Cheri

Cecil says: A glitzy premiere, with red carpets, flashing cameras and gorgeous lead actors. What could go wrong with such an occasion? Well, the first odd thing is that, for a film being premiered at the Institut Francais, based on a novel by Colette and set in Paris, there was a complete absence of French, through the whole evening. Not a word of French on the screen; not a word in French during the Q&A afterwards. The director, Stephen Frears, even confessed that he doesn't speak a word of the language; and the writer, Christopher Hampton, made the strange remark that he had started out with the idea of writing a biopic on Colette herself. So, how and why did he then embark on a screenplay of one of her novels instead? We never found out, but perhaps that is at the root of a sense of emptiness that runs through the film.

Sure, the characters are in a sense empty shells themselves: Michelle Pfeifer, the ageing (at 32!) courtesan determined not to fall in love with Rupert Friend, the young dandy, seven years her junior, who plays at love but gets himself paired off in an arranged marriage. And the whole story is set at the end of the 'Belle Epoque', with a sense of an era drawing to a close and running out of steam. Maybe it's meant to come across as sterile and fading, but it's very hard to engage with characters who have no real...character! Rupert Friend himself said in the Q&A how hard it had been to play the role of such a passive male; of how he had struggled to get any sense of the person he was supposed to be portraying.

Michelle Pfeifer is the best thing about this film, though. Not only her personality, which dominates proceedings through the plot, but her presence on the screen; her diction is perfect and is the one reason why I'm glad the film was in English rather than French - I could listen to her for hours and sit transfixed. But it's a shame Bea wasn't able to join me this time: it's the sort of film where you get the impression a male and female perspective on it would be bound to be different; not necessarily contradicting, but somehow complementary, and it makes my views on the film seem somehow incomplete.

I didn't particularly enjoy the film, but was it, in the words of one viewer I overheard afterwards, really "a film for women"? Without Bea being there, I'll never know...All I can say is that I would like to read the book now, to see how far Frears/Hampton kept to the heart of the story.

I can't end this entry without a comment on the audience again (I know, we are becoming as much people-watchers as film viewers these days). It was fascinating to see the cameras flashing desperately as soon as the young English actress arrived at the Institut. I'm afraid I can't even remember her name and her role is a bit-part compared to Pfeiffer, but the adulation via the lens gave the impression she must be THE star of the movie; I loved the gooey-eyed and adoring cluster of young women who interviewed Rupert Friend ahead of the screening: they were hanging on his every word, but was it his looks or what he had to say? does it matter, if you adore someone that much?

And finally, what is it about the film industry that seems to attract men in the 60s with long hair and wearing black shirts. Now, those of you who know how little hair I have might put this down to jealousy, but black shirts??? Come on!

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