Telika: I... hm. Okay, I'm out.
OMG OMG NO WAIT I HAVE AN OFFICIAL ENTRY !!
First, getting off my chest a couple of romances that atypically touch me :
La Soupe aux Choux, a magnificent adaptation of René Fallet, about two old peasants stranded by modernity and its values, and who, hm, accidentally call an extra-terrestrial on earth. This alien humanoid comes from a planet where pleasure is seen as immoral, and gets contaminated by the way of life of these two isolated joyous oldtimers. But this is not the romance. The thing is, at some point in the story, this aliens intends to please one of these old peasants by reviving his deceased wife. Unfortunately, he revives her as much younger than her husband, which transforms completely her relation to him, as she sees it mostly as an opportunity to try a new life and explore new horizons, and leaves him with a tenderness that has to shift to paternalism. Their relation, and the bitter amoral morality of it all, is one of the most touching aspects of this movie and his various themes. Heck, I suggest both the film and the book, actually : the book has a whole chapter dedicated to the life of the old neibourhood cat, which, of course, would have been awkward to fit in the movie.
Broken flowers, not sure it would have qualified. A Jarmusch film about a man who is informed that one of his former conquests has a childfrom him, and who launches himself in a huge quest to determine which one - making him awkwardly face all the women he has had a relation with, and what they've become since. It's, well, necessarily a subtle and touching movie, with a very weird detached and cynical tone.
Boulevard du Rhum, I almost made that one my official entry. During the prohibition, a rhumrunner captain falls in love with the protagonist of a cheesy silent movie, and eventually encounters by sheer luck the actress who played her. He starts a relation with her, with full naive child-like self-abandon, without realising that he is mostly an exotic animal for her to show around in her high society parties. And stuff happen because the movie is awesomely crazy. Also,
François de Roubaix.
The Crying Game. Easily to spoil. An IRA kidnapper befriends his hostage, and promises to visit his wive if anything is to happen to him. The second half is this kidnapper's encounter with that wife, his relation with her, his discovery of her seret, and his own attempt to escape his terrorist past.
Blood simple. A masterpiece by the Coen bros, a tiny simple but immensely classy thriller, that sensitively touches on miscommunication within a forming couple.
Le goût des autres. A film written by Agnès Jaoui, so, it's almost cheating. All the films written by Jaoui and Bacri should be top priorities, that's all.
Hôtel du Nord. A young despaired couple tries to commit suicide together - he shoots her, but doesn't muster the courage to shoot himself. He ends up in prison, she survives. In the same hotel, an ex-gangster slowly gets attached to her. As her jailed boyfriend fails to cope with his cowardice and rejects her, she starts making project with that somewhat shady character. Annd, well, it's one of the two or three most famous classic french movies ever, for a reason. Marcel Carné at the camera, Henri Jeanson at the script. Arletty, Jouvet, even Blier in the cast. It's a must see anyway, hopefully unavoidable.
But my giveaway entry is :
The Eclipse. Don't know how to describe that one. A recent widower with two kids participates in the organisation of a litterature convention on his island, and befriends a woman who came to speak about her book (and who happens to be kind of stalked by an ex-lover of hers, who also came to talk about his own best seller). The focus of the story is mourning, loss, and absence, as this widower struggles with his solitude, and with the imminent death of his old father. And gets unsettling visions of what may or may not be ghosts. The whole movie is the most delicate story I've ever seen about what ghosts actually represent to people, and is very natural and touching about the simple way in which people can bond without realising it. It's, all in all, one of the most sensitive movies I've seen, on all the elements it touches. And the acting and cinematography (the sense of isolation, the silences shared or not) are completely flawless. Watch this relatively unknown movie no matter what.
There. Lots of films, because, they must be mentionned. People, feel free to enter the giveaway by selecting and plussing a film I mention as non-official entry. Even if my own description should indirectly contribute to make it the most interesting one, I wouldn't take the prize...
