE AMERICANS ON WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_%282013_TV_series%29

THE AMERICANS ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/

KERI RUSSELL ON WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri_Russell

MATTHEW RHYS ON WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Rhys

Labels: FBI, Keri Russell, KGB, Matthew Rhys, THE AMERICANS

# posted by QPORIT @ 12:15 AM 0 comments

Monday, February 24, 2014

LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME

Spectacularly beautiful Alpine vistas with brilliantly blinding white snow transform this film noir into a visually stylish film we might call a chilly film blanc.

LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2014

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

www.filmlinc.com

Marc (Mathieu Amalric), a professor of literature and creative writing at The University of Lausanne, lectures his beautiful female students on feeling passion in literature and life. Many are provoked to try out what they learned on their teacher. But Marc is a very complicated man.

FRENCH PREVIEW (NO SUBTITLES!)

LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME, though nominally a "mystery" about the disappearance of a student (who we know from the pre-credit sequence has spent the night with Mark at his chalet and apparently died there), really becomes the study of Marc himself, his life story, his family story, and his personality.

The cinematography, starting lush and becoming more somber as the story itself does, is quite terrific, as is the music.

Note... I do have a petty quarrel with the English title: a "perfect crime" is one in which no-one who should get hurt gets hurt, and the perpetrator gets away with what they deserve to get away with. Neither of those conditions is true here.

While Amalric is not, physically, necessarily a babe-magnet, one can see how his carefully designed lectures may do the work for him. The story is surprising and all the acting is very fine, with a small but powerful appearance by Sara Forestier as a student with Marc as her target.

Sara Forestier and Mathieu Amalric

LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2014

Sara is striking. A little research revealed that she is actually one of France's most important rising young actresses. In 2005, she was selected as one of Europe's "Shooting Stars" and won a Cesar (the big French Award) for Most Promising Young Actress for her role in GAMES OF LOVE AND CHANCE ("L'esquive", directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, who is currently in theaters with BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR)

Moreover, Sara plays the title role in SUZANNE (also here at Rendez-Vous), a role for which she is nominated (as Best Actress) for this year's Cesar Awards (presented on Feb 28). AND! she stars in a third film here at Rendez-Vous, LOVE BATTLES ( "Mes séances de lutte" directed by Jacques Doillon).

Mathieu Amalric

at the New York Film Festival 2009

Photo by Eric Roffman

Mathieu Amalric has been in many films shown over the last few years in New York and is in another film in this year's Rendez-Vous: IF YOU DON'T, I WILL ("Arrête ou je continue" directed by Sophie Fillières). Mathieu is also up for a Best Actor Cesar this year, for his role in Roman Polansky's VENUS IN FUR.

LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME
"L'amour est un crime parfait"

DIRECTED BY Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu

WRITTEN BY
Philippe Djian -- the source novel 'Incendies' -
Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu -- screenplay

CAST
Mathieu Amalric - Marc
Karin Viard - Marianne (Marc's sister)

Maïwenn - Anna
Sara Forestier - Annie
Denis Podalydès - Richard
Marion Duval - Barbara (the missing girl)

Damien Dorsaz - Le jeune inspecteur

LOVE IS THE PERFECT CRIME

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3103576

MATHIEU AMALRIC

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0023832

IF YOU DON'T, I WILL

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3202374

MATHIEU AMALRIC ON AMAZON