An Officer and a Spy/J'Accuse (2019) - Polanski's sober historical drama of scandal and principles

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+ Best Historical Drama of the Year + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year

Two uniformed army men in old-time France stand face to face on this poster for Roman Polanski's An Officer and a Spy

In 1894 a swift military court condemns Jewish captain Dreyfuss as a traitor and sends him to reclusion for life on Devil's Island, relying on the scrambled evidence gathered by an intelligence director ill with syphilis. His replacement digs deeper and discovers that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

An Officer and a Spy is written by Robert Harris (Fatherland (1994, TV movie), based on his novel), adapting his own same-titled 2013 novel, and French/Polish master co-writer/director Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water/Nóz w Wodzie (1962)), whose 22nd feature it is.
The film may well become the last in the master filmmaker's body of work, as he is 87 years now and just about castigated from today's moralistic, blood-thirsty film community for his 1977 sex case (he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in Los Angeles, 13 year-old Samantha Geimer, but fled punishment). The film is not among Polanski's career's tallest achievements, but as a historical drama about one of the most talked about scandals in modern Western history, An Officer and a Spy is sober, well-made and fully engaged. But the sad implicit context - that Polanski feels similar to the wrongfully convicted, disgraced Dreyfuss, - cannot but leave an invisible shadow over An Officer and a Spy.
Jean Dujardin (Ca$h (2008)) is superb as the admittedly antisemitic Picquart, who comes to lead the small Paris intelligence bureau and champion the effort to establish the actual truth - and exonerate Dreyfuss. His fencing duel with his antagonistic right-hand man Henry (a great Grégory Gadebois (Goodbye Morocco (2012))) is terrific. Louis Garrel (Love Songs/Les Chansons d'Amour (2007)) portrays the vulnerability and agony of the 'wrong man' convictee, Dreyfuss with fervor and empathy. And Emmanuelle Seigner (Giallo (2009)) is exquisite as Picquart's secret love.
The serious approach by Harris/Polanski is far from the vivid plot game of their previous collaboration, thriller masterpiece The Ghost Writer (2011), leaving little room for Alexandre Desplat's (Unbroken (2014)) classical Polanski-style score. An Officer and a Spy is especially for those historically interested audiences and plays out like a 19th century-set John le Carré novel, but its themes of treason, lies, deceit, a conspiracy in the intelligence and military top, as well as prejudice, racial hatred and injustice are as relevant today as they were in the 1890s.

Related posts:

Roman Polanski: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Carnage (2011) - Polanski castigates modern parents in great play adaptation
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  
The Ghost Writer/The Ghost (2010) - A master at work 
Chinatown (1974) - Polanski's masterpiece 
Film Excess' 7th birthday movie masterpiece: The Fearless Vampire Killers/Dance of the Vampires (1967) - Witness Polanski's incredible, underrated Gothic horror comedy 
Cul-de-Sac (1966) - Edge-of-the-world island tale meanders at times, but is ultimately a winner  
Two Men and a Wardrobe/Dwaj Ludzie z Szafą (1958, short) - Polanski's remarkable, surreal short

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 24-28 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 18.8 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say for sure, but looks like a huge flop (has returned around 0.78 times its cost for now)
[An Officer and a Spy premiered 30 August (Venice Film Festival) and runs 132 minutes. No less than 15 companies and governmental and European support bodies were involved in the financing and production of the film. Filming was scheduled for 2014 in Warsaw, Poland, when Polanski's sex case came in the way, as Poland officially deliberated whether they would extradite him to face justice in the US. Shooting with a lavish 60 mil. € budget in Paris in 2016 was also delayed due to the unavailability of a star. Shooting eventually took place in France, including Paris, from November 2018 - March 2019. The film is not set to release in North America, where distributors are wary of offending the politically correct in power, as well as the masses, who oppose Polanski, - and the demand for this type of film is regrettably likely small there in any case. The release has also been ruined by the China-virus pandemic. Its 3 biggest markets to date are France with 11.9 mil. $ (63.3 % of the total gross to date), Italy with 3.7 mil. $ (19.7 %) and Spain with 1.3 mil. $ (6.9 %). The film won 3/12 César award nominations, is nominated for a David di Donatello award, 4 European Film awards, and won 4 prizes in Venice, among other honors. Polanski does not have an announced next film. Dujardin returns in OSS 117: Alerte Rouge en Afrique Noire (2021). An Officer and a Spy is fresh at 77 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of An Officer and a Spy?

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress/Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse Chinoise (2002) - Sijie's sensual, resonant ode to youth and everything laid to waste by Communist China

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+ Best Chinese Movie of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year 

The softly contoured young stars lie closely together with a book on this intriguing poster for Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

On an ordered three year re-education stay in a remote Chinese village during chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, two young men steal literature and inaugurate a young local seamstress in its forbidden blessings.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is written and directed by great Chinese filmmaker Dai Sijie (Niu-Peng (1989)), adapting his own same-titled, semi-autobiographical 2000 novel, with Nadine Perront (The Chinese Botanist's Daughters (2006)) contributing writing.
Here is a gorgeously photographed (by Jean-Marie Dreujou (Wolf Totem (2015))) political romance drama with a sensually impressionistic nature. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is deeply compelling and moving, showing us new particulars of the horrors of Mao's Communist regime with great authority.
The film has great performances; not least Xun Zhou (The Silent War (2012)) is fabulous. The score by Pujian Wang is beautiful. The protagonist's swimming around in the ending doesn't come off entirely natural.
But the Chinese government's flooding of the paradisiacal area shown in the film is as unbelievable as it is unbearable. It concludes a film that is rare in its successful mix of being funny, intelligent, deep and extremely poignant.

 

Related post:

 

2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Sijie gives a 12-minute interview in French in this video

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 5.2 mil. $
= Uncertain
[Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress premiered 16 May (Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section) and runs 111 minutes. 11 production companies and governmental support bodies were involved with financing and making the film. Shooting took place from ? - May 2001 in Paris, France and in China, including Shanghai. The necessary permission to film in China took 7 months to procure and only came with the simultaneous understanding that the film would be banned from getting screened in China. The film did not get a general release in the US until 2005, and only in New York: It opened #67 to a 16k $ first weekend in 1 theater, peaking at #49 and in 22 theaters (different weeks), grossing 666k $ (12.8 % of the total gross). The film's 3 biggest markets were Germany with 1.1 mil. $ (21.2 %), North America and France with 662k $ (12.7 %). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe and won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to two notches lower than this one. Sijie returned with The Chinese Botanist's Daughters (2006). Zhou returned in Where Have All the Flowers Gone/Na shi hua kai (2002). Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is certified fresh at 77 % with a 6.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress?

Portrait of a Lady on Fire/Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu (2019) - Sciamma spoils us with picturesque period romance

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+ Best Blockbuster of the Year (2,797.3 mil. $ gross) + Best Superhero Movie of the Year + Most Profitable Movie of the Year: 761.9
mil. $ range+ Best LBGT Movie of the Year + Romance of the Year 

Star Adèle Haenel has caught fire on this poster for Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire

A soon to be married aristocrat lady spends a period at a reclusive seaside house, where a talented female painter is tasked with making her portrait. The two reach a profound connection in those precious days.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is written and directed by great French filmmaker Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies/Naissance des Pieuvres (2007)). Sciamma presents another very woman-centered tale with a subtle feminist current running through it, this time especially evident in a scene of the painter's placement at an art opening, where she has been used to paint a 'master' artist's paintings but naturally without any credit given.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a picturesque (cinematography by Claire Mathon (Atlantics/Atlantique (2019))) and delicious treat, a sort of lesbian counterpart to the short-term romance gay 'guilty pleasure' of recently, Luca Guadagnino's great Call My By Your Name (2017). - Short and sweet, turning to bittersweet and tears, as the passion it describes becomes but a burning memory.
The attraction is subdued and confined to looks and dialog for the majority of the film, which undoubtedly leaves some audiences a bit restless, before the genie is let out of its lamp so to speak. Then it is still much less explicit than many other recent romances, but plenty sensual, deftly utilizing the looks, the sounds of the surf and smoldering fire to render the heightened sense of existence such powerful feelings of love and desire provoke.
The title seems to work on two planes, as Adèle Haenel's (Ogres/Les Ogres (2015)) aristocrat subject literally catches fire at a beach-set bonfire scene one evening in the film, but also poetically seems to have her soul set afire by the sudden storm of love that she experiences with the other. Haenel and Noémie Merlant (The Brother (2016)) are both outstanding in the film.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a near-perfect portrayal of the rush, redemption and pain of finding love and losing it.

 

Related post:

 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4 mil. €, approximately 4.45 mil. $
Box office: 9.7 mil. $ and counting
= Flop (has returned 2.17 times its cost so far)
[Portrait of a Lady on Fire premiered 19 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 120 minutes. Shooting took place from October - December 2018 in France. The film opened #39 to a 67k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #16 and in 334 theaters and grossed 3.7 mil. $ (28.1 % of the total gross). Its release was disrupted dramatically by the corona pandemic. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets have been France with 2.3 mil. $ (23.7 %) and South Korea with 1 mil. $ (10.3 %). The film was shortlisted as France's submission for the Oscars but wasn't ultimately chosen. It was nominated for a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, won 2 awards in Cannes, 1/10 César award nominations, 1/3 European Film award nominations, nominated for an Independent Spirit award and won a National Board of Review award. IMDb's users have voted the film in at the site's Top 250 at #232, sitting between La Haine (1995) and It Happened One Night (1954). Sciamma has not announced her next project yet. Haenel has also not announced her next project yet; Merlant returned in Shakira (2019, short) and theatrically in Jumbo (2020). Portrait of a Lady on Fire is certified fresh at 98 % with a 9.01/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Portrait of a Lady on Fire?