By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Countdown To Cannes: Abdellatif Kechiche

Posted Thursday, May 9th, 2013 - Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Abdellatif Kechiche
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ABDELLATIF KECHICHE

Background: Tunisian; born Tunis, Tunisia 1960. Kechiche’s first name is sometimes shortened to simply “Abdel.”

Known for / style: Directing Games of Love and Chance (2003), The Secret of the Grain (2007), Black Venus (2010); acting as the taxi driver in Sorry, Haters (2005); bulky narratives that stretch over two hours; casting non-actors; themes of youth and love; adhering to Ozu-esque realism.

Notable accolades: The majority of Kechiche’s awards come from French institutions like the Étoiles d’Or and the Césars (Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain won Best Director, Best Film and Best Original Screenplay at both ceremonies). Above that is Kechiche’s prestigious Louis Delluc Prize for The Secret of the Grain. Outside of France at the Venice Film Festival, Kechiche is a known quantity: the director won a FIPRESCI prize, a Special Jury Prize, and the Young Cinema Award for The Secret of the Grain, while his Blame It on Voltaire won the Luigi De Laurentiis award in 2000. Also at Venice was Kechiche’s Black Venus, which won the Equal Opportunity Award in 2010.

Previous Cannes appearances: A son of the Lido and not of the Croisette, Kechiche has yet to debut a film at Cannes. But given his success with French critical societies outside of Cannes, Kechiche’s reputation is strong enough to bump him straight to the Competition.

Film he’s bringing to Cannes: La vie d’Adèle (Blue is the Warmest Color), a French-language drama based on the Julie Maroh graphic novel of the same name. The film stars Adele Exarchopoulos (The Round-Up), Léa Seydoux (Mission: Impossible–Ghost Protocol), Catherine Salée (Private Property), Aurélien Recoing (13 Tzameti) and newcomers Jeremie Laheurte and Sandor Funtek. At 179 minutes, Kechiche takes the perhaps-dubious honor of having the longest film in Competition; a bulky three-hour journey following 15-year-old Adèle (Exarchopoulous) as she rediscovers her sexual orientation. Seydoux plays the desirable Emma, Adèle’s new love interest, while Salée and Recoing play Adèle’s parents.

Could it win the Palme? It feels appropriate to compare La vie d’Adèle to Xavier Dolan’s 2012 Un Certain Regard picture Laurence Anyways, a similarly-themed LGBT drama that was an hour longer than most other films in the program—which, coincidentally, was one of Dolan’s biggest criticisms. Either way, whatever Kechiche has headed to the Festival is sure to be filled with erotic reveries and passionate romances, a truth that will undoubtedly help keep audiences awake. If the film is a narrative stretch, though, the topic looks to require some extensively brave performances, so something like an acting prize for the romantic leads sounds more likely than an outright Palme win (especially if the result is something that could have perhaps used a longer session in the editing bay).

Why you should care: Julie Maroh’s original graphic novel has won prestigious awards in the graphic novel community, and Kechiche’s steady camera is a worthy candidate to capture the provocative action. Meanwhile, Seydoux’s Chopard Trophy in 2009 is evidence that she has the chops to carry such a hefty picture. There’s reason for optimism here.

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Posted in Cannes, Cannes Originals, MCN Originals, Movie City News | Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Abdellatif Kechiche

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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