FILMS/
GARDENS IN AUTUMN
Jardins en automne
World Cinema
France/Russia/Italy, 2006, 122 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Sun, Apr 29 / 06:30 / Kabuki / GARD29K
Sun, May 6 / 08:00 / PFA / GARD06P
Tue, May 8 / 09:15 / Kabuki / GARD08K
CREDITS
- dir
-
Otar Iosseliani
- prod
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Martine Marignac
- scr
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Otar Iosseliani
- cam
-
William Lubtchansky
- editor
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Otar Iosseliani, Ewa Lenkiewicz
- mus
-
Nicolas Zourabichvili
- cast
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Séverin Blanchet, Michel Piccoli, Muriel Motte, Pascal Vincent
- source
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Films du Losange, 22 Av. Pierre 1er de Serbie, 75016 Paris, France FAX: +33-1-49-52-06-40 EMAIL: l.zipci@filmsdulosange.fr
Festival favorite Otar Iosseliani’s latest satirical comedy gains much of its charm from the casting of Michel Piccoli as a doting old mother, but seeing this iconic French movie star in drag (his performance is remarkable) is just one of the many pleasures this film has to offer. Another is the subtle performance of non-actor Séverin Blanchet, who is equally delightful as Vincent, Piccoli’s middle-aged son. Vincent is a high-level French government minister who loses his job and with it everything else that has defined him: his status, luxury apartment and fashion-conscious wife. Rather than mope, Vincent chooses to relish his newfound freedom. Luckily his mama is rich, but unfortunately a community of black immigrant squatters has overtaken the Paris apartment she offers him. Unfazed, Vincent settles into his new life and finds pleasure in the company of eccentric old friends, former mistresses, music and wine. As in his previous films such as Monday Morning (SFIFF 2003) and Farewell, Home Sweet Home (SFIFF 2000), Iosseliani structures Gardens in Autumn as a series of tableaux in which physical gestures, visual cues and cultural stereotyping allow meaning to be communicated with very little dialogue. Iosseliani often is compared to that other master of nearly wordless French film satire, Jacques Tati, and he pokes fun at the absurdities of human behavior with the same affectionate disdain and surrealist humor as another of France’s revered director exiles, Luis Buñuel. At the age of 73, Iosseliani still is able to find humor where no one else recognizes or looks for it, and he remains a champion of the human spirit’s capacity for kindness. Gardens in Autumn is a great pick-me-up; watching it will lighten the spirits of even the most downtrodden among us.
—Beverly Berning
West Coast Premiere. Sponsored by TV5MONDE, Alliance Française of San Francisco and the Consulate General of France. Presented in association with the French Cultural Services, Consulate General of France and the French-American Cultural Foundation in San Francisco.