Three friends – What to see

Romance by Emmanuel Mouret, 1h57

There are three of them. They live in Lyon. They look good in their forties. Joan (India Hair) has a problem. She’s tired of her partner and thinks it’s only fair to tell him so. It really bothers her. She’s a girl of principle. Her friend Alice (Camille Cottin) cheers her up: for her part, she’s never been in love with Éric (Grégoire Ludig), and that doesn’t stop their relationship from being quite harmonious. Then there’s the vivacious Rebecca (Sara Forestier), who has secret rendezvous with a married man. It’s easy to see that it’s permissible to play with the intermittences of the heart. Mouret is not above it. Love leaves, tenderness returns. That’s the equation to solve. Desire is always the first to go. That’s just the way it is. You learn this the hard way, with desolation at first, then with a smile. A car accident adds a dose of gravity to these crossroads. They are numerous and unexpected. The script takes multiple triple axels and lands on its feet every time. Mouret is a virtuoso. Feelings and their vagaries are his playground. There are the things you say, and the things you don’t dare do. Three friends looks like the finest lace. Mouret is an author, a real one. Soon, he will set the example. É.N.

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Our review of Trois amies: a sentimental romp

The substance – You can see

Horror by Coralie Fargeat, 2h20

Elizabeth Sparkle has just learned that the network is considering replacing her. Her fitness show requires a new figurehead. Yet she looked good in her fifties. In her tight bodysuit, very Jane Fondathe energetic presenter retains her allure. The law of ratings is cruel. Her producer invites her to lunch to announce the change. The meal so disorientates her that she has a car accident. While in hospital, she discovers a confidential technique designed to make her look younger and better. The offer is too tempting. So Liz gives it a try. Injections give birth to a young brunette like herself, barely out of her teens. Demi Moore contemplates her Margaret Qualley double with suspicion and admiration. The method has its constraints. After seven days, the roles are reversed. This means staying in the bathroom every other week. Naturally, the miracle goes off the rails. Liz extracts old age from her body with frightening grimaces, and feeds on thick IV fluids. How to paint such madness? Coralie Fargeat, who had already made a name for herself with the brutal Revengepushes the boundaries of grand-guignol with an infectious élan. She doesn’t skimp on audacity or hemoglobin. It flows like water. Prestigious ghosts lurk around this story of possession, where the distress of Golum, the monstrosities of Freaksa long, carpeted corridor à la Shining. The whole thing is a delight. É.N.

The Shadow of the Commander – You can see

Documentary by Daniela Völker, 1h47

Finding financing for a film is an obstacle course. German-born director Daniela Völker knows all about it. The Shadow of the Commander was no exception. But in the case of this documentary about the family of former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (executed by hanging on September 16, 1947), and that of extermination camp survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the main argument against it was the age of the protagonists. “ all very old “. Certainly. But on the eve of commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army on January 27, 1945, how do you expect witnesses to “ are not very old “Daniela Völker retorted, and began touring with her savings. An opportunity in the end. The long time frame (2020-2023) served the film well. Although the director decided from the outset to run the two stories in parallel – that of Hans Jürgen and Kai Höss, respectively son and grandson of the war criminal, and that of the survivor and her daughter Maya, born after the war – she could not have imagined that in “ an organic process “, the two paths would come together. So much so that Anita agreed to host the Hösses in her small London house. “ A historic moment “, admits Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. I.S.

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Our review of L’Ombre du commandant, la longue voie du silence

Full speed ahead – You can see

Comedy by Lucas Bernard, 1h26

There’s Philippe de Broca in Full speed ahead A fast-paced, carefree burlesque, with a disregard for the verisimilitude of situations. And the humor is in full flow. This perfectly crafted romantic comedy even has something of a childlike joy that sparkles in every shot, and that’s good. The plot ofÀ toute allure is the most unlikely of novelistic confrontations. Violent gusts of wind ground Marco, an airline steward on a stopover. Pio Marmaïdecidedly at ease in this light-hearted register, plays a cabin attendant as seductive as he is playful. A sort of Bébel 2.0 escaped from an update of The Man from Riohe meets Marianne (Eye Haïdaraa dazzling display of fierce charm) in an officer’s bar. There’s electricity in the air. Between the steward and the naval officer, the glances send out lightning bolts. They’re on opposite sides of the world, yet they’ve got a real connection. However, an irrational impulse pushes him to follow the woman who lost her necklace in the fight. To do so, he sneaks into the submersible’s nuclear torpedo compartment, becoming a stowaway on a ship in the midst of a secret operation… Machine-gun dialogue, humorous banter, extravagant confinement, this incredible epic works perfectly thanks to the duet between Eye Haïdara and Pio Marmaï: the more rigid she becomes, the more flexible he becomes. O.D.

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Trip to Gaza – What to avoid

Documentary by Piero Usberti, 1h07

These images were shot before October 7, before all hell broke loose on Israel and the Gaza Strip. The director specifies this in a cardboard box at the end of this film, intended to illustrate the distress of the population of the Palestinian enclave. Piero Usberti, a young Franco-Italian filmmaker, had the opportunity to spend three months there in 2018. What he saw there left a deep impression on him. He observed daily life marked by power cuts and the fear of clashes with Israel, the impossibility of traveling, the Islamist pressure of Hamas. But to get to this portrait of Gazans, we have to go through an awkward preamble, to say the least. Piero Usberti, with the candor of a militant, embraces certain anti-Zionist theses, ignoring the complex history of Israel and Palestine. “ Israel is one of the world’s most successful colonial enterprises “the voice-over fearlessly assures us. The voiceover goes on to compare the Hebrew state to America, which savagely wiped out its indigenous populations… These statements, which in three sentences strip the country of all legitimacy, testify to an astonishing lack of historical knowledge. Perhaps, at best, they are the consequence of the commiseration felt by the young man at the sight of the Palestinians trapped in Gaza. The director improvises himself as a righter of wrongs, and keeps a poor account. This one-sidedness gives the film the appearance of a political pamphlet, when it could simply have been a rare, poignant testimony to the distress of Gaza, audible on all sides. B.P.

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Our review of Journey to Gaza: partisan letters