By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Cannes Competition Review: Jeune Et Jolie

Posted Friday, May 17th, 2013 - Comments Off on Cannes Competition Review: Jeune Et Jolie
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François Ozon’s second film to debut in Competition, Jeune et Jolie, sees the prolific auteur once again tackle themes of sexual promiscuity in a film that could be held as a spiritual sequel to 2003’s Swimming Pool. Both depict female protagonists coming to terms with sex in a different light than expected, with the result reshaping their personality and sensibilities. But Jeune et Jolie is more straight-forward than Swimming Pool’s infamous ambiguity, balancing neatly between sensitive drama and playful humor. The film wouldn’t work without the wonderful lead performance by model-actress Marina Vacth, her subtle intricacy and beguiling expressions moving beyond the archetypical “prostitute narrative.”

Broken into four seasons, the film opens in the summer and ends in the spring, casting allusions to the “deflowering” and eventual regrowth of a 17-year-old girl. In the summer, Isabelle (Vacth) is the embodiment of both the season and the film’s title; her youth and beauty joining the carefree, halcyon days of warmth, sunshine, and flings with handsome suitors. To that end, we see Isabelle lose her virginity on a beach—a scene where Ozon literalizes the out-of-body and has Isabelle watch herself “mature”—but the act is one-sided and passionless, and Isabelle walks away from the experience with separation and relative apathy. When she returns from her vacation villa to Paris for school in September, Isabelle has since become a prostitute; seeing clients, maintaining an online profile, and socking the money away for no explicit venture.

It’s okay that we don’t know why Isabelle doesn’t spend the money she makes. The spin here is that Isabelle’s prostitution is not borne from an urgent financial situation or other external forces, which lets Ozon direct Vacth around unusual circumstance with complex emotions. Finding a regular client she appreciates (instead of removed indifference), it seems Isabelle is enjoying the work the more she pursues it; indeed, when her secret is finally revealed to her family and to the police, Isabelle reminisces fondly with the therapist who sees her. One of the film’s most poignant jokes occurs here, too: when told how much Isabelle has to pay for her one-on-one sessions, she quips: “that’s it?” We’re reminded that a professional doctor charges a fraction of what Isabelle does, Ozon leaving us with a brilliant touch of social commentary. It’s just one of the many examples that keep Jeune et Jolie above other films with similar topics (the lagging 2011 Elles comes to mind; as does Sleeping Beauty).

Vacth’s breakout performance demands we see more of her, and Isabelle’s unstoppable flirtation with danger is the source of continued inspiration for France’s former enfant terrible. And when the film’s final chapter unspools—this time, it’s the spring—with a uniquely inspired cameo that once again echoes Ozon’s larger filmography, we know that Jeune et Jolie has managed its lofty goal of keeping things fresh despite the not uncommon themes and topics.

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Posted in Cannes, Cannes Originals, MCN Originals, Movie City News | Comments Off on Cannes Competition Review: Jeune Et Jolie

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon