When it comes to contemporary French directors, the first thing that comes to most people's minds will be Luc Besson. The story of Lori and her uncle ignoring the love of age has touched many people, although he has not had a work comparable to "This Killer Is Not Too Cold" since then, but this film alone is enough to make Luc Besson one of the famous directors in film history and enjoy the love of film fans around the world.
In contrast, the one I'm going to introduce today is much more low-key. From the film 42 years, only 7 feature films have been made, but the department is a classic; his name is little known among the general public, but if his masterpiece "Angel Amelie" is mentioned, most people will exclaim: "The original director is him!" He is the famous French ghost director: Jean Pierre Genet.
Born in 1953 in Rouen, France, Jean-Pierre Genet has shown a distinctive side from an early age. When he was 9 years old, his parents' friend brought an 8mm film camera, and he was seduced by the small machine. At the age of 17, he used all his savings from working at the post office to buy an 8mm camera and embarked on the "road of no return" of film directors.
In 1991, after years of trial and error and several short films, he and his friend Mark Carroll completed the first feature film "Rhapsody of the Black Dot", which became the perfect opening of his directorial career once it came out, and people were amazed by the outstanding talent of this "teenager" in the film industry.
Jean-Pierre Genet is a director with a unique French romantic atmosphere, never rejecting commercial elements, but also showing his unique, grotesque surrealist temperament. Like a mischievous fairy tale who deliberately overturned the color palette, in his films, the characters are vivid, the colors are magnificent and dreamy, and the first second of the beginning to the last second of the end is filled with a rich and gorgeous feeling.
Both the early black comedies and the later romantic comedies seem to be immersed in the beautiful utopia as long as you are immersed in the film world created by René. He is also one of the few authors and directors in the world film industry who can not only maintain his own artistry, but also cater to the audience to achieve commercial success. Today, we will introduce you to four classic films that represent the talent of Jean-Pierre Genet.
1. Rhapsody of the Black Shop, 1991
Directed By: Jean Pierre Genet
Writers: Jean-Pierre Genet / Marc Carroll / Gilles Adrian
Starring: Dominic Pinon / Marie-Lol Dunhak
Douban 8.0 IMDb 7.6
In an age when food was scarce to the point of frightening madness, the weak preyed on the strong and people began to eat each other. The kind-hearted circus clown Louison chose to escape, packing his bags alone and rushing to the remote suburbs, thinking that he could avoid the cruel jungle rules by coming here.
He was greeted by the excited eyes of the butchers and tenants, because of the unwritten rules here——— in the absence of hunting targets, the new employees must become a feast at the banquet table. In the midst of doubt and curiosity, the unsuspecting Louison has an affair with the butcher's daughter, an equally lonely and kind girl who decides to do whatever it takes to save her lover's life.
Dark, grotesque, crazy, funny, and full of fairy tales and the spirit of surreal language, there is no country and no time in the movie. The people in that terrible building all lived by eating human flesh, and every day people disappeared, but everyone was at ease.
Jean-Pierre Genet's debut film, with its whimsical surrealist vision, makes the sharp edge of his first "bright sword" as a meteor, and as a result, René's next film is also extremely exciting.
2. "Angel Amelie", 2001
Writers: Guillaume Laurent / Jean-Pierre Genet
Starring: Oellie Tattu / Matthew Kasowitz
Douban 8.7 IMDb 8.3
Emily has never enjoyed the warmth of family, and her childhood was spent in loneliness and loneliness. Father was a doctor, and he barely hugged Emily except for a medical examination of her. Such a rare contact made Emily's heart beat faster than her father's love, but her father decided that she had a heart attack and was not suitable for school, and could only study at home.
To make matters worse, when his mother was eight years old, he was smashed to death by tourists who jumped off buildings, and his neurotic father became even more autistic and immersed in his own world. The lonely Emily can only let her imagination run wild to pass the day, to discover the fun of life on her own, such as putting strawberries on ten fingers and slowly snoozing.
In 1997, the death of Princess Diana made Emily feel lonely and fragile in life, and she began a series of help-out programs, including a lonely and melancholy neighbor elderly man, and the boss's mean vegetable stall guy. But she never expected that her great plan would be blocked by Nino, an adult video store clerk, and become her most difficult object of rescue, which aroused the stubborn girl's desire to win or lose, and Emily began a laughable alternative rescue plan.
This is an interesting work, which gives people a clear sense of impact on the various image shaping, picture tone, and narrative imagination. Eerie charm, rich imagination, and brain circuit humor are Emily's specialties, and whenever the iconic smile of the elves is as eccentric and playful as the elf, the audience knows that Emily is going to use love to eliminate loneliness again.
3. The Long Marriage, 2004
Writers: Sebastian Japrizzo / Jean-Pierre Genet / Guillaume Laurent
Starring: O'Aile Tatoo / Gaspard Ullier
Douban 8.1 IMDb 7.6
Towards the end of World War I, Mathilde waited for a letter from the front with the news of her husband's death. In the brutal Battle of the Somme, the accidentally wounded Manic and four other mutilated soldiers who refused to enter the battle were tried together, and the inhuman court of military sentenced them to exile them in the no-man's land of the Somme between the two armies, in the midst of German-French crossfire, which undoubtedly represented death.
Mathilde was convinced that her fiancé was not dead and that he would come back to fulfill the promise the two had made since childhood. In order to prove this fact, she resolutely embarked on a long road of searching for a husband with a disability in her left leg. As the investigation moves closer to the truth, Mathilde gradually realizes the fear of war and the damage it leaves on people that can never be healed.
The sweet memories of her childhood that had accompanied her through the difficult years would likely be the echo of fading feelings, and perhaps she would never be able to retrieve her fiancé to complete the long engagement, but with Mathilde was only firm conviction, amazing strength, stubborn optimism, and hope that would never be broken, because she knew that if her fiancé died, she would be the first to feel it.
The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by the famous French writer Sebastian Zaprezzo, and when he read this work, director René was still busy with the production of "Rhapsody in the Black Shop", and he also knew that the funds consumed by adapting this work were unaffordable to his small director at that time, so René could only hide this dream in his heart, until the success of "Angel Amelie", René was able to bring this great love story and Mathilde with a tenacious heart to the big screen.
This "Long Marriage Contract", co-created by the original team of "Angel Amelie", almost reproduced the success of the former. Genet's fusion of comedy and tragedy, with a highly impactful visual effect, coupled with the energetic and passionate performance of the heroine Audrey, was hailed as the "best French film in three years" at that time, which not only received 12 nominations at the 2005 French César Awards, but also won 5 awards including best supporting actress, and won the favor of several international film awards.
4. The Strange Journey of Young Speyvi, 2013
Writers: Jean-Pierre Genet / Guillaume Laurent / Leif Larsen
Starring: Kyle Kettlelet / Helena Bonham Carter
Douban 8.5 IMDb 7.1
Born in Montana, Spevier had a brilliant brain, a passion for scientific illustration, and invented a perpetual motion machine at the age of ten. His father was an avid cowboy fan who collected everything about western cowboys; his mother was a doctor of biology who devoted herself to insect research; and his sister was a normal and most ordinary person, often troubled by being born in a strange house. Speyve originally had a fraternal twin brother, Layton, who unfortunately lost his young life due to an accident.
On this day, Spevie received a phone call from The Smithsonian Institution informing him that he had been awarded the Baird Prize of the World Science Awards and inviting him to Washington to speak. So, ten-year-old scientific wizard Spevi, secretly climbed into the freight train and embarked on this strange journey through the United States alone.
After Emily, René once again portrays a strange, imaginative character- the genius teenager Spevie. In such a work full of whimsy, the director first uses the perspective of the Teenager of The Weiss to create a strange world, exaggerated colors and strong contrasts seem to be less real in this world, but the more immersed, the more you will find the director's irony of the real world, and the noble intention of compassion but tolerance.
Although "The Strange Journey of the Young Weiss" cannot become a masterpiece like "Angel Amelie", it does not prevent it from being a very strong stroke in the history of cinema, after all, after people have stayed in the dull real world for a long time, they always need a world of imagination, enthusiasm, and wonder to seek solace, and this film is such a healing film.