25/08/2010

Selected as opening film for Venice Days (September 1-11) at the 67th Venice Film Festival, Bertrand Blier’s The Clink of Ice [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news) is being launched in France today by Wild Bunch Distribution on 300 screens.

Brilliantly acted by Jean Dujardin, Albert Dupontel, Anne Alvaro and Myriam Boyer, the film has been enthusiastically received by critics who welcome the return to prominence of the director of Going Places, Cold Cuts, Ménage and Too Beautiful for You.

The film centres on an alcoholic author suffering from writer’s block, who comes face to face with his cancer ("Hello, I’m your cancer. I think it would be a good idea for us to get to know each other a bit"). It has been hailed for its savage black humour and poetic surrealism, as well as its unadorned style and subtle tenderness.

"I feel I have made a very spontaneous and unaggressive film" commented Blier. "I didn’t try to be clever. The black humour is there, but without provocation. Although there is a comic tone, I didn’t want it to be too overdone. As soon as we accept Albert Dupontel in the role of Jean Dujardin’s cancer, everything else is very simple."

Proud "of having made an uncompromising and uncomplacent film, perhaps a little "Molieresque", of not having fallen asleep and remaining an “unsuitable” director", the filmmaker is getting his own back in a sense, after a run of quite unsuccessful films.

"I heard people say I was finished, washed out: Blier the faded monument of French cinema … I’ve also noticed that magnificent camera shots and beautiful lighting don’t interest many people any more. I’ve come to the conclusion that we certainly have to make films in a less ambitious and less aesthetic way. The long sideways tracking shots of Resnais’s films are finished. Here, everything was done with Steadicam, enabling us to achieve a fluidity and naturalness that suited the story well."

This Wednesday’s nine new releases also include Eric Besnard’s French adventure film In Gold We Trust [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring Clovis Cornillac and Audrey Dana (distribution: Gaumont); and Caroline Strubbe’s Belgian/Dutch/Hungarian co-production Lost Persons Area [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which was unveiled in Cannes Critics’ Week 2009 (see review) and is being launched by Les Acacias on about ten screens.

Also hitting theatres are Neil Jordan’s Irish/US film Ondine [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (distributed by UGC); Lu Zhang’s Dooman River, which was winner of the latest Paris Cinéma festival and is being released by its French minority co-producer Arizona Films; Lee Chang-dong’s highly successful Poetry (Best Screenplay at this year’s Cannes Festival – distributed by Diaphana); and three US features.

(Translated from French)