France
theartsdesk Olympics: Suspense and Sensuality in Ozon’s Swimming PoolFriday, 03 August 2012
As a director François Ozon perpetually confounds, with a string of diverse films to his name (the intense 5X2 and the gambolling Potiche to name but two) and this effort from 2002 is characteristically capricious - is it crisp, contemplative drama... Read more... |
DVD: Le HavreTuesday, 31 July 2012
You’d have to have a heart of coal not to be moved by Aki Kaurismäki’s celebration of tolerance, redemption and the goodness that people can do. Le Havre isn’t quite It a Wonderful Life, but it’s not far short. The sensitivity with which the Finnish... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Avignon FestivalMonday, 30 July 2012
The vast Avignon Festival is not a neatly curated sequence of works which can be experienced - like certain art biennales or the Proms - as if on a conveyor belt. There are 50 productions in the official “In” during three weeks, and more than a... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Pelléas et Mélisande, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, GardinerMonday, 16 July 2012
How silly an armchair looks in the Royal Albert Hall - like a rubber duck floating in the Pacific. Yet how right it was for those behind this excellent semi- staged Proms performance of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande to try to recreate a bit of... Read more... |
DVD: The PlayersFriday, 13 July 2012
Massive commercial success usually buys an actor the right to bring a pet project to fruition. The Artist had not yet conquered the planet when The Players was cooked up. But its release in the UK – simultaneously in cinemas and on DVD, which says... Read more... |
Alternative National AnthemsSaturday, 30 June 2012
With Euro 2012 about to end and the Olympics looming, we'll be hearing an awful lot of national anthems over the next couple of months. Don't we all agree that the majority of them are inadequate - often being turgid tunes with no reference to the... Read more... |
ClocloFriday, 22 June 2012
Claude François doesn’t have the hipster cachet of Serge Gainsbourg, but he did lead an extraordinary life and died young. He also wrote “Comme d’habitude” which was Anglicised to become “My Way”. His live shows were spectacular, the women he... Read more... |
Exclusive First Listen: Mala In CubaTuesday, 19 June 2012
It's a nervous beginning. This is the first ever presentation of the first proper album by one of the lynchpins of British underground music, and the soundsystem isn't right. Record label personnel and friends are flung across Paris to requisition... Read more... |
Aimard, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Rattle, Royal Festival HallMonday, 11 June 2012
The repertoire of the OAE is creeping away from the 18th century and into the 20th with such unashamed eagerness, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see them throwing up an urtext edition of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in a few seasons. Last... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare's GlobeSunday, 03 June 2012
Productions at the life-changing Globe to Globe sequence of international takes on the Bard have had numerous points of origin, from shows conceived directly for the event to reprises of stagings that in the case of the Brazilian Romeo and Juliet... Read more... |
Cannes 2012: Heavyweights on La CroisetteWednesday, 16 May 2012
The 65th edition of the Festival de Cannes opens today, with Wes Anderson’s latest slice of leftfield whimsy, Moonrise Kingdom, and continues for almost two weeks of frantic film-going, star-spotting, wheeler-dealing and beach partying. For these... Read more... |
Jean Vigo: Celebrating the father of French New WaveTuesday, 15 May 2012
The release of Jean Vigo’s wonderful L’Atalante on DVD is cause enough to celebrate, but the arrival of everything he committed to film in one place is more than that – it commemorates this special filmmaker’s genius and humanity. Zero de Conduite... Read more... |
