FILM
preview
Daniel Auteuil
Star of Le Bossu
Daniel Auteuil is pushing 50, but that hasn’t stopped the makers of Le Bossu casting him as a dashing duellist who wins the love of a seventeen-year-old girl. lmplausible? No more so than the rest of the film, in which Auteuil single-handedly defeats a small army and reappears unrecognised as a hunchback.
The famous French actor is interesting looking, rather than handsome. He pauses gravely when asked a question and his answers are never far off intense. Powerful performances, such as those in Claude Berri’s Jean De Florette and Manon Des Sources and Claude Sautet's Un Coeur En Hiver, suit his emotional, introverted temperament. Le Bossu, a swashbuckling adventure story, is something of a departure.
‘l’ve worked in detail on the depths of the human soul, and I wanted to do a lighter part,’ he acknowledges. ’l was also going back to things I’ve done when I was younger, like comedy.’
Auteuil is not exactly happy to be ageing. 'There are all these things one wants to do and won't be able to do,’ he says. 'For example, I will never now be able to play Romeo. I know that they say a man doesn’t grow old but becomes more mature, like a wine, but at the end of the day, you have to drink the wine.‘
Auteuil has a daughter who felt the impact of his screen love for a teenager more keenly than most. He explains: ’My eldest daughter is seventeen, which is the same age as the character Aurore in the film, and she is also called Aurore. This is not by coincidence, but because I named her after the character in the book,
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Last action hero: Daniel Auteuil in Le Bossu
which I have loved since I was a young boy. I took my two daughters to see the film and they reacted very differently. Aurore had a funny turn afterwards.’
One might feel some sympathy for her. ’I know there is a certain sensitivity to this subject and more so because in this film version of Le Bossu my character actually brings Aurore up as his own daughter,’ Auteuil says. ’lt's easier to swallow this love story if he doesn’t bring her up.’
In the end, the real Aurore may just have to get used to it. ’This may be the last time I can play the young romantic lead,’ her father says, ’but I can still play the romantic lead.’ (Hannah Fries)
a Glasgow Film Theatre from Fri 2 7. Edinburgh Filmhouse from Mon 31. See review
Conspiracy theories: Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in X-Files: Fight The Future
secret global cartel. However, Carter has upscaled his vision to fit the dramatic reguirements of cinema, so we have international locations, thrilling scenes of destruction and a soundtrack straight outta Star Wars.
There are references to a wide range of movies, although the scene where Mulder pisses on a poster for /ndependence Day is cheap and annoyingly knowmg. Fight The Future has little in common with 905 sci-(i blockbusters; its roots are more in the nerve-Jangling tradition of Alien or the ultra-paranOia of The Manchurian Candidate.
Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny both put in solid performances (the latter even sending up his legendary ’expresSionless’ style in one hilarious ad-lib) and there’s a feeling that the filiming was genumely phySically
The X-Files: Fight The
Future
(15) 121 mins w sic we
Chris Carter is a brave man. Transferring the most Culturally significant TV show of recent times to the big screen was always going to be a risk. How do you cross over into the
lucrative date movne market Without alienating the hardcore fans7 Luckily, Carter's gamble has paid off in spades.
Fight The Future is basically a really, really good episode of The X-Fi/es complete with almost incomprehensible plot. Without givmg too much away, it involves an extraterrestrial Virus, a bomb plot and a
Iaxmg.
With a number of scenes of almost unbearable tension, some incredible effects and a deepening of the Mulder/SCUIIy relationship, this is a thrilling mowe which can be enjoyed by the X-phile and nowce alike. And that's the truth. (Peter Ross)
fl General release from Fri 27 Aug.
FILM
Le Bossu (15) 128 mins at: 75:
Originally written in the form of a serialised novel, Le Bossu was very popular in France last century. Since then, there hae been five filmed versions, and you have to ask whether the latest is one too many.
As you might expect from a story which needed to hang on to its readers from one instalment to the next, there is an abundance of plot. The hero, Lagardere (Daniel Auteuil), spends his time dashing from pillar to post in loyal support of a beleagured Duke (Vincent Perez). Much fencing occurs and assorted characters lose their lives. About midway through, the action centres on the exposure of the Duke’s dastardly bastard brother, and the restoration to wealth of his rightful heiress. All this occurs over a period of twenty years, which goes some way towards explaining the condensed feel of it all.
It’s never easy to engage with characters who have less dimensionality than a Walt Disney cartoon, and in the case of Le Bossu, we are further hindered by the period setting and the irrelevance of such values as chivalry from our lives. The film has many entertaining moments and the cast act with vigour enough to convince us they're having fun. But, inexcusably, the filmmakers seem to have felt that the lightness of the tone allows them to ignore the disturbing overtones of the central romantic relationship between Lagardere and Aurore (Marie Gillain).
This shifts with apparent effort- lessness from one of adoptive parent and child to one of happy lovers. Only an undemanding audience would let this go and be satisfied with the film overall. (Hannah Fries)
a Glasgow Film Theatre from Fri 21 Aug. Edinburgh Filmhouse from Mon 37 Aug. See preview
Flashing blade: Vincent Perez in
Le Bossu STAR RATINGS wiry 0'0 Unmissable :3: 2 avg Very 00d a x s Wed a shot ‘2 4e. Below average You've been warned
20-27 Aug 1998 THE usr 120