The Art of French Cinema

Posted on 10 December, 2011

If you’re a true-blue cinephile, you would have kowtowed to the French gods of cinema at some point. Jean Luc Godard,  Jean Cocteau, Francois Truffaut – the list goes on. But how about today’s French cinema? A mega, star-studded French film festival is in town to change that. Societe Generale Private Banking 1st Rendezvous with French Cinema, on from 8 to 13 December, features 16 new films and a retrospective of Carole Bouquet, Bond actress and Chanel star. Did we mention they flew in the likes of Carole Bouquet and Catherine Deneuve to grace the red carpets? Ooh la la.

Still, French cinema has a reputation of being arthouse, obscure and at times, plain confusing. How does that fit into the plan for world domination? “In most parts of the world, when you say foreign cinema, most people think, American cinema. But there are other ways of telling stories, other schools of cinema, other psychological ways of studying character,” said a film director on the panel.

Let’s hold him to this word. Here are Muse’s picks for the French film festival:

The Artist
Saturday 10 Dec @ 930pm @ Alliance Francaise
Sunday 11 Dec @ 730pm @ The Cathay

About: A declining film star and a rising actress fall in love against the backdrop of a Hollywood moving from silent cinema to talkies. A black-and-white film directed by Michel Hazanavicius, it’s a tribute to the art of silent cinema

Ell S’appelait Sarah (Sarah’s Key)
Saturday 10 Dec @ 4pm @ The Cathay
Monday 12 Dec @ 830pm @ Alliance Francaise

About: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in France, investigates the terrible rounding up of Parisian Jews and their incarceration in the bicycle stadium, Vel’d Hiv, during the Nazi occupation of France.

Poupoupidou (Nobody Else But You)
Sunday 11 Dec @ 930pm @ Shaw Theatres Lido
Tuesday 13 Dec @ 630pm @ Alliance Francaise

About: A bestselling crime novelist from Paris, troubled by a writer’s block, meets uh, cheese model Candice Lecoeur who believes she is the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.