My Favorite Season
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Movie Reviews of My Favorite Season
Movie Review: Intelligent and Wonderfully Brilliant Cinema
Summary: 5 Stars
This review refers to the Fox Lorber DVD edition of "My Favorite Season"....
"My Favorite Season" is a wonderful piece of French filmmaking.The intelligent and subtle screenplay, the brilliant cast, the beautiful setting of the French countryside,marvelous music, all under the expert direction of Andre Techine, had me hanging on every word,left me wanting more of this exquiste film, and thinking about it for quite some time afterwards.
Catherine Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil, work beautifully together as Emilie and Antoine, brother and sister trying to cope with a very dysfunctional family life, their own troubled relationship and the declining health of their aging mother.This is a family that tries very hard to just like one another, and with the passsing of each season,the changes in their lives run a gamut of emotions. Deneuve, Auteuil, and the rest of this outstanding cast will draw you in with their intuitive performances.It is a film that will involve you from the first frame to the last.
Fox Lorber has a knack for selecting and bringing to DVD some of the best international works out there. "My Favorite Season" is among the best of those. Overall, the DVD presents a nice clear picture in widescreen. The film is in French with subtitles in English. I did not see any way to delete the subtitles though. A trailer, and biographies are also included.
A wonderful emotional drama, and fine piece of filmmaking...enjoy...Laurie
also recommended:
Three Colors Trilogy (Red / White / Blue) [Import](All-region)(Remastered)
Les Choses De La Vie (Original French Title)
Dangerous Liaisons
Movie Review: when the ending is the beginning
Summary: 5 Stars
Poses some interesting questions, to which the answers are revealed in the last scene. Maybe the director intended to make a sequel, though I'm inclined to think we can guess the rest of the story so there's no real need.
Okay, guys, imgine your only sibling is a sister a few years older and she happens to be none other than ... Catherine Deneuve (who in real life only had sisters). What must it have been like for a boy to grow up with her, she who would turn out to be one of the world's most beautiful women, someone all men desired and all women admired? How would this shape your character and expectations, knowing it would be unlikely that you will ever meet a woman who comes anywhere near your own sister; that you will, in effect, have to settle for second best?
Good one, yes? No wonder brother Antoine, brilliantly portrayed by Daniel Auteuil, never married, never got over his sister, turned to science so he wouldn't be a complete wreck but is a neurotic mess anyway, waiting and hoping against hope that his sister Emilie will come around. Obstacles include her tough-guy husband, two maladjusted kids, and an elderly parent. One by one, the obstacles are removed. When the last domino falls, Emilie can at last see clearly what she really needs to be happy, and says so in poetic form, looking directly at her brother. The camera pauses on his face as he takes all this in, and FADE OUT.
Very clever and very French, i.e., introspective and analytical -- Descartes' legacy. Bravo.
Movie Review: Oridnary Lives, Extraordinary Film
Summary: 4 Stars
Ma Saison Preferee takes the viewer into the seeming world of any ordinary modern French family, dealing with ordinary problems. However, Techine does such an excellent job developing the three dimensional aspects of his characters that one is left clamoring for more. Deneuve is wonderful, and Auteil is absolutely hilarious at times as her somewhat mal-adjusted, yet brilliant brother.The story, while exploring the frailty of human relationships, gives one hope. In spite of all of our dysfunctionality, we do live and we can love.
While I enjoyed Auteil's performance in Un Coeur en Hiver, I liked his work in this film much more. His character is much more light-hearted and not so severe.
Enjoy!
Movie Review: Life in Avant Garde
Summary: 3 Stars
Catherine Deneuve's roles are sometimes so simple that she seems to walk through them. Little wonder then that her much acclaimed performance in this film seems nothing more than a casual day at the office. This is the first Deneuve movie I saw since 'Indochine', and though she did a great job in that, her work here both startled and bored me. Not that its a terrible performance, but 'Ma Saison Preferee' does not know what it wants to be. Its one of those open-ended loopy movies that will have art house critics discussing for hours, yet to a serious foreign language film viewer, it ultimately strikes one as a piece of pretentious fluff.The movie stands out in many ways though. It manages to extract a spectacular performance from Daniel Auteuil as the troubled brother, and makes history by introducing us to Deneuve's real life daughter, Chiara, who plays the role of, what else, the daughter.
The story is rather simple. Catherine's marriage is dissolving, partly because of the presence of her mother in the house, and partly because she realizes that there is no spark between her husband and herself. There is also a pointless subplot between her son and her secretary, but upon retrospect, this storyline is so weak ...that its not even worth mentioning. Lets just say that we've seen Deneuve and Auteuil in far superior work than this. Auteuil's performance is perhaps the only reason we go on caring about the film. The main theme of the movie is the displacement of the mother - neither the son nor the daughter want to keep her, and she is packed off to a retirement home. When its evident that woman is slowly losing her mind and succumbing to her age, Deneuve and Auteuil play good children and take Mommy in again. With a storyline like this, its fairly evident what is about to happen. After the mother passes away, the family comes together once more, each debating around the table what their 'favorite season' is. Catherine then stands up and delivers a heartless poem and the credits roll. Thats about all.
I wish I could say something positive about this movie. The only interesting thing about it remains the cinematography. France has rarely looked so gorgeous on film, and there are a few sweet and tender moments, but it doesn't really add up. Marthe Villalonga does a great job playing the sick mother - she is both wicked and has a genuine sense of humor, and as sickness takes over her, its hard not to care. Unfortunately, everytime we begin caring, there is a shift in narrative to the love lives of the children of the house, and this gets a bit grating.
There are also certain inexplicable scenes. Granted that when a woman leaves her husband, she may be prone to act in ways alien to her, but when we see Catherine making out with a handsome French stranger on the gardens of the hospital, just because he expresses his interest (by walking up to her and hitching up her skirt) it gets to be a drag. ...This sort of spur-of-the-moment lovemaking is rather unbelievable.
Chiara Mastroianni delivers a plausible performance - we will have to wait for her real screen debut to judge if she is an actress of any great capability. Anthony Prada, who plays Lucien, the son, is the typical French male teen, all too interested in his mothers' beautiful Algerian secretary, who is also associated in a pointless subplot with her own money laundering brother. Anthony, a local schoolboy who was roped into playing the role, has never made another movie thus far.
This film reminded me of 'Up at the Villa' and other lazy pieces of that sort. Its not criminal to make a film this directionless, but what is tiring is the same old film making cliches that are incorporated time and time again in movies of this sort. I just saw 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' a few days ago and rediscovered how wonderful French movies can be. 'Ma Saison Preferee' is a middling example of that. I went into this one expecting far too much, and all said and done, the only thing this film resembles is a soppy French mid-day soap opera that has no chance of making a second season.
Movie Review: 3 Stars
I can't resist a movie with Catherine Deneuve - now I may be able to. A boring little tale of the spiraling sickness of an aged parent, unfeeling self-absorbed family, doomed, passionless marriage and a hint of incest. I gave it an extra star because, well it is Catherine after all. Rent it if you're desperate, but do not buy unless you're a masochist.1 2