In Contention

Tag: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

  • LONDON: ‘Micmacs,’ ‘The Time That Remains’

    Dany Boon in MicmacsI am presently seeing films at the London Film Festival at a greater pace than I can write them up — expect a round-up of curt (by my standards, at least) capsule reviews either later today or tomorrow.

    Some films, however, demand to be reviewed in pairs, as is the case with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest, the frothy action caper “Micmacs,” and Elia Suleiman’s rather more subdued Cannes entry “The Time That Remains,” which I saw this afternoon and yesterday respectively — two polar-opposite films that nonetheless both blend naive physical comedy with a political agenda, to very different tonal effect.

    “Micmacs” (**)

    As a filmgoer, few things are as dispiriting as the sensation that everyone on screen is having more fun than you — and not being able to join in. Such, I regret to inform, was my experience watching the latest eccentricity from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Amélie,” “Delicatessen”), which floods the screen with inventiveness, enthusiasm and his trademark sepia-stylized visuals — special kudos to Aline Bonetto’s production design — but is so claustrophobic, and so convinced of its own charms, that the narrative is lost somewhere in the bustle.

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  • Jeunet and Tautou reunite for Chanel ad

    In a neat (and surely not entirely coincidental) turn of events, Audrey Tautou succeeds Nicole Kidman as the face of Chanel No. 5, in the same season that she’s attracting positive notices for playing Chanel herself. Her tenure begins with this typically lush commercial, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet with the same burnished color palette and stylised compositions that characterised “Amelie” and “A Very Long Engagement.”

    Pure fluff, of course, but very pretty fluff, and tossing in a bit of Billie Holiday never hurts. It’s more restrained than Baz Luhrmann’s expensive Kidman-starring effort a few years back. (The one which handed the actress the cringe-worthy line, “I’m a dancer, I love to dance!”) Joe Wright also joined Chanel’s directors’ club last year — the label has taste.

  • Ang Lee takes on ‘Pi’

    Few film projects in recent years have come with as formidable a chain of prospective directors attached than Fox 2000’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s bestselling 2002 Booker Prize winner “Life of Pi.”

    First M. Night Shyamalan was on board — which, admittedly, might have been a more appealing prospect five years ago. The next name attached was a considerable step up: “Amelie” helmer Jean-Pierre Jeunet would have been a pretty natural fit for Martel’s brand of surreal whimsy. I seem to recall Alfonso Cuaron being mentioned in connection with the project at one point too. Like I said, an impressive roster.

    In the end, however, it looks like Ang Lee will ultimately accept the challenge, and I do mean ‘challenge.’ For those of you unfamiliar with the novel, it’s an allegorical fantasy about a shipwrecked Indian boy who survives by sharing a raft with a Bengal tiger, among other wild animals. It’s a tricky film premise to say the least, but Lee has proved time and again that he knows his way around delicate, potentially uncinematic literary source material. I think his visual grace and lightness of touch is just what is required here. Smart choice.

    I do love how busy Lee is keeping himself, compared to many other auteurs of his calibre. “Lust, Caution” is a fresh, searing memory still, and it was only a few months ago that we heard he was beginning work on “Taking Woodstock,” an ensemble piece centred around the eponymous music festival. With that film already wrapped and due for release in August (perhaps a title set for discussion in our upcoming 2009 Oscar preview), Lee is ready to move on, with yet another wholly different proposition for his filmography. Good on him.