Weekly round-up

A toe-tapping romcom and an assortment of ads

FAMILY FROLIC: Faut que ça danse!

by CHRISTOPHER SYKES

Faut que ça danse!
It’s tough to put a label on the latest from French writer/director Noémie Lvovsky (Les sentiments). Part drama, part romcom with a dash of pastiche, Danse’s cheery raison d’être seems to be: dance a little, smile a lot.

It’s not all fun and games, though, for the Bellinsky family. Lvovsky’s muse and close friend Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (yes, that Bruni—Mrs. Sarkozy is her sister) stars as Sarah, a fortysomething Parisienne attempting to balance out her life. Meanwhile, she has to keep a mindful eye on father Salomon (Jean-Pierre Marielle), a Holocaust survivor and tap dancer who may just be Fred Astaire’s biggest fan, and mother Geneviève (Bulle Ogier) whose mind is failing and requires near-constant attention from caregiver Mootoosamy (Bakary Sangaré).

Marielle is 80 but still has plenty of spring in his step, and after years of separation from Ogier he longs for a like-minded companion. Violette (the very charismatic Sabine Azéma) answers a personal ad, and the two begin a rather problematic attempt at late-life dating.

As a whole the film is run-of-the-mill, but there’s one scene in particular that warrants mention. Bruni Tedeschi is reminiscing about the bedtime stories her father used to tell her. Cut to Marielle covered in soot after entering Hitler’s bedroom Santa-style, then hiding under der Fuhrer’s bed as he readies himself for sleep. Hitler strips, puts on his swastika-covered pajamas and climbs into bed. Marielle hops up and promptly slits Hitler’s throat, thus ending the war. Did I mention Hitler’s Nazi nightlight? Very funny stuff.

Cannes Lions 2008
For those who tend to watch the Super Bowl for the commercials rather than the game itself, you’ve got a chance to see the best ads in the world when the 2008 edition of the Cannes Lions makes a stop in town. More than 200 judges went over the 28,000 submissions, and the winners are being showcased in a 90-minute projection at the Cinema du Parc.

The stalwarts of modern advertising are all represented. Nike offers the intense rise of a soccer star in first-person POV, complete with post-workout puking and on-pitch battles against Ronaldinho, Ibrahimovic and company. Coca-Cola has found its latest franchise with two talking CGI tongues who are convinced they’re drinking Coke and not no-cal Coke Zero. A pompous eyeball chips in by reading the label, but the tongues aren’t convinced.

If clever doesn’t tickle your fancy, there’s a brilliant 10-minute short directed by Martin Scorsese for Freixenet Cava, in which he purports to shoot three and a half pages of a “lost” Hitchcock script. It includes homages to North by Northwest, Rear Window and Vertigo that will leave every cinephile smiling.

The darling of the awards was undoubtedly Microsoft’s Halo 3 campaign entitled “Believe,” winning one of the coveted Grand Prix distinctions. Fans of the game will be awestruck by the realistic battle scenes, shot in a manner reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.

Don’t waste your bandwidth thumbing through ads on Youtube—catch them on the big screen instead.