cameronteague Reviews

Ma's Roadhouse (2010– )

The real America

[7/10 · 26 April 2012]

I am going to stick up for this show. We watched fascinated, while on holiday in the Maldives last Christmas, as Ma retook her driving test at age 70 and blew cigarette smoke at the examiner and tried to take a can of beer in to the car. We don't get this show in the UK and for once as far as we are concerned, it actually made American people look semi-interesting! Of course it's staged in many ways, but that's what 'reality' TV is like! I think this show gives us, on the other hand, a realistic picture of just how mundane and dull the lives of most Americans are. Finally, whatever anyone thinks of Ma, as vulgar as she is, she still has a large extended family of all the people around her who love her and not everyone can say the same about themselves, can they? Credit to the lady where it's due.

Spiral (2005–2020)

Maitre Carlsson is in it up to her neck

[5 October 2009]

Saw episode three of season 2 last night and I can vouch that this one is turning into a real potboiler like season 1. The series works on the basis of one big plot line and a series of more minor ones which link together. Sometimes, a new minor case is solved in a single episode like the "echangistes" (wife swappers) or the gay test pilot last night, or it is carried over to the next episode. Again, like last season, the police are morally fragile like the criminals but invariably come good, the defense lawyers are on the crooked side and the crims vary between violent, amoral wrongdoers and vile, completely sadistic and downright evil wrongdoers. There are some brilliantly funny moments too. As for 'racial stereotyping' commented on earlier, grow up! That's absolute b*llocks. Lots of non-white people live in Paris so some of them will be criminals n'est ce pas? Watch out for gorgeous moneygrabbing redhead Maitre Carlsson who is getting involved with helping arch criminals and getting paid 3000 euros per case instead of 300 and buying loads of new outfits. Expect a big showdown between Laure and her before the end of the season. This is great TV, far superior and much less formulaic than CSI NY/LV/Miami. Give it a go. I for one, am hooked.

I've Loved You So Long (2008)

How do the French do it?

[10/10 · 4 October 2008]

I saw this film last week in London and it is excellent. Juliette (Scott Thomas) has been in prison for 15 years for killing her 6 year old son. She said nothing in her trial and her husband testified against her. Her much younger sister agrees with Social Services to house her and this is the tale of her rehabilitation. So far, so dull as dishwater, I hear you say. However what follows is as mesmerising as it is enchanting. There are some hilarious moments in her harrowing journey back to peace like the policeman to whom she has to report once a fortnight, who is obsessed with visiting the Orinocco and the café stud who reintroduces her to carnality, but there are also some dark, shocking ones, like when she tells a prospective employer why she was sentenced to 15 years or the visit to her mother living with Alzheimer's in a home. This sombre, grey, pallid woman seemingly drained of emotion gradually comes back to life, gaining both colour in her cheeks and an appetite for the daily joys of life. She is helped in no small part by her sister brilliantly played by Elsa Zylberstein who looks like the now departed and beautiful French actress, Claude Jade. The cherry on the cake is the final denouement when we learn why Juliette killed her son. The sense of intimacy between the two sisters and raw emotion is palpable and that is what will stick with me. This is real acting and real characterisation. If today's US film makers tried to make this, it would be sugary pap and if the British did it, it would be chirpy pap. Only French film makers seem to have the kind of dexterity to take what could easily have ended as some cheap self indulgent tearjerker a la Beaches and turn it into a riveting tale and an emotional roller-coaster. Definitely worth an Oscar but unlikely to get one.

The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)

Can't stop thinking about this

[10/10 · 6 September 2006]

I've only seen the first installment, but I can't stop thinking about two things in particular. Firstly, the haberdasher (and World War I veteran), of Clermont Ferrand who took out a newspaper ad to declare he was not Jewish after he was suspected of being so along with his three brothers. Secondly, the bourgeois chemist who was so scared of his child born in 1942 being malnourished, that he fed the blighter as much as he could and he was now (1969), the tallest of his siblings at 1m85cm. The history of ordinary people can very often be so much more vivid than the dry recantation of the big events we read in text books and see in other much more turgid documentaries. Definitely a must- see and I can certainly comprehend why it was not shown on French TV until years later in 1981.

La Cérémonie (1995)

"Sophie, serve more quiches to the guests"

[9/10 · 6 July 2006]

These are Mme Bisset's words to their servant Bonnaire who is paid a pittance to fetch and carry for this refined family on her day off when she is supposed to be visiting postwoman Huppert. Sophie just leaves anyway when Bisset's back is turned. Without descending into pastiche, Chabrol manages to portray the class struggle between the wealthy Lelievre family and the humble aupair and employee of La Poste in a highly realistic way. The Lelievres do not even know when they are putting on Sophie and Huppert just hates them because they are rich and she is poor, "Si j'avais une dixieme de ce qu'ils ont..." Such is modern France even today where the wealthy are despised and the poor wallow in envy and self-pity. Yes, it's obvious that matters will come to a head and the sting in the ending is superb and quire faithful the Ruth Rendell novel. What is especially interesting about this film is that you end up genuinely wavering between sympathy and dislike for both sides of the "class struggle". The Brittany landscape is portrayed quite bleakly to great effect setting the tone for this grim and superbly executed tale.

Bleak House (2005)

Gillian Anderson is luminous

[4 November 2005]

Gillian Anderson is luminous as Lady Dedlock in this adaptation of Dickens's Bleak House. She is helped by the highly atmospheric, Gothic type lighting in many of the scenes which mirrors the dourness and dirt of the era. Particularly effective, are the parts shot in the squalid Victorian homes on winding staircases with peeling paint. Although not yet complete, this is a joy to watch with just the right balance of suspense and comedy. I have had to restrain myself from dipping into the book to find out the ending. I can't remember the last British costume drama I saw which showcased as much acting talent as this, whether it is the dastardly lawyer played by Charles Dance or the slatternly mother who is Lisa Tarbuck; watch out especially for Pauline Collins (a known talent) and Johnny Vegas (a revelation) who are both really rather good. I believe Sheila Hancok is going to appear soon and I am looking forward to that too.