ElasticSword Reviews

David Nolande (2006)

Do french TV fictions start a new life?

[8/10 · 24 December 2006]

During a long time, french TV was used to filling its schedules with foreign broadcasts, or exact adaptations of foreign programs (in this case, "foreign" means most of the time "american"). But we can see it's about to change: french TV seems to become more self confident, more creative, and, above all, more daring.

"David Nolande" is the best example of this new age. With a dynamic production, an imaginative and full of action storyline and a great work on light and music, the program rejuvenate the genre.

A word about the storyline : David Nolande, a young man who works as an advertiser, kills by accident a an old gypsy woman, who was known to be a medium. At the end of the trial, a man throws Nolande a whammy: "You'll have to save a lot of lives because you've killed a fairy! If you don't, one of yours will die!". That is how David's life will totally change.

Thanks to a pleiad of good actors like Frederic Diefenthal or Edouard Montoute, the tone is perfectly right: it's a mix between SF and psychological drama, with a bit of comedy. The result is absolutely tremendous.

So, OK, it can make think about other series (I'm thinking about "Medium", "John Doe" or "Dead zone") but "David Nolande"'s screenwriters and director have known how to use SF references to create a new program. It is not an imitation, it is emulation.

The second season will be shot at the end of 2007... We'll have to be very patient.

Till then "Pray he'll never dream of you" !

Le héros de la famille (2006)

What a nice parrot !

[7/10 · 23 December 2006]

"Le héros de la famille" is the story of a cabaret in Nice called "Le perroquet bleu" (The blue parrot). The innkeeper, Gabriel(le) dies at the beginning of the movie and leave his business to his godchildren : Nino and Marianne, whom father (the magician played by Gérard Lanvin) had been taken under Gabriel's wing when he was fifteen years old. After the reading of the will, the fate of the Blue Parrot is in their hands.

After having heard and read a lot of critics which said this movie was great, I've decided to see it so that I could make my own opinion. During maybe half an hour I was wondering "Yeah, that's cool, but not as great as it was supposed to be..." but the more time passed, the more I understood why I've been said it was a fine movie.

First of all, the cast is outstanding! Gérard Lanvin is very good in this part of a lost man, who just begins to know his children when his father-like best friend dies. Catherine Deneuve is very funny, she becomes less and less cold as she gets older. And all the others (I won't name all the great actors who play in this movie) are very right in their parts.

Then, every character has his own psychology. Some of them appear only a few minutes in the movie, but we feel that they ARE, they do exist in the movie. They're not just here to walk-on, they're here because they belong to the big family of the Blue Parrot.

I also think the movie deals with a lot of existential questions: Do we have to live like our parents? Do we have to do the direct opposite of them? From whom do we inherit? and finally, I think the most important question : What a family is?

So, if you like french cinema, french actors, or if you like the "films chorale" (i don't know how to say it in English : a movie in which there is no protagonist, or more exactly in which everybody is), "Le héros de la famille" has been made for you!...

... and if you don't, nothing keep you from being curious ;)