Anaïs Demoustier

The Beast in the Jungle

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John and May

Henry James on the dancefloor! La Bête dans la Jungle (aka The Beast in the Jungle) sees the old Edwardian master throwing some pretty fly shapes in this fabulous and slightly mad adaptation of a James novella from 1903. The action may have shifted from London to France but the characters and plot are largely intact. It’s 1979 when May first meets John in a Paris discotheque. In what looks like May making a clumsy move on him, she claims she and John have met before. He isn’t sure they have. She insists. He reluctantly goes along with her insistence, though quite why this nice-looking but not exceptionally attractive guy isn’t reacting more … Read more

Smoking Causes Coughing

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The Tobacco Force

Smoking Causes Coughing. Of course it does. It might be the only bit of sense there is in Quentin Dupieux’s latest film, a drama-free but quirk-heavy work of surreal flippancy centring on a gang of superheroes who call themselves the Tobacco Force. In their tight suits and helmets, this gang look like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers but as we meet them they appear to be fighting a character who’s escaped from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a gigantic upright Tortoise called Tortusse (the film is in French, which explains the tortoise’s name, and the film’s original one, Fumer Fait Tousser). Struggling, even five to one, the Tobacco Force decide to combine their … Read more

Anaïs in Love

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Daniel and Anaïs

Anaïs is hot. A pretty young French woman who wears a succession of dresses that show off her long legs, her bare arms, her lovely skin. With her hair cascading down her back, she’s a gorgeous, flighty, scatty, slip of a thing who, silly her, gets herself into the most terrible situations and then, skipping elegantly with an impish grin, escapes out of them back into her consequence-free existence. Anaïs has a boyfriend, Raoul, but she doesn’t seem particularly interested in him. She has commitments to a university thesis but seems to be treating that in the same take-it-or-leave-it way. Early on she discovers she’s pregnant and so, alors, pops off to the … Read more