Screen capture from French gem “The Guardians.”
by Sam Juliano
The second annual Allan Fish Online Festival is underway as of this morning with a fabulous post from project founder Jamie Uhler on a satiric 1989 Italian film. The endeavor will run through June 8th with daily posts resuming tomorrow. The television countdown will follow-up for its final leg in the weeks after the AFOFF is completed. Many thanks to all who have come on board for what will surely be another memorable chapter for the ten-year old Wonders in the Dark.
For those living in and around Manhattan, I would like to alert you to the upcoming ten-film Ruth Prawer Jhabvala/Merchant-Ivory retrospective at the Quad in June. The big highlights will be the Q & A by 90 year-old James Ivory himself after the screenings of “A Room with a View” (June 14th) and “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge.” (June 11th). He will also introduce “The Golden Bowl” and “The Guru.”
Lucille and I saw two films in theaters this past week:
The Guardians ***** (Sunday afternoon) Quad Cinemas
Summer 1993 **** (Saturday evening) Eleanor Bunin Theater, Lincoln Center
One extraordinary French drama set in the lush countryside (The Guardians) and one very fine and observant Spanish film (Summer 1993) set in the Catalan countryside seen in Manhattan this weekend.
One of the best films of 2018, Xavier Beauvois’s “The Guardians” features another exceptional performance by Nathalie Baye and a stunning debut from Iris Bry in a World War I home front drama that features the sublimity of pastoral environs not seen since the Claude Berri films “Jean de Florette” and “Manon des Sources” in 1986. A subtle bucolic work beautifully filmed by Caroline Champetier and featuring an aching score by music icon Michel Legrand that is surely the finest of the year, “The Guardians” is a quietly enveloping work of suppressed passion, injustice and feminine resilience while tragedy strikes at every turn and Beauvois’s observational prowess in chronicling farm life alone is wholly fascinating. *****
The Spanish “Estiu 1993” deftly juggles atmosphere and drama in this autobiographical yarn in director Carla Simon’s own childhood. The story is admittedly slight and perhaps the reviews have been a bit over the top, but still an aching and perceptive study of childhood at a time when grief intrudes and a young girl is forced to grow up well before her time. Strikingly acted and filmed. The graphic depiction of farm animals being killed for food is admittedly jarring. ****