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robinbruce
Reviews
Being AP (2015)
In the mould of Senna
Just as with Senna (which I watched with my nineteen-year-old daughter who is left stone cold by cars, let alone Formula 1 - and she was hooked from the get-go) I was gripped from start to finish. You seriously don't need to know the first thing about National Hunt racing or even horses because this film is about what it takes to make a true great - the only difference between A P and Senna is that A P was lucky enough to have faced the decision about when to step down (which is beautifully narrated in the film). Highly recommended.
La cérémonie (1995)
Stilted, crudely directed and barely believable
Other reviewers often cite parallels with Thelma and Louise. But the similarities end with the vaguely similar themes. Apart from some predictably enigmatic acting from the two protagonists this film is let down by a total lack of suspense and the fact that it is impossible to detect (from an English-speaking audience's point-of-view, anyway) any discernible difference in social standing - aside from their financial and employment status - between the 'rich' family ('bourgeois' would be a better description) and the elegant 'post mistress' and 'bonne/maid'.
Throughout the film I suspected the maid was faking her illiteracy and the postmistress was the daughter of a Duke slumming it in a Breton village for reasons that would become apparent later in the movie - I was wrong on both counts. I suspect Chabrol let his socialist imperative to construct a class-commentary be overcome by his desire to cast two very good-looking actresses. Huppert and Bonnaire simply don't - can't - pull off the 'working-class girls gone bad' act that Sarandon and Davis portray so convincingly in Thelma and Louise. Can't believe both films score the same here.
The direction and camera-work and lighting also lack any kind of skill or class - in the car-crash in the final scene I thought Huppert had been shot, rather than run into by the village priest. Oh - and someone shoots your husband - three times, three rooms away - and you think it's a 2CV backfiring on the drive? That alone sums up the whole movie.
You would do better to devote two hours to Midsomer Murders.