Alceste à bicyclette (Bicycling with Molière) by Philippe Le Guay, 2013

A TV celebrity faces an uphill battle as he tries to persuade his old pal, once-famous actor Serge Tanneur, to take on the lead in a Moliere play, no easy task considering the reclusive Serge has given up acting and burns every script he receives.

This is an interesting original idea, with quite brilliant ideas, and... with always the same Luchini character, and a plot that becomes a little repetitive after a while. I have to say, from the same director, I loved "The Cost of Living - Le Coût de la Vie". This one was a little weak. We could believe totally Fabrice Luchini in his eternal grumpy role, but Lambert Wilson's role was a little fabricated, somehow too fake or too nice, and not really coherent. I would love to have more opinions on it.

with Fabrice Luchini (Paris), Lambert Wilson (The Matrix: Revolution, On connaît la chanson - Same Old Song, Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes et des Dieux), Maya Sansa, Camille Japy, Laurie Bordesoules, Patrick Bonnel

watch trailer:

Re - Theater experience...

These last days/weeks, I haven't been able to watch any movie...
Like a year and a half ago, I engaged into adapting film-making to theater, with an hour and a half of visuals to illustrate and interact with the actors. A lot of work, and every night performing live. So far so good, we've been selected as picture of the week in Time Out, and had a full house for the past two weeks. Nevertheless, no time to watch movies. I will get back to it, I promise, Saturday being the last of these many days.

Theater experience...

These last days, I haven't been able to watch any movie... The reason for it is that I was litterally working 24/7 on a new play, which started this Thursday. I was creating the video-projection with live camera and videoart to be projected during the performance. The only thing I took the time to watch, just because I am addicted, was Dexter and Homeland... So, basically, for this play, there was different kind of surreal things to create, such as a goldfish with wings, in it's fishbowl, floating with a red parachute. Or, a lot of blood leaking from the top of the stage, or a magical forest with its leaves growing, or even a blackbird prisoner in a padlock, or the main actress looking like she is seeing herself in mirrors while hundreds of flower bouquets are dangling above. Anyway, Of course, this implies a lot of shooting, editing, special effects, animation and so on. But when you are working in the production of a film, once you did all that, you're done. You can come to the premiere and enjoy the show. There comes the difference. At that point where everything is created, it has to live with the actors, blend in a new form of language of storytelling. So you have to decide where that particular mirror goes, where the fishbowl does appear, or in a case i didn't explain, bookshelves on the chest of one of the actor. Oh well, this is technical but a few more days in the theater and we will be good. Oh, the set is not ready on time, the projector doesn't spill wide enough to cover the whole stage, oh, the live camera is so far from the projector we are missing cables... Alright, minor details, we'll get through it... Then comes the lighting designer, the sound designer and the queue to queue with the director, which will take another full day. At night, no night, render, adjustments, editing editing editing...
And finally at the premiere, instead of sitting back and relaxing, you are hungry, tired, stressed and go from one end of the show to the other with the pressure of missing the timing and launching the bird instead of the fishbowl...
The comfort of it all, the audience, the live element, the teamwork, the crew and cast, and eventually the idea that you will finally get it right after three representations.
So I haven't been able to watch movies lately, but soon enough, the rhythm will come back!