_Alias Betty_, _Barcelona_

[septimus_...@q.com]

A couple of retreads. I finally found the time to rewatch one film by Claude Miller. _Alias Betty_, based on a novel, raises some really disturbing class and race issues. The heroine, a novelist who has found sudden fame, lost her son to an accident; her almost-psychotic mother (played by Nicole Garcia), who hit Betty and disfigured her hand as a child, snatched one up in the street as replacement. The kid's mother is a promiscuous bar tender who probably beats him and doesn't seem too upset he is gone. The might-be father is a gigolo also engaging in real-estate fraud, while her live-in boyfriend is an unemployed African immigrant. The upper-middle class lady ends up with the kid, and her horrible upbringing by negligent, self-centered parents ensures she will be a great mother (I think). We are all supposed to root for her, and yet. What save the film are two things, Claude Miller and Sandrine Kiberlain. Miller's long history of dealing with surrogate parent/offspring relationships assures us this is not a story of convenience; in his best films, the best (sometimes, only) parents are foster/substitute parents. _Alias Betty_ may well be his greatest film. Such a light, cool, confident touch he has. The film is literary without being sarcastic, snobbish, or misantropic (I'm thinking of you, Woody Allen); even Mathilde Seigner's whorish real-mother character gets more than her share of empathy. The film begins with a bird on a window sill causing a tragic death and ends with a bigger bird (a 747) whisking mother-and-adopted-son to safety too. I only noticed that this 3rd time I saw it. As for Kiberlain -- what can one say. She is utterly mesmerizing; the slightest tilt of her head conveys more emotion than most actresses express in their lifetime. After Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche, no French actress can touch her.

I rewatched both _Metropolitan_ and _Barcelona_ in anticipation of _Damsel in Distress_, which may never come to my town. There's nothing much more to say about _Metropolitan_ beyond the fact that it is perfect. _Barcelona_ strikes me exactly as before -- horribly unbalanced. It focuses on the two male cousins and the many female characters are just so much pretty extension of the pretty cityscape. But the film has some wonderful dialog, especially the one about the beauty of women being the closest thing to divinity now that all our gods seem to be dead. I think a lot of movie goers will testify to that.

[septimus_...@q.com]

On Monday, April 23, 2012 9:29:12 PM UTC-7, septimus_...@q.com wrote:

> I rewatched both _Metropolitan_ and _Barcelona_ in anticipation of _Damsel in Distress_, which may never come to my town. There's nothing much more to say about _Metropolitan_ beyond the fact that it is perfect. _Barcelona_ strikes me exactly as before -- horribly unbalanced. It focuses on the two male cousins and the many female characters are just so much pretty extension of the pretty cityscape. But the film has some wonderful dialog, especially the one about the beauty of women being the closest thing to divinity now that all our gods seem to be dead. I think a lot of movie goers will testify to that.

However, it must be said that the terrorism against Americans in Europe subplot in _Barcelona_ comes off as much more weighty after 9/11. The early 90s, during which _Barcelona_ was released, seems like such an innocent time now.

Whitman's _Damsels in Distress_ is such an amazing film! Most people will either love it or hate it -- little middle ground here. I have to write more about this, in addition to _The Deep Blue Sea_. Both are wonderful but Terence Davies' film will end up as once of the decade's greats.