Vincent Lacoste

Along Came Love aka Le temps d’aimer

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François, Madeleine and Jimmy lying on the grass

Katell Quillévéré’s follow-up to Heal the Living takes the bare bones of her own grandmother’s story – a Frenchwoman who had a relationship with a German soldier during wartime, wound up a single mother in the post-war years, then met the man who’d become her husband on a beach in Normandy – embroiders on it heavily and repurposes it as a decade-straddling tale of cockeyed love and melodramatic dark secrets. Along Came Love (Le temps d’aimer) whisks us briskly from the aftermath of the end of the war – archive of GIs being feted as they march into France, cutting to “collaborating” French women having their heads shaved in orgies of public shaming … 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

Amanda

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David and Amanda

Amanda uses the Islamist terror attacks in Paris in 2015 as a springboard for a quiet drama about loss. Since the focus is resolutely on the human rather than the political, it might be a bit too quiet for some, but co-writer/director Mikhaël Hers appears to be deliberately trying to make this a case of less heat more light. Hers takes time building up his characters. Amanda (Isaure Multrier) is the shy, sweet daughter of bright, kind teacher and lone mother Sandrine (Ophélia Kolb). Sandrine’s brother, David, is a young man working two jobs and always running a bit late. Busy busy. Too busy, in fact, to take his responsibilities as an uncle … Read more