This weekend, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art continues its summer wave of film series with La Semaine du film français (easier cited as French Film Week, for most of us). OKCMOA guides us across a valley of cinema both new and old, ranging from Jacques Rivette’s 1981 opus Le Pont du Nord and Mélanie Laurent’s Breathe from last year.
Intimate, feminine and overtly European, these down-to-earth films help frame France — and the bulk of humanity, for that matter — into a modern paradigm. A dissection of maternity arises in each piece, leading into several discussions of a mother’s relationship to her daughter. These films, bolstering mostly female directors, brings a familiarity to feminism — which, even now, seems inexcusably uncommon.
Breathe
Director: Mélanie Laurent
5:30 p.m. Friday
Actress-turned-director Mélanie Laurent’s sophomore effort depicts a budding and perilous relationship between two teenaged girls. Charlie (Joséphine Japy) finds herself wedged in a dull rut, but she’s awakened by the arrival of Sarah (Lou de Laâge), a new student at her school. Though their friendship quickly develops into something more, it does so at a rate neither of them can attempt to control.
Receiving nods at both the César and Lumières awards ceremonies, Breathe is propelled by two fresh and moving performers and contends that the trials of adolescence are just as pressing as the crises of any century-old pedant. This, compounded by a romance unfortunately far from the norm, crafts a compelling argument to find your seat early.
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In the Name of My Daughter
Director: André Téchiné
8 p.m. Friday
Why wouldn’t a New Wave film assume a narrative on the coast? André Téchiné’s In the Name of My Daughter provides a secret history to unsolved disappearance in the late ’70s. Renée (Catherine Deneuve), a casino owner residing in southern France, is plunged into a war of wits after she denies an inheritance to her daughter.
Along with the memoir it spawned from, the real-life Le Roux family was heavily involved in its production, and although it was technically fictionalized, Téchiné sought to craft this narrative as objectively as possible. It’s not as heavily involved with the media, but fans of last year’s Gone Girl may find something familiar in this contemporary mystery.
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Three Hearts
Director: Benoît Jacquot
5:30 p.m. Saturday
Saturday’s double feature resumes the romantic thread, this time threefold. Jacquot’s Three Hearts follows Marc (Benoît Poelvoorde), a tax inspector who has a brief night with Sylvie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a la Before Sunrise. A failed second encounter snowballs into Marc’s meeting with Sylvie’s sister Sophie (Chiara Mastroianni), which proves just as intimate. Gradually, the trial of these three lovers grows difficult for all parties to endure.
At the, well, heart of Three Hearts lies Catherine Deneuve as the mother of Sylvie and Sophie. While filling a supporting role, the famed actress still hints at the command of a frame she mastered in films like Indochine and Dancer in the Dark. If anything, the exchanges between Deneuve and Mastroianni should prove engaging; they are literally mother and daughter, after all.
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Party Girl
Directors: Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis
8 p.m. Saturday
One of the series’ most fascinating offerings, Party Girl follows Angélique Litzenburger, an older bar hostess enjoying her golden years to the fullest. Despite her age, Angélique still finds the power to keep up with her establishment’s much younger tenants. But a proposal from a former, frequent tenant throws her way of life into a disarray bound between fun and convention.
Portraying a fictionalized version of herself, Litzenburger’s untrained performance is paradoxically her greatest asset. Just as much of a character in reality, her role is as organic as any in recent memory. This raw, funny, and very real tale — which played at this year’s deadCENTER film festival and garnered the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2014 — contends that having a good time is timeless.
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Le Pont du Nord
Director: Jacques Rivette
2 p.m. Sunday
Closing the series is a definitive piece of French cinema. Rivette’s Le Pont du Nord describes the journey of two unlikely acquaintances, Marie (Bulle Ogier) and Baptiste (Pascale, Ogier’s daughter), as they work to decode a curious map of Paris. Though surreal moments often surface througout, Le Pont du Nord finds itself grounded in contemporary socioeconomic commentary.
Rivette’s masterwork was never officially released stateside, so this may be one of the rare occasions to witness it on a silver screen. The interplay between Bulle and Pascale is something to be cherished — especially considering Pascale’s tragic death shortly after the film’s release. Funny, quirky and, above all else, honest, Le Pont du Nord can be cited as the source of many modern cinematic trends.
