NYFF COVERAGE – Agnès Jaoui’s second film (and the Opening Night selection at this year’s festival) is the type of light, Foucauldian romantic comedy that only the French can make. Following in Renoir’s large footprints, the film delineates the power dynamics between friends, lovers, and relations, portraying a diverse group of characters with a mixture of empathy and mild derision.
The film concerns Lolita, a young student of opera, who feels entirely ignored by the world. She is overweight and plain, and the only attention she receives from men is really directed toward her celebrity-novelist father, Etienne (played by Jaoui’s frequent writing collaborator, Jean-Pierre Bacri). The character of Etienne is entirely (even absurdly) self-absorbed, pausing momentarily from his endless cell-phone conversations to brow-beat his assistant, patronize his daughter, or manipulate sympathy or deference from his new, young wife.
Concurrent with this narrative is the story of another novelist, Pierre, whose illustrious career is only beginning. After years of only tepid critical reception, Pierre has also made a habit of eliciting the pity of his wife, Sylvia (played by Jaoui), through self-deprecation. When Sylvia agrees to help Lolita with her singing as a means of connecting her husband with the celebrity Etienne, a complex set of relations is established with which the film explores issues of power, self-image, and sex.
Look at Me gracefully integrates its many narratives and characters into a series of interactions that alternate between (as well as blend) the mortifying and the hilarious. In this way, it is very much an actor’s film: each scene brings out the minute subtleties in the characters, relations through fluid dialogue and naturalistic blocking. These interactions shed light on the intricate power plays and manipulations at work beneath the film’s more charming surface.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: 35mm print
01 Oct 2004 2:35 PM | Comments (1)
I’ve watched (and listened to) the DVD of this over and over. I think the Monteverdi Lolita sings is Madrigali amorosi: Lamento della ninfa: Amor, dicea, il ciel. It is haunting. Comme une Image has been compared to Rules of the Game, hasn’t it?
There is another French film entitled “L’esprit” or something similar which deals brilliantly with the power embedded in one’s ability to play with words with de l’esprit during the period of Louis XIV. I was hoping to find a DVD of the film. Any ideas?
Thanks, I’m glad your page is linked to rottentomatoes. I’ll add it to swicki and del.icio.us
Maureen Flynn-Burhoe
4 November 2006
4:16 PM
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