A magnificent and moving eco-fable based on a true story, a teenager who became a drug baron and FBI informant, and the bloody settling of scores at the Liberation: discover 3 films that deserve to be seen on Netflix.
Columbia Pictures
The wild flight
After her mother’s death, 13-year-old Amy goes to live with her father on a farm in Canada. One day, she saves twenty wild goose eggs from certain death. Amy becomes the adoptive mother of these goslings and life is organized around these strange borders. But the moment comes when Amy’s little proteges have to learn to fly…
Crowned with the Special Jury Prize at the Environmental Film Festival in 1997, L’envolée Sauvage is a magnificent and very moving film, unfairly shunned in theaters when it was released. Barely more than 200,000 spectators in France, and a failure at the international Box Office.
However, there is an urgent need to re-evaluate or discover this work. Signed by veteran Carroll Ballard, a not very prolific filmmaker to whom we owe The Black Stallion, The wild flight is carried high by the young Anna Paquin, who was (almost) the age of her role, and by Jeff Daniels, formidable in his role of eccentric inventor father. A film which, by the way, is quite hidden in his very rich filmography.
Taken from a true story but also freely inspired by experiments on migratory birds carried out by William Lishman, as well as the work carried out by the immense ethologist Konrad Lorenz who had observed the phenomenon of imprinting or “impregnation” in greylag geese as early as 1935, The wild flight is a work adorned with soothing virtues, also sublimated by the sumptuous photography signed by Caleb Deschanel, nominated for the Oscar for this film. We challenge you not to crush a tear while contemplating the images that will pass before your eyes, lulled by the very beautiful song 10,000 Miles by Mary Chapin Carpenter…
Uranus
Spring 1945. A small provincial town is destroyed by bombardment. Everyone should rejoice that the war is finally over, but between the communists and the “collaborators” peace is having a hard time establishing itself. Tension mounts when the community learns that Maxime Loin, author of pro-Hitler articles during the Occupation, has returned and is hiding somewhere in the city…
Brilliant adaptation by Claude Berri of a fierce novel published in 1948 and written by Marcel Aymé who dipped his pen in acid, Uranus describes the settling of scores that followed the Liberation of France and the small arrangements with consciences citizens of all political persuasions. Between real resistance fighters and pseudo resistance fighters of the last hour, militants of the all-powerful Communist Party, or those who had largely taken advantage of the Occupation to make a fortune and develop shady and flourishing businesses there.
Chiseled by fabulous dialogues, Claude Berri’s film also benefits from an extraordinary cast, bringing together a real Who’s Who French cinema as we are not ready to see again. Gérard Depardieu, who had just cheated with Cyrano de Bergerac, plays Léopold, a boorish cafe owner who discovers a sudden and devouring passion for Jean Racine and in particular for Andromache.
He is supported by glorious elders: Jean-Pierre Marielle and Philippe Noiret -, Rohmerian actors – Fabrice Luchini and Florence Darel -, a humorist in a brilliant misuse – Daniel Prévost, a great theater actor – Gerard Desarthe. Without forgetting a Michel Blanc as a communist militant and father of a family burning with a secret passion for his neighbor, and an ignoble Michel Galabru as an unscrupulous wheeler-dealer. In short: the crème de la crème of French cinema.
The film tumbles to the Netflix catalog this February 1. If you have never seen this little masterpiece, the catch-up session is urgently needed!
Undercover
It was in 2014 that Yann Demange produced an impressive debut feature, masterful in mastery and tension, against the backdrop of the years of Irish lead and the civil war between the IRA and the British government: ’71.
The film told the story of a British soldier accidentally abandoned by his unit in the middle of the Troubles in the streets of Belfast in Ireland. ’71 earned Yann Demange two nominations BAFTA Awards and win the British Independent Film Award for best director.
With this beautiful pedigree, it is to say that we waited with some impatience for his second film: Undercover – a true story. The story of a father of very modest origins, Richard Wershe, and his son, Rick Jr., nicknamed “Rick Le P’tit blanc” (“White Boy Rick” in VO, which is also the original title of the movie),…
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