If you like cats, you will like Josiane Balasko’s The Hedgehog (Le Hérisson). If you enjoyed the book on which this is loosely based, I expect you will like the film too. Not always is this the case. Some books are best left alone. Some books do not translate well to the medium of recorded movement. However, some, some are improved and some are on a par. For me, the film looked that rare thing: pretty much as I had visualised it when first I read it, from the characters to their homes, from their manner to their personal peculiarities. Seeing this late one afternoon, after having spent the better part of the day at the computer working, I was ready to allow the self to be transported to Paris. That it tugs and plucks and whacks like a double bass at the heartstrings freely, I said yes. From the beautiful strains of the cello to the drawings that make you want to pick up brush and toy with ink, I enjoyed immensely this afternoon detour. I hanker now to reread Anna Karenina and to call my next cat Levin. (A sensation further heightened by Michael Hoffman's The Last Station.)
I have been seeing a few films of late, screening as part of the French Film Festival (and otherwise) and I have not been disappointed. I have allowed myself to be swept along with the scene unfurling before my eyes, sometimes perhaps all too readily and I am caught with a lump in my throat and wet eyes when the lights come on as credits roll. March finds me seeking out beautiful things and, to take nothing away from the films I have seen, in a mood easily pleased and relatively carefree.
I long to be as bendy as Elastic Girl’s name suggests in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s new film Micmacs (Micmacs à tire-larigot) and to one day meet someone who feels as though from this film perhaps they have stepped, tipping hat at Buster Keaton. Upon leaving the cinema, this almost came true. The eye sort out the different, the particular. Not whimsical, just slightly, very slightly different. The one-armed man of rounded proportions with his braces making a cross across his back walking before me, the couple dressed in complementary colours standing side-by-side; surely I saw them only moments ago assisting in the airport scene. They wore expressions upon their faces that tell me I am right. Didn’t they? Will they lead me to the metal cave constructed from refuse? Will I be able to meet one of Tiny Pete’s automated sculptures and machines made from that which is salvaged?
The pleasure is only worth something if I can share it with the audience.(Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
