Okay, now for the final post of the event. These two movies have the most crowded venues I’ve attended in Europe on Screen this year. The big factors were; it was screened on the weekends, the actors in it are famous and the hype of the movie (one of them just won Best Foreign Film in the beginning of the year). But I just realized one thing; there are more and more people this year, and possibly more for the next year (alert for avoiding long queues, Jakarta is that full)! Enough of babbling, here’s what I thought about the two :
Delicacy (2011)
Loving Audrey Tatou in Amelie (2002), is one major reason of me (and apparently huge mass of other people in Erasmus Huis in 10th May) checked out Delicacy (2012) or in French, La délicatesse. Tatou plays a bereaved widow who drowned herself with work after her husband died. In her life, Nathalie is unapproachable to guys, including his married boss. One day, she spontaneously french-kissed one of her worker, Markus (François Damiens) when the guy enters her room. The guy, Swedish, unpopular, unattractive and simple minded, found himself feeling surprisingly excited with the action she did. Though he could sue for sexual assault, but the guy feels delighted with the kiss and intend to give a positive response to the boss.
Delicacy actually based on a novel with the same name by David Foenkinos, who actually directed the movie with Stephane Foenkinos. Opens with romantic relationship between Nathalie and her husband, then sadness upon the death of him, the movie starts to get hilarious when Markus gets too hopeful with Nathalie’s kiss. 
If you ask if I like the movie, yes and no. Yes: Delicacy described how we can’t choose the person we feel attracted/have feelings for. It tells how blind and random it is, that it ignores judgment and social background. In this case, is the beautiful, unattainable Nathalie who thought the last thing about starting a relationship again, suddenly involved herself to a common guy that people would never though she’d be interested with. On the other hand, the kiss boosted Markus’ confidence immediately, shown how in the next morning Markus sees every beautiful ladies giving an eye and flirting him. (It’s funny if you think, when the boss is a man, he’ll be in a serious assault accusation)
I loved François Damiens as Markus, since everything he did was so awkward, naive and unintentionally funny. The most funny was when he suddenly left Nathalie, running scared, after stating that he doesn’t want to be in love with her. Paired with Nathalie, both seem unequal. Nathalie is this classy lady, while Markus looks ordinary. Nathalie’s boss, Charles (Bruno Todeschini), also added quite lots of hilarious moments. And the movie often brought the minuses of being a Swedish, in a goofy way, things I never know before.
But I also felt the movie was unbalanced to blend comedy and drama. How it opens with romanticism, then sadness and then it starts to be a comedy. I think if it were meant to be comedy, they should see it from Markus view from the start. But if it meant to be drama, it should be from Nathalie’s point of view, since she’s so serious and cold. The movie takes from both sides, which is reasonable, but unfit to blend occasionally. Markus’ silliness and hilarious jokes can melt Nathalie’s coldness. Unfortunately, Tatou and Damiens’ chemistry didn’t feel match, though as a partner they look unified.
This kind of movie is good for a date night, even better when to watch with husband or wife, I think, since it’s about searching for comfort. Also gives hope for some people who have lost their spouses to open themselves to other potentials. But, it always a good choice for Tatou fans.
Movie Score :
The Great Beauty (2013)
The most important thing I discovered a few days after turning 65 is that I can’t waste any more time doing things I don’t want to do.
I have difficulties to completely understand The Great Beauty (Le Grande Belleza). The complications was how it tells a situation. Jep’s mind, illusions, flashbacks or simply a story, showed by visuals. Or a small scene with few dialogues, no connections with the previous scene. Sometimes too short before I can understand its meaning. It added with Jep’s socialite world, the kind of world that exceeded the simple life. The world that only admitted glamour, image and status. Simply put, it was a cold world, intimidating, sometimes cruel, empty and out of logic.
Could this be that I have seen and tasted just a bit of that world, so I understand the gap, the coldness, the unseen walls and how ridicilous someone can be for their own image. But Jep has tasted it for 30 years of his life, so that explains his empty tired eyes.
The story revolves around Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), a famous writer and the king of the upper class world in Rome. After celebrating his 65th birthday, Jep starts to reflect his life, by randomly seeing people he once met and the people he just met, with flashbacks on his youth times.
The reality was the first minutes of it was in Jep’s birthday party, with an intense and heated clubbing scene. If you love clubbing, you probably can feel the pulse and rave. But if you’re not, you’d feel kind of fed of it, like me. It concludes how real they create such scene. But it was one of Jep’s night, filled with his friends, and he’s the man of the scene.
What impressive was Toni Servillo, his influential being, a man with class and integrity. As a well-known writer, published a successful novel once, he have difficulties creating the second and it seems the problem is because he spend the nights attending parties and places, and meeting new people. The man says something tenderly and soft, but his words can be as sharp as a knife. He blatantly expose his writer’s friend superiority. He showed his long experience as a writer when he didn’t buy the fakeness of the new artist he interviewed.
Aside of that, he shows his confusion by his long stare and expressions, questions and occasionally tears. I can’t quite connect myself with his friends and world, possibly because they rarely show much feelings, except for his close friend who is also a writer. Perhaps it was intended to be feel unconnected.
A nice contrast was the classical music, The Beautitudes (Kronos Quartet), so beautiful and joyful to hear, feels like greeting the sunrise.
Other Paolo Sorrentino movie I’ve seen is This Must Be The Place (2011), which quite unique on describing his leading character; dark and funny, interesting and blatant. Which is the same with this movie.
The Great Beauty feels like a puzzle. The puzzle of Jep Gambardella that he put together in the end. His life feels like a river, there’s no definite routinity except of occasional parties until morning. All of it feel unreal, aside when he remembers his first love who just died at present. Sometimes nuns appears and stare, as to expose its contrast to his world.
It isn’t the movie with the regular digest. But if you feel challenged and search for new color, you can try The Great Beauty. The greatest quote to me was in the end scene, said by one of the big guest in his house. But some scene fail to make me understand its purpose, others depicts the crazy night life, but once you see Jep’s tears, you know it’s real.
Movie Score :
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Check out my other post about films screened in Europe on Screen 2014
EoS 2014 : Philomena, Last Love & Metalhead
