Throughout December, Rialto World is celebrating French cinema by serving up a double feature every Monday evening. This week, enjoy Pascal Bonitzer’s (Va Savoir, Encore) dramedy Looking for Hortense followed by the drama All Our Desires directed by Philippe Lioret. Next week, keep an eye out for Michel Gondry’s wonderfully whimsical Mood Indigo.
Here are my picks for the week;
Gardening With Soul (2013)
Directed by: Jess Feast
Screening: Rialto Documentary, Thursday 18th December, 8.30pm
Winner of the Best Documentary Award at the 2013 Rialto Channel New Zealand Film Awards, Gardening with Soul is a heartwarming and amusing documentary that follows 90-year-old Sister Loyola Galvin for a year as she works in the garden she oversees at the Home of Compassion in Island Bay, Wellington. As well as sharing advice on composting and gardening, Sister Loyola Galvin, who has dedicated herself to helping others, also shares her refreshingly simple observations on spirituality, parenting, aging and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. She’s quite a lady, and her belief that we should live our lives with compassion and love, and treasure our children, is a quiet reminder to us all.
Looking for Hortense (2013)
Starring: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Kristin Scott Thomas & Isabelle Carré
Directed by: Pascal Bonitzer
Screening: Rialto World, Monday 15th December, 8.30pm
A gentle comedy from the prolific French screenwriter and director Pascal Bonitzer, Looking for Hortense stars Jean-Pierre Bacri and Kristin Scott Thomas star as two long-term lovers at a cross road in their relationship and lives. Bonitzer’s drama-comedy, is a pleasant but largely underwhelming film about the separation of a middle aged couple. The script, written with co-writer Agnès de Sacy, is well crafted and for the most part authentic, and as usual its hard to take your eyes off Kristen Scott Thomas, who does her best to make chain-smoking look cool. Unfortunately though, fans of Scott Thomas will be disappointed to learn her character Iva isn’t the main character, rather the film focuses on the unraveling of her long-term partner Damien Hauer (Bacri). This might not be the most original relationship drama, but the acting is superb and Paris looks divine.
Greetings From Tim Buckley (2013)
Starring: Penn Badgley & Imogen Poots
Directed by: Dan Algrant
Screening: Rialto Selection, Saturday 20th December, 8.30pm
Singer songwriter Tim Buckley died of a heroine overdose at the age of 28. His estranged son Jeff Buckley, also a promising and talented musician, drowned while swimming in the Mississippi River at the age of 30. In this film, director and co-writer Dan Algrant attempts to bring the two artists together through their music, as Jeff Buckley prepares to perform live for the first time, at a tribute concert to his father. Penn Badgley of Gossip Girl fame is surprisingly good as Jeff Buckley, so to is Ben Rosenfield as a young Tim Buckley. This is not your normal straightforward biography. Instead Algrant’s film meanders along, hinting and gesturing at the affect father and son had on each other. There is also plenty of music from both Buckley’s that will please fans of the artists.