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Stéphane Demoustier’s film centers on Otto von Spreckelsen, a Danish architect entrusted with La Grande Arche in Paris’s La Défense during the early 1980s. That era’s spirit of modernist ambition meets a clash of national identities as a foreign visionary navigates French bureaucratic intricacies. Demoustier grounds the story in specific cultural rituals—state assemblies, architectural competitions, presidential audiences—while allowing von Spreckelsen’s Scandinavian design ethos, with its minimalist rigor and devotion to craft, to resonate on a global stage.

Claes Bang embodies this duality, portraying an outsider whose classical training and religious devotion infuse every blueprint with both precision and personal conviction. Viewers familiar with Denmark’s functionalist tradition will recognize von Spreckelsen’s insistence on pure materials and geometric clarity. Meanwhile, the film’s Parisian sequences, staged in opulent government offices and avant-garde construction sites, underscore how regional tastes and political priorities reshape artistic vision.

French presidents appear to have a obsessive compulsive disorder about leaving behind them imposing buildings or institutions such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, which posterity can admire (or not as the case made be).

Stéphane Démoustier offers an absording accourt of the travails and tribulations of a Danish architect, Otto Von Spreckelsen (Claes Bang), who unexpectedly wins a competition to design one of the most imposing public monuments in Paris for a long time - the white cube to sit at the end of axis from the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysées and the Louvre. Today it’s become a Mecca for skateboarders – not exactly the original intention.

He is as surprised as anyone to be named the recipient of the architectural award but with the bit between his teeth, he emerges as intransigent in the face of his political masters, who want changes.

President Mitterand (Michel Fau) gives his backing and seems.

Between Megalopolis and The Brutalist, obsessive architects were at the center of two of the most ambitious arthouse movies released last year. A more modest addition to the group, but fueled by some of the same ego-tripping, technical hurdles, bureaucratic infighting and money squabbles, Stéphane Demoustier’s The Great Arch follows the tragic true story of Johan Otto von Spreckelsen, an idealistic Danish builder whose design for a massive new monument next to Paris wound up destroying his life.

Filled with more French-bashing than most movies coming out of Gaul, the film offers a play-by-play account of what von Spreckelsen went through after he was chosen to erect a brand-new arch in the futuristic La Défense district west of the city. He had high ambitions that his “cube,” as he constantly referred to it, would stand alongside the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower as an enduring part of the Paris landscape.

Comedy-drama is sixth feature from Belgian director Benoit Mariage after festival hits such as Les Convoyeurs Attendent and Cow-Boy.

Brussels-based Be for Films has taken world sales rights on Benoit Mariage’s new comedy-drama Habib about a young Belgian actor of Moroccan parentage who takes a role as Francis of Assisi in a bid to break the cycle of being typecast as an amiable Arab in mediocre films.

Getting into character is a challenge, however, when his father unexpectedly returns to Brussels from Morocco with his new wife for treatment for early-onset Alzheimer’s and Habib finds himself juggling the demands of his different milieu.

Stars: Arielle Dombasle, Nicolas Ker, Asia Argento, Michel Fau, Theo Hakola, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Christian Louboutin | Written by Arielle Dombasle, Florian Bernas, Jacques Fieschi, Nicolas Ker | Directed by Arielle Dombasle

Apparently something of a well-renown socialite in France, I admit I’d never heard of singer turned actress turned director Arielle Dombasle, yet after watching Alien Crystal Palace I don’t think I’ll Ever forget that name! And that’s undoubtedly because I will Never forget this film – the freakish, hypnotic, erotic fantasy that Dombasle and writers Florian Bernas, Jacques Fieschi, and co-star Nicolas Ker created.

Let me explain.

The official synopsis for Alien Crystal Palace reads like this: “A crazy scientist, Hamburg, is on a quest to create a new, immaculate, androgynous being. This transformation is only possible through the alchemy of two old souls: Dolorès (Arielle Dombasle), an avant-garde filmmaker, and her reincarnated lover Nicolas (Nicolas Ker), a confused rocker.

Stars: Anna Mougalis, Niels Schneider, Eric Godon, Andre Wilms, Jean-Michel Balthazar, Christian Crahay, Constance Dolle, Michel Fau, Sissi Duparc | Written by Franck Ribiere, Verane Frediani, David Murdoch | Directed by Franck Ribiere

Directed by Franck Ribiere (producer for Alex de la Iglesia), The Most Assassinated Woman in the World is a French period horror that takes place against the backdrop of France’s Grand Guignol theatre, a real-life institution (lasting from 1897 until 1962) that specialised in graphic and naturalistic horror shows. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t quite do justice to the setting.

Anna Mougalis (Romanazo Criminale) plays Paula Maxa, the iconic real-life actor who was the most famous of the Grand Guignol’s leading ladies, who, as the title indicates, was graphically murdered on stage several times a day. After her latest performance of ‘Un Crime dans une Maison de Fous’ (where she plays an inmate in a brutal asylum), Paula meets...

“Music is the stuff of dreams,” declares a psychic medium in the heart-struck 2015 French film, Marguerite. Parisian opera singer Marguerite (Catherine Frot) lives in a dream world as a venerated soprano, and we are acutely aware of our participation as voyeurs; our vision, by contrast, is startlingly awake, or in other words, realist. I nearly longed to feel the inside of her madly constructed and confident world, where music wallpapers every encounter and sits at the heart of each relationship. Yet, it was exhilarating to be carried as a bystander, which, of course, is the deliverance of the film’s director, Xavier Giannoli. His prior films have dealt with elements of con, uncovering emotion, and the arts, particularly music.

Giannoli injects a punchy nuance to the fourth wall with Marguerite. The film’s characters and audience (us) are united, because we know she cannot sing. Marguerite believes she can and...

Marguerite Cohen Media Group Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya, d-based on Rotten Tomatoes Grade: A- Director: Xavier Giannoli Written by: Xavier Giannoli, Marcia Romano Cast: Catherine Frot, André Marcon, Michel Fau, Christa Théret, Denis Mpunga, Sylvain Dieuaide, Aubert Fenoy, Sophie Leboutte, Theo Cholbi Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 3/3/16 Opens: March 11, 2016 I’ll bet you like to sing in the shower? Why? Because you sound terrific. You have fallen in love with your own voice. That’s because singers don’t really hear their own voices as others hear them. Nowadays it’s easy to record yourself, and a quick chorus in front of a Sony ICDPX333 voice recorder would quickly [ Read More ]

The post Marguerite Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

French actress Catherine Frot gives a touching, masterful performance as the title character in director Xavier Giannoli’s tragicomic Marguerite. The lavish 1920s costume film centers on a wealthy baroness who loves music and fancies herself an opera singer. The problem is that she cannot sing and seems unable to hear her own off-key screeching. With her great wealth, generous support of causes and social position, no one tells her the truth.

Marguerite is a fictional film but the title character was inspired by real person, Florence Foster Jenkins, an American heiress famous for her awful singing and delusional belief in her talents who gave invitation-only concerts in elaborate costumes, which audiences viewed with a “so bad its good” appreciation. A biopic about Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep and directed by Stephen Frears, is due out later this year.

Giannoli and co-writer Marcia Romano move their story to 1921 France – the Roaring Twenties.

Xavier Giannoli on the lie of Charlie Chaplin: "Everything is true in the Dada performance." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Tristan Tzara, Margaret Dumont and Groucho Marx, Robert Redford as Denys Finch Hatton in Sydney Pollack's Out Of Africa by Karen Blixen, Salieri and Mozart in Milos Forman's Amadeus, and Caruso the peacock helped to compose Xavier Giannoli's Marguerite, starring Catherine Frot with André Marcon, Aubert Fenoy, Michel Fau, Denis Mpunga, Sylvain Dieuaide and Christa Théret.

Meryl Streep in Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins, the next Steven Spielberg, Jeff Nichols, Midnight Special in Paris, Broadway Danny Rose, Woody Allen and Danny Kaye in Carnegie Deli and Carnegie Hall in New York excited the director during our conversation.

Hazel (Christa Théret) singing with Nedda (Petra Nesvacilová)

Anne-Katrin Titze: When did you first hear of Florence Foster Jenkins?

Xavier Giannoli: 15 years ago on the radio. I heard this...

Though she was popular nearly a century ago, Florence Foster Jenkins feels particularly relevant to modern art’s ongoing dialogue with awfulness as a version of the sublime. In another world, Xavier Giannoli’s prickly tragicomedy Marguerite could easily be an exercise in self-loathing in the same fashion as Rick Alverson’s films, but instead it’s a film whose virtues lies in a fierce neutrality towards its own subject. Even the characters who appear to be the most transparently kind or evil contain multitudes, and the film becomes a constant examination of its own tone.

As such, Marguerite is frantic and compellingly unpredictable, even as it heads into comfortable territory. Loosely based on the life of Jenkins, a ’20s-era socialite and Opera singer renowned for her supernaturally abhorrent voice (here’s a recording of her murdering every poor note of Mozart’s Der Hölle Rache), Marguerite follows Marguerite Dumont...

Sing the Body Apoplectic: Giannoli Pays Thanks to the Music

French director Xavier Giannoli borrows an obscure piece of American pop culture for his latest feature, Marguerite, a 1920s Parisian high society dramedy based loosely on the life and career of New England socialite Florence Foster Jenkins. Oblivious to her glaring lack of talent, the wealthy soprano was the source of rampant ridicule, her folly reaching an unmitigated apotheosis following a sold-out Carnegie Hall performance in an instance of truth being stranger than fiction. Resting beautifully on the masterful shoulders of Catherine Frot, an oft-Cesar nominated actress who hasn’t had the deserving international acclaim she’s due, the film’s success hinges delicately on her performance, even with a cadre of supporting players otherwise subjugated to empathetic cliché or predictably reprehensible conduct.

Marguerite Dumont (Frot) has staged a benefit concert at her home, a sprawling chateau outside of Paris.

Read More: Cohen Media Group Acquires Venice Premiere 'Marguerite' Xavier Giannoli's "Marguerite" premiered to rave reviews at both the Telluride and Venice Film Festival last year. The movie is loosely inspired by the life of Florence Foster Jenkins, an American socialite who was ridiculed for her poor singing ability. Catherine Frot stars in the titular role, and she's accompanied by André Marcon, Michel Fau, Christa Théret and Denis Mpunga. The film is set during the 1920s in Paris, as a wealthy women spends most of her time singing opera and performing in elaborate costumes. Marguerite is an enthusiastic performer, but she is also terribly and comically out of tune. She eventually is deluded into thinking that she's a talented diva. "Marguerite" will be released in New York this April. No other release date information has been set. Watch the debut trailer above. Read More: Telluride: 4 Female-Centric Films...

Title: Marguerite Director: Xavier Giannoli Starring: Catherine Frot, André Marcon, Michel Fau, Christa Théret, Denis Mpunga, Sylvain Dieuaide, Aubert Fenoy, Sophia Leboutte, Théo Cholbi. The world has always been populated by talentless megalomaniacs. Usually most of these are attracted by the razzle dazzle of success, but very seldom there is a true passion for the arts that motivates them. This is not the case of Marguerite Dumont, a Baroness who lives for music and dreams of becoming an opera singer, but is totally tone-deaf. French director Xavier Giannoli shapes, with humor and sensitivity, the character of Marguerite into an utterly bighearted naive woman, who is led to believe she can  [ Read More ]

The post Marguerite Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

★★★☆☆ Set in 1920 and loosely inspired by the life of infamous soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, Marguerite (2015) is Xavier Giannoli's follow up to disappointing Superstar, which was in competition at Venice three years ago. Marguerite's main characters are wannabes who ultimately find themselves trapped in their own delusions. Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot) is an untalented opera singer who believes she has a wonderful voice, regularly performing for her aristocratic friends and behaving like a diva for her butler and amateur photographer Madelbos (Denis Mpunga). In this, she is a classic Giannoli character who falls victim to their own false beliefs.

Marguerite's rendition of Mozart's Queen of the Night sees her squawking throughout the whole aria, in one of the most hilarious, albeit ear-shattering, sequences seen in Venice so far and transformed what looked to be stiff period film into something altogether different. Marguerite is undeniably, and irreparably, tone-deaf, but...