Today's guest reviewer is my good pal Jerry, another IMDB regular - we meet every few months for an afternoon of drinks, chat, gossip and swops and lends of obscure dvds ..... I am actually seeing him again this Saturday, as we had to postpone our Christmas meeting. Here is his take on SUITE FRANCAISE which he enjoyed a lot .... it ticked a lot of boxes for him, liking Kristin and Matthias as he does ...
"SUITE FRANCAISE, 2014 - Would you let a hot Nazi occupy your back
parlour? is the probing ethical dilemma at the heart of this lush,smooth, well
mounted and extremely silly but engaging tale of forbidden love. Michelle
Williams is our heroine - living in occupied France
in a small village - her husband a POW in Germany .
Billeted with her is Bruno, a nice Nazi (hunk du jour Matthias Schoenaerts) - we know he
is nice because he plays the piano, minds his Ps and Qs - and doesn't much like
executing the villagers. Before you can say "Vive la Difference"
Michelle loses her scruples and her knickers and they are at it all over the
manor house. Will Michelle's mother in law (Kristin Scott Thomas in full frosty
bitch mode) get wind of their romance? Will Matthias' superiors discover their
illicit liaison? Will love build a bridge or lead to the firing squad ? - Good
range of supporting villagers - at the top of the social spectrum are Lambert
Wilson & Harriet Walter as the Mayor and his wife - (unluckily made an example of) .. at the bottom are
dirt poor farmers Sam Riley & Ruth Wilson - and somewhere in between with
her legs in the air is village bike Margot Robbie, who figures the German
soldiers are fit and horny and therefore fair game (and I'm with her all the
way on that one - the scene of the Soldiers performing their ablutions in the
village square look like out takes from the Night of the Long Knives in
Visconti's THE DAMNED ). It's all very old fashioned and tense towards the end
as Riley kills the nasty Nazi who is after Wilson and hides out in KT's attic, and Matthias finds his loyalties tested . It ends a bit abruptly
- the source being an unfinished manuscript by a holocaust victim discovered
years after the event. Williams , who I admired greatly in TAKE THIS WALTZ and
the MARILYN film - is very variable here - and KST could do this sort of part
in her sleep - and whilst Schoenaerts is good I think he looks better with a
beard (see FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD) Wilson seems like a star in the making -
highly recommended to anyone who likes old school romances of a VERBOTEN nature
- don't let the lukewarm reviews - "Mon Dieu!" said The Standard -
and absence of any other support put you off. Directed by one Saul Dibb."
Yup, its an ideal treat for a wet afternoon, with some chocs to hand ..... don't let those snooty movie buffs who only see important films put you off. A Trash Classic or superior B-Movie in the making then.
Your friend Jerry sounds like fun and he's a damned good reviewer! Before I wanted to see this film but I wasn't going to seek it out; now I absolutely must see it. Tosh it may be but it sounds like my kind of tosh!
ReplyDelete