Film Review
For his first feature length film director Hubert Viel offers an affectionate
homage to the French New Wave with a cinema oddity that pretty well defies
any rational attempt at classification. Essentially, it boils down
to a good old-fashioned buddy movie, featuring two independently minded young
women who end up sharing an apartment together, in good old Nouvelle Vague
fashion. Filmed in grainy black and white, with only the vaguest of
approximations to a coherent narrative,
Artémis, coeur d'artichaut
instantly evokes those great nostalgia pieces of the French New Wave by such
directors as Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette, Agnès
Varda and Eric Rohmer. One film that it particularly calls to mind,
with its humorous depiction of a female friendship, is Luc Moulle's innovative
1966 film
Brigitte et Brigitte.
Viel originally conceived this as a short film (running to about thirty
minutes), but it ended up as a sixty-four minute feature when it became apparent
at the editing stage that it needed a longer run-time to tell its story effectively.
The film's author also provided the film with its omniscient narrator, abusing
this hackneyed device to great comic effect.
Artémis, coeur
d'artichaut is a grasshopper, patchwork quilt kind of film that comes
together before our eyes and reveals itself to be a gloriously unfettered
celebration of friendship and independent filmmaking.
The glue that holds this crazy concoction together consists of two talented
young actresses, Frédérique Barré and Noémie Rosset,
who have a jolly time as two feisty arts students who get up to all the things
that all arts students get up to. Far from being a dry and formulaic
exercise in imitation, as tributes to the French New Wave often are,
Artémis, coeur d'artichaut is a satisfying oddball film in
its own right, bubbling with vitality, wit and charm. Hubert Viel followed
this up with a second feature,
Les Filles au Moyen Âge (2016),
a homage of sorts to Éric Rohmer's
Perceval le Gallois (1978).
© James Travers 2014
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Film Synopsis
After bidding her fond farewells to Mount Olympus, the goddess Artémis
finds herself reincarnated as a mere moral, living in present day France and
attending university in Caen. At first she lives a solitary and melancholic
life, preferring the company of animals and children to that of grown adults.
But then she meets Kalie Steaux, a trendy fun-loving girl with whom she has
an immediate rapport. Kalie invites Artémis to live with her
and within no time the two women have become the closest of friends.
Their wild exploits are only just beginning...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.