FILMS/
LA FRANCE
New Directors
France, 2007, 102 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Fri, May 2 / 4:15 / Kabuki / LAFR02K
Sun, May 4 / 3:30 / Kabuki / LAFR04K
Tue, May 6 / 6:45 / Clay / LAFR06Y
CREDITS
- dir
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Serge Bozon
- prod
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David Thion
- scr
-
Axelle Ropert
- cam
-
Céline Bozon
- editor
-
François Quiqueré
- mus
-
Mehdi Zannad, Benjamin Esdraffo, Serge Bozon
- cast
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Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory, Guillaume Depardieu, François Negret, Laurent Talon, Pierre Leon, Benjamin Esdraffo, Guillaume Verdier
- source
-
Pyramide International, 5, rue de Chevalier de Saint-George, 75008 Paris, France. FAX: 33-1-40-20-05-51. EMAIL: pricher@pyramidefilms.com
This wayward musical’s story of lost love and the lives of men in the shadow of war, set in 1917, is one of the loveliest, most surprising films of the year. La France is a WWI troop movie with the soul of a troubled nation and the heart (and tune!) of a Beach Boys album. As the Great War rages on, Camille (Sylvie Testud, La Vie en Rose, SFIFF 2007, and the lead in Fear and Trembling, SFIFF 2003) receives a mysterious letter from her husband at the front: Forget about me, he writes, you will never see me again. Determined to find him nevertheless, she ventures into the damp wilderness disguised as a boy and follows a war-weary regiment led by a gruff but kind-hearted lieutenant (Pascal Greggory). Miles from the front line, Camille becomes a part of the regiment’s camaraderie and daily rhythms, cautiously guarding her secret while the men keep one of their own. Between discussions of recipes, readings about Atlantis and segues into song (four remarkable sequences both rapturous and heartbreaking), she discovers something unimaginable in their hearts that begins to reveal the truth she seeks. Joyous, powerful and poetic, Bozon’s film (winner of France’s Jean Vigo Award for singularity of style) channels the hooks and melodies of ’60s sunshine pop while evoking the frontline grit of Fuller and the formal austerity of Bresson—a work of startling originality and charm.
—Chi-hui Yang
West Coast Premiere. Sponsored by TV5Monde, French Cultural Services and the French-American Cultural Society.
