Final Paris iStory

"The Piano Teacher" Film Diary

“The Piano Teacher”, known as “La Pianiste” in France, was released in 2001 and was directed by Michael Haneke. “The Piano Teacher” is about Erika, who teaches piano lessons for a living. She lives with her mother who to say she has a dysfunctional relationship, is an understatement. An example of this dysfunctional relationship is in one of the very first scenes of the film, where Erika comes home, it appears to be late, and finds her mother waiting up for her. Erika is a middle-aged woman and not a teenager or child. Her mother violently erupts at her, they slap each other, and her mother rips her dress. The even stranger thing is that they sleep in the same bed every night, as if they were married. As a piano teacher, Erika is flat out mean and treats many of her students very poorly. She torments one of the younger boys who takes lessons with her, and in another disturbing scene, she puts broken glass in the pockets of a little girl at a recital. Erika becomes attracted to one of her students, Walter, and Walter becomes attracted to Erika. They have a strange relationship, where Erika wants him to hurt her sexually. Erika is also very sexually repressed and sexually disturbed. At one point in the film, she goes to a peep show, just to go into the booth and smell the semen filled tissues that were discarded by other men. At another point in the film, she attempts to have sex with her mother, is that dysfunctional? And finally, she goes to the drive-in movie’s just to walk around and find couples being intimate. When she was caught, she ran off.
The main theme of “The Piano Teacher” is that Erika is mentally disturbed, sexually disturbed, and sexually repressed. The dysfunctional relationship with her mother was also a main theme of “The Piano Teacher”.
I hated this film. I felt that it was very slow, and quite frankly I just didn’t “get it”. I say I didn’t “get it” because this film won many awards and I quite frankly thought that “The Piano Teacher” was just trying to be shocking. I also feel that many of the people who loved “The Piano Teacher” loved it because it was shocking and not necessarily because it was a good film. Of course, being an art film the word shocking should be replaced with disturbing, because then it sounds like it is artsy. The acting in “The Piano Teacher”, however was good. The actress who played Erika sold me on the idea that she should be institutionalized for a long period of time. I didn’t particularly like that actor that played Walter, to me he just came off as being one of the elitist French guys that gives the French a bad name.

"Tell No One" Film Diary

“Tell No One”, released in France with the title “Ne le dis à personne” in 2006, and was directed by Guillaume Canet. The film is based off of an American novel written by Harlan Coben. The film starts out shortly after Dr. Alexander Beck and Margot Beck got married. They were skinny dipping at Lake Champlane and then suddenly she was attacked. He ran after her to try to save her, but was too late. Dr. Beck was attacked while he was running after her and woke up in a hospital room with a doctor telling him his wife was dead. As far as Dr. Beck knew, his wife was dead for eight years, and he never thought otherwise. The serial killer that was accused of the murder of Margot has always denied that particular murder. Close to the would-be eighth anniversary of Alexander and Margot, two more bodies are discovered that authorities thought were from the same serial killer that was accused of killing Margot. Then, all of a sudden, Dr. Beck got a strange email while in his office. The strange email implied that his wife Margot was still alive and began the wild goose chase that Dr. Beck was going to have to endure to get to his wife…if she really is alive. The police then re-opened the case of Margot’s murder, and Dr. Beck was the top suspect. Someone planted evidence in his house connecting Dr. Beck to another murder. Dr. Beck had no other choice but to run from the police, as it could possibly be his only chance to meet up with his wife…if she really is alive. Dr. Beck got help from a gangster whose kid he had taken care of at the pediatricians office. After that there were so many twists and turns that you have to see it for yourself. I can’t even remember all of the twists in the plot of “Tell No One”!
The main theme of “Tell No One” is that faith will be rewarded, and to never give up.
“Tell No One” is another one that I will put on the thumbs up list. I really enjoyed this film. If the movie wasn’t in French, you wouldn’t have known it was a French film. I guess because the novel is from America, some of that carried over into the film. It just seemed like an “American style” film, but was probably done better than any American could have done. I thought that the acting in “Tell No One” was above average but not superb. The best part of this film is the twists and turns, which as good of a script as it was, in my opinion has to be credited to Harlan Coben, author of the original novel. I thought that the film was directed well, with the best scene being the chase throughout Paris between Dr. Beck and the French police. That was the only time a chase scene on foot has been that exciting. Another scene that stood out for me from my memory, is when Dr. Beck has pretty much given up on meeting his wife, when it finally hits him that it was just another clue, and figured out the password and username to the email/website. The password had to do with a U2 concert they attended while U2’s With Or Without You plays in the background. The other scene that stood out for me was the final scene, which without ruining the film, was very, VERY powerful, and almost forced me to tears. Overall, I HIGHLY recommend “Tell No One”. It is a very powerful, well done, and most important, entertaining film.

"Amelie" Film Diary

“Amelie” was filmed in 2001, and was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The title of the movie in France was “Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain”. “Amelie” is about Amelie (how appropriate) from Montmartre, Paris, France. Amelie’s father thinks that she has a heart condition because every time he would give her a check-up, her heart would start racing. Her heart was racing because she was excited because that is the only time her father would touch her. Amelie’s mother died when she was a young girl from a freak accident when someone jumped off of the Notre Dame Cathedral and landed on Amelie’s mother. When Amelie grows up, she becomes a waitress at a small café in Montmartre called “The Two Windmills” (I visited this when I was in Paris!). Amelie gave up on romantic relationships after several failed experiences in bed with men. Shortly after Princess Diana’s death, Amelie found a small metal box that was hidden beneath a tile in her bathroom. It appeared to be some ones childhood memory’s inside the box. Amelie decided to hunt down the person that the box belonged to. If he was happy and grateful, she would help other people, and if he wasn’t happy and grateful, too bad. When she finally did hunt down the man the box belonged to, at first he didn’t seem grateful, but after following him to a bar, she found out he indeed was grateful. Amelie then made the decision that she would spend the rest of her free time helping people. She helped her father, who she wanted to travel the world, by placing gnomes throughout the world, hoping he would start traveling the world. She helped two of her coworkers and friends by setting them up. She helps Nino by returning his book of photos, and later helps him by secretly setting him up to meet the man in all of his photos that he has collected from the photo machines, who ended up being the photo machine repairman. She also helps the man that worked at the vegetable stand, by getting revenge on his boss who treated him like garbage, and letting the man stand out. Amelie ends up falling in love with Nino, and set up several opportunities for him to meet her, but was too shy to go through with the meetings. They eventually got together, when Amelie’s friends decide to help her, and live a life in love, happily ever after.
The overall theme of “Amelie” was that if you do good things, and help people, good things will happen to you, and when you need help, your friends will be there to help you.
I absolutely loved this movie. It is hard to describe the way this movie was shot and the flow of this movie in words, but I will try (although I am sure I won’t do it justice). First of all, the movie is shot in a way that almost made it feel like a fairy tale. There were some very interesting special effects used in “Amelie”, although they weren’t necessarily used often, and definitely weren’t overused. The special effects, I believe were used to give it that fairy tale feel. I think that even describing “Amelie” as a modern day fairy tale would be appropriate, because the story structure is similar to a fairy tale. “Amelie” was a fun movie to watch, and flowed wonderfully. The movie went by very quickly, which after watching “The Piano Teacher” and “Blue” is a godsend. But “Amelie” felt like the kind of movie that I didn’t want to end. It really was a feel good movie. No one can say that “Amelie” was a rip-off of another film, because it was just filled with originality. For a movie that didn’t have a very deep storyline, it did a great job of tying together all of the characters and all of the storylines throughout the movie. There were no loose ends in this film.

"Blue" Film Diary

“Blue”, also known as “Trois couleurs: Bleu” in France was filmed in 1993 and was directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski . “Blue” is part of the “Three Colors Trilogy”. The colors of the three color trilogy are “Red”, “White”, and “Blue”. The film starts out when Julie gets in a car accident with her husband Patrice and her daughter in the car. Julie is the only one that survived the car accident. She wakes up in a hospital and attempts to commit suicide, but couldn’t go through with it. When she gets out of the hospital, she has Patrices friend Oliver go to Patrices office to clear out all of his personal belongings. Included in those personal belongings was what Patrice had written so far for his next big musical piece. The only thing Julie takes from all of her husbands things was these blue hanging beads. Olivier sleeps with Julie eventually, and strangely keeps the mattress. Oliver wanted to finish the musical piece, and Julie wanted to help him. She wanted to help him anonymously and he said that he wouldn’t let her help unless she took the credit. Oliver also brings up the fact that Patrice had a mistress who was a lawyer. She finds her and then finds out that she is pregnant with Patrices baby. Although somewhat upset to hear about the affair, she generously offers her the house that she moved out of.
There were several things worth noting about this movie. It was implied that Julie was the one who was writing all of her husbands music. Her husband Patrice was a world renowned conductor and music writer. The score that would play throughout the movie was Patrices unfinished masterpiece. The film at many times seemed to have a blue tint to it. This movie didn’t have a lot of dialogue in it. Krzysztof Kieslowski did an excellent job at letting many of his scenes speak for themselves. He did a phenomenal job of using non verbal communication. The lack of dialogue, however did make the film move slow. It didn’t move slow in the sense that I kept looking at the clock wondering when the film was going to end. It moved slow in the sense that it felt like for the most part, nothing really happened in the film. I do understand that “Blue” is an art film, but quite frankly I don’t watch a ton of art films, and maybe I just don’t “get” it. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate this film at all, I just feel like I didn’t always understand what was trying to be expressed in the film. It was by no means NEARLY as slow as “The Piano Teacher”. I also felt like the ending left too much of the story to be told. The whole film was focused around Patrices final masterpiece, and the credits started rolling and the story was left open ended and unfinished in my opinion. Visually, however, the film was beautiful. “Blue” had excellent cinematography and I think that this is why it got away with having such little dialogue. Overall, I definitely recommend watching this film and if you are a fan of art films or foreign films, you will love “Blue”.