(FRANCE)
10TH DISTRICT COURT: MOMENTS OF TRIAL-
Raymond Depardon

Depardon, the first filmmaker granted permission to film extensively inside a Paris courtroom, has boiled down the proceedings of 12 misdemeanor cases (out of 169 filmed) which serve as a fascinating lesson in human behavior. In France, the proceedings involve the judge interviewing the accused, requesting additional facts, listening to the sentencing request, then deliberating before reaching a verdict. Depardon zooms in on each player—judge, prosecutor and an ever-changing parade of perps. As the assortment of citizens—from immigrants, to pickpockets, artists and academics—come face to face with the formidable judge Michèle Bernard-Requin, a tough woman who has heard it all before, the result is a sometimes hilarious, often heartbreaking, always compelling snapshot of the human condition. (1:45:00) Print courtesy of Koch Lorber.

Selected Filmography: Reporters (81), News Items (83), Empty (85), Caught in the Acts (94), Prisoner of the Desert (90), Lumière and Company (95), Untouched by the West (02).

Showtimes:
12-02-2005 | 4PM | GU
14-02-2005 | 8.30PM| WH

LOOK AT ME - Agnès Jaoui

The long awaited second feature from writer-director-actor Agnès Jaoui, whose debut film The Taste of Others was both Oscar-nominated and César-winning, is a wise and witty comedy about people so self-absorbed they both miss out on life and wound those around them. Set in the familiar microcosm of bourgeois Parisian society, Jaoui, and husband/lead-actor Jean-Pierre Bacri, star in a romp that is at once exotic yet completely recognizable in its exploration of the conundrums of interpersonal relationships. The women are unhappy with their looks while the men are looking for something on the side. When not intent on seduction, these social scorekeepers specialize in elegantly humiliating and one-upping each other. Bacri plays a novelist-turned-publisher, a tyrant of egotistical self-regard, who has little use for his homely daughter with an angelic voice; Jaoui is the daughter's celebrity-smitten singing coach. Filled with lyrical music, this observant film examines fame, image and the power of both personal and public expectations. Best Screenplay, Cannes Film Festival. (1:50:00) Print courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Selected Filmography: The Taste of Others (01); Screenplay, Same Old Song (97).

Showtimes:
12-02-2005 | 6.30PM | GU
16-02-2005 | 6PM | WH

NOTRE MUSIQUE - Jean-Luc Godard

In his provocative new film — his own “Divine Comedy”—Godarduses Dante’s Inferno as a point of departure as he muses on his favorite subject—the challenge of living in the madness of the contemporary world. Describing and structuring his new work as a film in three parts—Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, Notre Musique is a mixture of essay, voice-over, autobiographical asides, documentary footage and fiction arrayed in symphonic fashion. Hell is a montage of war footage augmented with quotations on truth and death; Purgatory finds Godard in Sarajevo at a literary conference, talking with an Israeli journalist, a Palestinian poet, and an assortment of Jews and Americans holding his own a masterclass on language and image; and for Paradise, Godard offers an American military base. “Hardcore Godardians will want to bring a notepad, but everyone will relish a provocative, complex film proving that Godard, in his sixth decade of film-making, has lost none of his pugnacious invention nor his formidable intellectual curiosity about the state of the world.”—London Film Festival (1:20:00) Print courtesy of Wellspring Media.

Selected Filmography: À bout de Souffle (60), Alphaville (65), Masculine-Féminine (66), Weekend (67), Hail Mary (83), Nouvelle Vague (90), Forever Mozart (96), Eloge de l’amour (01).

Showtimes:
17-02-2005 | 8.45PM | WH
20-02-2005 | 5.15PM | WH

If you want a love story with a happy ending, perhaps the best way is to start at the end and end at the beginning. In François Ozon's new film we witness five key scenes in the life of a Parisian couple played in reverse order. We begin with their divorce and move backwards taking in an uneasy dinner party, childbirth, their wedding day, and finally, how they first met. Ozon posits that it is not the daily grind that kills love, but rather the flaws in the relationship that exist at the start. The space between the five scenes is the distance between love and the knowledge that love eventually dies. By conjuring that space to life— indeed making it the very subject of the film—Ozon creates a thoughtful and adult mediation on the deterioration of love, culminating in a scene which is at first romantic, yet ultimately tragic. Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Stéphane Freiss play the protagonists—archetypal renditions of woman and man—with precision and depth. (1:30:00) Print courtesy of Thinkfilm.

Selected Filmography: Criminal Lovers (99), Water Drops on Burning Rocks (00), Under the Sand (00), 8 Women (02), Swimming Pool (03).

Showtimes:
18-02-2005 | 9PM | B1
20-02-2005 | 2.45PM | GU