Reviews

"Masquerade" by Nicolas Bedos is based on the Director's unpublished novel. Screened out of competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, this extraordinary cinematic piece approaches the life of Adrien (Pierre Niney), a former injured dancer, that decides to enjoy his youth in luxury. The key to that luxurious life is shaped in the figure of Martha (Isabelle Adjani) - a talented actress, obsessed with herself and her career. This relationship has nearly no love in it, but for part of the film, is represented as a "win-win" situation for both characters. On one side, Adrien gets the extravagant life at the French Riviera and on the other side Martha gets the constant presence of someone besides herself.

Adrien is portrait from the beginning of the film as someone with a lost soul. No longer being able to dance and trapped into the life of someone that he has no empathy for, his whole life changes when he meets a stunning woman named Margot (Marine Vacth). She is represented as dangerous, beautiful, adventurous, and fearless; they both start a wild relationship and together they elaborate a scheme around real estate - and Simon, the real estate boss, gets to be the perfect target. The whole film is around a trial of this scheme and reveals who did, in fact, shoot Margot (the first scene of the movie). All of Adrien and Margot's stories are revealed in the depositions in the trial and in flashbacks.

A major part of the film is about explaining the complex illegal scheme and (almost) deadly relationship the main characters start to create. Bedos managed to divulge, in a precise way, the most perverse and ugly side of humanity, the weight that money and luxury have on our current society and how far some are willing to go to get this life - with no care and total contempt for others. This point is accomplished with the amazing cast - Giulia (Laura Monrate) as a hotel owner that seeks revenge and Simon (François Cluzet), a married man that ends up on being fooled by Margot's charm and twisted games. - "It's money what she wants. You're a pigeon, pal", Carol (Emanuelle Devos) to Simon.

Nicolas Bedos managed to maintain the suspense in each scene, getting the spectator to stay with the story to capture every detail. Even though the mystery is achieved, it should be mentioned the little tricks the Director plays with the watcher. In the beginning of the movie, Bedos uses the Somerset Maugham quote that says the French Riviera is a "sunny place for shady people" and in the begging of Adrien and Margot's relationship, she says to him that she just wants to be with her child, with no man. Both moments ended up being omens regarding the story of this romantic thriller. The brilliance in it must be the placing of these hints and the subtle way they are shown, allowing the viewer to get the satisfying reaction when connecting the dots at the end of the piece.

The opulence and richness portraited during the film is incredibly well achieved with the work of the production design (Stéphane Rozenbaum) - which its talent was already proven in "La Belle Époque" (2019, Nicolas Bedos).

Left with an ambiguous ending, regarding the shooting of Margot, Nicolas Bedos delivers to the public a complex, twisted, and rich vision of modern society. A true mascarade.

Fogo-Fátuo - João Pedro Rodrigues Released in 2022, Fogo-Fátuo was part of the Director's Fortnight in Cannes 2022 and selected for Sevilla Film Festival 2022.

Fogo-Fátuo is perceived as a romantic and comic film and approaches the story of Alfredo (King of Portugal), highlighting his youth and his romantic relationship with a fireman. João Pedro Rodrigues consciously decides to keep a satire tone in each scene of the film, while creating (in his own words) a "musical fantasy".

This film has a bittersweet taste. Starting with the strong points of it, in the first part of the film, the director shows us the Portuguese royal family on the intimacy of their own palace. The greatest scene of this film would be the dinner of the royal family while listening to the tragic news of the deadly fires that are destroying Portugal. Besides the beautiful composition of it - the prince in the front, the King and Queen on the side, and the two other princes that are not relevant in terms of Portugal's succession, not facing the camera - it must be emphasized the brilliant satire in it. With the voice of the current Prime Minister of Portugal talking about the fires on the television, the King of Portugal is showing no interest or care in the horrifying situation of his own country - representing a perfect and accurate picture of the Portuguese current government. While the King looks at this situation with barely disguised contempt, the Queen of Portugal, conscious that the viewer is watching the royal family (while breaking the fourth wall), shows in a very fake way, her concern about the current situation of Portugal, while blowing some candles. All this part is representing, with extreme accuracy and great humor, the current state of the Portuguese political scene - the idea of "putting on a show" and being "politically correct" in front of the viewer is amazingly portrait by Margarida Vila-Nova and Miguel Loureiro.

The other strong point of this film is the brave decision of the director to portrait Portugal and the monarchy - which was known for being extremely conservative - and combine it with a graphic homosexual love story. It should also be referred the heavy satire that João Pedro Rodrigues does to the Church, specially at the end of the film, by dressing up the two nuns with fashion items. The best part of that last scene would be the combination of this humorous moment with a classic behavior of Portuguese old ladies - the constant whisper, repetition of certain quotes and the classic overanalyzing the life of the other people.

The sweet taste of the film is brilliant enough, but then the bitter taste starts to be revealed. The constant and exhausting repetition of the "comedy" regarding penis and the sexual desire of Alfredo starts to fade the essence of the film away. From the very beginning - the scene where Alfredo and his father are in the forest - the director has a urge to compare the Portuguese forest to penis - until the very end where Alfredo is naming forest names after graphic pornographic pictures. Perhaps the goal of this is to constantly make the viewer shocked in a way that film sticks with them and, therefore, its satire.

At what point is necessary to shock the viewer, with no breaking point, with the same "joke" in order to share a specific idea or message? João Pedro Rodrigues had a brilliant and well structure satire but ended up on ruining it through exhausting and repeating scenes.

Monsieur & Madame Adelman is a story directed by the French director Nicolas Bedos that portraits a relationship between Victor and Sarah. Released in 2017, this storytelling is the living example of how behind every successful man is a strong woman.

There are many factors that make this movie, in my opinion, an example of a perfect storytelling.

In the first place, the decision of dividing the key moments of the story in chapters gives a structure to the complex and unbalanced marriage between the characters.

This film-making decision allows the viewer to have a clear understanding of the relationship and gives them the privilege to be able to announce the specific moments when the marriage of the main characters starts to reveal as unhealthy. This invasion of the intimate moments of Sarah and Victor, and the ruining of the typical French Cinematic Love, turns this movie into, almost, non-fiction.

Another reason that makes this cinematic piece so extraordinary is the game that the Director plays with the viewer. While peeking into the intimate raw moments of the couple, Bedos starts giving the viewer small hints that make the viewer struggle to find who is the "villain" of the story. With a constant feeling that there is something the director is, consciously, hiding from the watcher, the last scene of the movie reveals an unexpected ending that turns out to be the punchline of the little tricks Bedos was playing with the viewer.

The irony and sophisticated comedy that fills this movie is also an important detail to mention. With a clear influence of Woody Allen, Victor gets revealed as a fragile masculine figure with a writer's block set to failure, yet completely naive about his own insignificance. The strong charisma of Sarah, that contradicts her husband in a clear way, gets to be silent for the whole relation, as she lives on Victor's shadow.

Monsieur & Madame Adelman is a beautiful and challenging story that proves that behind every successful man is a strong woman - which Sarah sure is.