The French Dispatch

Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Wes Anderson

Screenplay:  Wes Anderson, from a story by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness and Jason Schwartzman

Starring:  Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Stephen Park, Owen Wilson

Running Time:  103 minutes

Genre:  Drama, comedy

The French Dispatch, the foreign bureau of a Kansas newspaper, is based in the quirky city of Ennui-sur-Blasé, and presided over by formidable editor Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Murray).  When Arthur dies suddenly of a heart attack, the staff of the magazine prepare one final issue, which will serve as a memorial to Arthur and a farewell to the magazine.  It consists of an obituary, a travelogue feature, and three stories:  A murderer (del Toro) serving a life sentence for double murder proves to be a talented artist, with the help of a prison guard (Seydoux), and attracts the attention of a sleazy art dealer (Brody).  In the second story, an American writer (McDormand) becomes involved in a protest movement lead by a chess-playing revolutionary (Chalamet).  In the third story, a food writer (Wright) becomes involved in a kidnapping scheme while trying to write an article about legendary police chef (Park).

The film is an anthology and what we see is the final issue of The French Dispatch, which is clever and, to my knowledge, unique way of presenting a film.  It has a huge ensemble cast, which also includes Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz and Anjelica Huston in small roles.  Set in a fictional city, in an undefined mid 20th Century setting, this is a delightful film, everything is intricately designed, and every frame is carefully composed.  The film moves from colour to black and white, there are spilt screen images, quirky captions,  and even a couple of animated sequences.  It feels like a delicately constructed piece of elaborate machinery, where any flaw in the thing and the whole would collapse.  Often when comedy is too carefully constructed and designed, it can work against the humour and feel airless, however this is a very funny film, although, as with most Anderson films, it is more whimsical and witty than hysterical.  The music by Alexandre Desplat helps invoke the Sixties French glamour, and the soundtrack features Charles Aznavour, Ennio Morricone, Grace Jones, Chantal Goya and Jarvis Cocker.  This is very much a Wes Anderson film and if you don't like his work, then this will likely not win you over, I do like his work and I enjoyed this film a lot. The cast is all good, and there is so much charm in this film that it is almost impossible not to be won over.  It's a love letter to journalism, sixties France and French cinema, and I was left wishing that The French Dispatch might put out some more issues.

The staff of The French Dispatch

Dune

 Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay:  Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert

Starring:  Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem

Running Time:  156 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction

In the far future, the most valuable substance in the universe is the "Spice" which makes interstellar travel possible.  The only place where Spice can be found is on the desert planet Arrakis (nicknamed "Dune").  for the past 80 years, the brutal House Harkonnen have held the monopoly on Spice mining on Arrakis.  The Emperor Shaddam IV transfers the rights to Arrakis to the Harkonnen's arch-rivals, the noble House Atreides.  Despite his suspicions, Duke Leto Atreides (Isaac) accepts the assignment.  Meanwhile, his son Paul (Chalamet) has been having strange, mystical dreams of Arrakis, and is on his way to his own destiny.

Franks Herbert's classic 1965 science-fiction novel Dune has baffled and stymied many a filmmaker to the extent that it has been considered "unfilmable".  Cult Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky planned an adaptation starring Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson and Mick Jagger, with production design by H. R. Giger and comics artist Jean Girard (Moebius), and music by Pink Floyd, was aborted due to the planned 14 hour running time and rapidly ballooning budget.  Ridley Scott planned an adaptation, but abandoned it in favour of Blade Runner (1982).  David Lynch finally brought the novel to the screen with Dune (1984), which has had what politely could be termed a mixed reception from critics and fans, although personally I enjoyed it.  The Sci-Fi channel made a three part miniseries based on the book in 2000.    The problem for filmmakers for the book is that it is long, complex and sprawling with a complicated backstory, that is portrayed in the book through footnotes and appendices, but is difficult to portray on screen.  The first thing to be aware of with Denis Villeneuve's film is that it is properly titled Dune: Part One, and it only adapts the first half of the novel, which means that it just stops with no conclusion,  whether or not we get a Part Two depends (at the time of this writing) as to how well this does commercially. This is really a kind of mainstream art film.  It looks beautiful, with Arrakis ranging from bleached vistas, to red-gold deserts, riddled with deadly sandworms, mouths bristling with delicate, filament-like teeth; the chilly grey, Northern landscapes of the Atreides' homeward of Caladan, and the shadowy world of Geidi Prime, home of the Harkonnens, lit boy shafts of light slicing through the gloom.  Denis Villeneuve is a master of beautiful science-fiction, sometimes focussing on visual splendour at the expense of character.  The film creates this richly detailed imaginative universe, with some spectacular action scenes.  This also has some great performances, with Timothée Chalamet in particular impressive as Paul moving from sulky teen to courageous warrior, and Rebecca Ferguson as Paul's mother, Lady Jessica, a member of the mystical Bene Gesserit order, who breaks the most sacred rules of her order for love.  As it stands, this is probably the best possible adaptation of Herbert's prose in to film, if the second part gets made, it could be one of the highpoint of science-fiction in cinema.   

Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem and Timothée Chalamet in Dune

Little Women

Year of Release:  2019
Director:  Greta Gerwig
Screenplay:  Greta Gerwig, based on the novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Starring:  Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet
Running Time:  135 minutes
Genre:  Period drama

Set in the 1860s the film follows the four March sisters:  Responsible Meg (Watson) the oldest of the four; stubborn and fiery Jo (Ronan), an aspiring writer; kind, shy and musical Beth (Scanlen) and the youngest of the four, Amy (Pugh), an aspiring painter. 

This is one of several adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel, which I have never read, and I have never seen any of the other adaptations of it, and so I cannot say how faithful or not this film is to it's source.  The film introduces us to the March sisters as adults, and moves back and forth between their childhood and their adult lives.  The film is beautifully made with some ravishing images, and impeccably played by a very strong cast.  After having made a splash with her directorial debut Lady Bird, this marks Greta Gerwig as one of the most promising new directors working today.  The film has a large cast of characters and moves between a number of different storylines and time frames, with nary a misstep.  It also successfully balances period detail with a contemporary relevance.

Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan and Eliza Scanlen in Little Women