Nightmare with Cate Blanchett
Four years following the triumph and the four Oscars of The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro steered and pulled the handbrake in full swing for a 180 degree turn. Forgotten, the candid love story water that moved the planet in 2017! Here is our knight in the service of the fantastic, this time plunged up to his neck in film noir, with this psychological thriller as suffocating as it is elegant and visible in theaters since January 19. Adapted from a best-selling book by William Lindsay Gresham, set in pre-war America, Nightmare Alley follows the cursed fate of a wanderer obsessed with social ascent named Stanton Carlisle (and camped by Bradley Cooper), who improvises himself an illusionist in contact with a traveling funfair.
Soon, his talents as a crook bewitch the good urban society, to whom the charlatan makes believe that he can communicate with the dead. With the complicity of a sulphurous psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett), Stanton then attacks a “client” more dangerous than ever. A dangerous game where the false magician is in danger of getting lost… Magnificently photographed, full of nods to the symbolism of the tarot, chiselled down to the smallest detail, Nightmare Alley stands out as the most ruthless film on human nature ever imagined by del Toro. And without doubt, by the way, the most radical work of a filmmaker familiar with monsters, but who this time summons them without resorting to the supernatural. The chilling outcome of the last act will not necessarily warm hearts in this harsh winter, but it offers Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett unforgettable roles as sociopathic manipulators, in line with the great classics of Hollywood’s golden age. . Nightmarish… and delicious!
READ ALSOGuillermo del Toro: “‘Nightmare Alley’ is a typically American tragedy”
Celebrate The Marriage of Figaro
DFrom the first bars, it is dazzling: under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, the orchestra of the Opéra national de Paris enters these Wedding with the lightness, precision and depth that suit this crazy day… The decors, mise en abyme style (everything takes place in the dressing rooms or on the stage of the Opera), initially make people fear the worst, but are quickly forgotten as the British Netia Jones, in the staging, succeeds magnificently the relationships between the characters, helped by the comic temperament of Anna El-Khashem (Suzanne), Peter Mattei (the count) and Luca Pisaroni (Figaro). She also does not forget to underline how much the challenge of the libretto is contemporary (it is following all the droit de seigneur that the count abolished, while counting on seducing his wife’s maid…). The Justin Bieber-style Cherub by Lea Desandre, and the countess (Maria Bengtsson), noble and melancholic, pull out of the game. We want more!
« The Marriage of Figaro by WA Mozart, until February 18. Garnier opera. Directed by Gustavo Dudamel, directed by Netia Jones. With Maria Bengtsson/ iah Persson, Anna El-Khashem/ ing Fang, Peter Mattei, Luca Pisaroni, Lea Desandre. Reservations: https://www.operadeparis.fr/saison-21-22/opera/les-noces-de-figaro ?medium=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3fTz2MDM9QIVwe5RCh0FhAjkEAAYASAAEgKzNvD_BwE#calendar
Diving in Africa
“The tiger does not proclaim its tigritude, it leaps on its prey and devours it” said the Nigerian Nobel Prize for Literature Wole Soyinka regarding negritude, and it is this affirmation that is taken up by Tigritudes, the title of this exceptional cycle of pan-African and diaspora cinema which runs until February 27 at the Forum des images: in 125 films (from 1956 – independence of Sudan – to 2021), directors Dyana Gaye and Valérie Osouf compose a veritable anthology, masterpieces with unknown pearls. From this Friday 28, en route to Guinea-Bissau by Flora Gomes with Mortu Nega; Saturday 29, the opportunity is given to see or review Lumumba, the death of the prophet by Raoul Peck (Haiti), then Guimba, a tyrant, Malian Cheick Oumar Sissoko, Bye Bye Africa Chadian Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and more Kinshasa Palace by Zeka Laplaine (Democratic Republic of Congo), without forgetting the choice of many short films from all over the continent. Let’s quote once more The Image, the Wind and Gary Cooper by Isabelle Boni-Claverie (Ivory Coast), which will be presented by Abd Al Malik and Pap Ndiaye, since debates, meetings and master classes are also part of this programming in which one can immerse oneself without hesitation, whether one is a neophyte or an enlightened amateur.
READ ALSOFespaco 2021: Ouagadougou, capital of the 7e art
Tigritudes, until February 27 at picture forum, in Paris
Sampler with Youv Dee
Member of L’Ordre ou périph, a collective of rappers inspired by American emo rap, an omnipotent genre across the Atlantic mixing rock and hip-hop and claiming to explore the darkest feelings, Jamal Thioune, alias Youv Dee, honed his rhymes in the open mics Parisians before becoming a hit with his solo projects. Since 2017, he has freed himself from all the codes of French rap and cities. Fan of rapper Lil Wayne, rock, guitar and skate period, he began to incorporate metal samples in his songs, before taking a downright rock turn in his latest songs. A heresy for French rap, where street culture is still dominant and where young people dare not break free from the codes of fashion and testosterone. Youv Dee opens other paths than hip-hop for young black people from Sarcelles.
Luxury Life/Dark Edition at Virgin Records. In concert in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on January 28.
Laugh and cry with Ricky Gervais
Our hearts of binge-watchers are bleeding: we will have to mourn the series After Life, a marvel of tenderness and causticity created by English comedian and actor Ricky Gervais. This third season is also the last. The series depicts the character of Tony, a journalist for the mediocre gazette of a small English town, upset by the death of his wife, carried away by cancer. Each episode of the three seasons is built according to the same principle: Tony, who regularly filmed his wife in their most banal daily life, replays the videos of happiness passed out on a loop while drinking like a hole on his sofa, under the understanding gaze of his old german shepherd. When he decides to go to work, he is odious towards those around him and his rare friends, deeming it useless to take care of his presence in the heart of a world that no longer interests him. But those close to him – an unlikely band of broken arms and oddballs, each more endearing than the next – are determined to rescue him from the bitterness. Because Tony, king of the cruel punchline and the nasty blow of blood (at the origin of the most comical moments of the show), has a real hidden goodness (this is where strong feelings pick us up). Always carried by the caustic spirit which makes the salt of the series, this final season mixes with its hilarious, ferociously ironic, deliberately coarse, even frankly obscene gags, emotional sequences of a finesse to break your heart. We dare you to watch the final episode without soaking the sofa cushions with your tears.
After Life, on Netflix
