Marine Vacth

Double Lover

by
Chloé with Paul, or possibly Louis

Made in 2017 but with its heart firmly in 1947, François Ozon’s Double Lover (L’amant double in the original French) takes a pretty young woman, ChloĂ© (Marine Vacth), and subjects her to a brutal gaslighting at the hands of a male psychiatrist. Two male psychiatrists, in fact, twin brothers (both played by JĂ©rĂ©mie Renier) so alike that they can pass for each other. Except one is kind of nice and cuddly, the other is tough and sexy. Maybe Rosemary’s Baby (another film with its heart in the late 1940s) was also in the mind of Ozon when he set about adapting Joyce Carol Oates’s Lives of the Twins, since gynaecology is at the … Read more

Pinocchio

by
The Fairy with the Turquoise Hair and Pinocchio with long nose

To the question: Is there a canonical Pinocchio I can enjoy in movie form, the answer is “Yes, this one by Matteo Garrone”. It takes Carlo Collodi’s story back to its origins – it’s about a lump of magic wood being carved into a talking puppet by poor woodcarver Gepetto, and then the puppet setting out on a string of adventures all the while wishing he could make the next fantastical leap and become a real boy. There is no shortage of competition, from a 1911 silent version, through the Disney’s 1940 version to countless others, like the 1957 one starring Mickey Rooney or the 2002 one directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, … Read more