christian-254

I am normally not too fond of short films as a format. I feel way more comfortable when I´m asked to dive into long-winded journeys, where I can take my own sweet time to get acquainted with the characters or the artistic concept. This doesn´t apply, though, when the main target is to establish a certain mood. Many full-length features manage to achieve just that, but they fail miserably when it comes to maintain their impact, ultimately leading to abject boredom. This is where short subjects really shine. "Parasol" is a splendid example, as its short running time never strives for anything more than this initial mood. Nothing is overexplicated, the montage rocks, the music is also tasteful and intriguing. It is permeated by a sense of mystery, but nothing is ever driven too far. The only negative emotion "Parasol" engenders is a certain amount of envy, seeing where the two film-makers have spent their holidays... All in all, it is a real feelgood movie, six minutes of beautiful landscape and female pulchritude, a short trip to a beach where not all is what it seems.

For the life of me, I cannot understand the fierce and almost resentful nature of many of the opinions given here. I was fully prepared to see another one of those over-blown affairs that put style over substance and usually bore me to bits after 15 minutes or so of their „Amélie"-type smugness and undeserved self-confidence. In fact. SAINT ANGE is a very careful, very sensitive story of a young woman who struggles with her feelings about her impending motherhood. The ending made perfect sense to me, whether read as a ghost story of sorts or a paranoid fantasy. The actresses are uniformly excellent, particularly Virginie Ledoyen and Lou Doillon, as is Catriona MacColl, who you might still remember from those colorful Fulci extravaganzas from the early eighties. The splendid photography makes good use of the grey and cold blue colours of the orphanage, which is embedded in green and brown tones – Mother Nature. The fantasy ending also introduces a clinical white for good measure. In view of the many cinematic exercises of today that talk their subtexts to death, SAINT ANGE uses a formal elegance that is breath-taking. Actually, I didn't find one single frame that was superfluous. In a way, the film also shares several themes with Laugier's well-received and harrowing MARTYRS, as it is basically another – albeit more tender – tale of a bruised young woman under dire circumstances. The ending of MARTYRS can also be read as a paranoid fantasy, with traces of hope hidden in a complex framework of depressing human depravity. No, I liked SAINT ANGE a lot. And, by the way, Joe Lo Duca – who started with Sam Raimi's THE EVIL DEAD – delivered a haunting and memorable music score. An excellent movie.