Potiche

2010 Director François Ozon

Adapted from a stage comedy by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, this film casts a wry eye over the outrageous sexual and political attitudes of the late 1970s and dares to ask whether anything has really changed.

Robert Pujol is the diminutive wrecking ball of right-wing fury who runs his umbrella factory with an iron fist. That is until his surly workforce downs tools and goes on strike and his enemy, pinko local mayor Maurice Babin, is brought in to broker a deal. Under pressure, Robert’s fragile ticker gives up and, as he rests up abroad, his Tinkerbell-like trophy wife Suzanne must take the reins. She injects the ailing business with her own enlightened practices, much to his chagrin.

Simultaneously mocking and revering the look and content of the archetypal ’70s sitcom, ‘Potiche’ succeeds largely due to the fact that all the performers understand the ‘wink-wink’ nature of the material. Ozon evokes the spirit of the era through kitsch, split-screen editing and by filling the soundtrack with old-school Euro chanteurs like Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday, and even tossing in a bit of Boney M.

It’s as light and soft as a pink satin pillow, and a little overstretched, but it’s also packed with bawdy zingers and pointed political barbs.

Nostalghia

1983 Director Andrei Tarkovsky

This is Tarkovsky first film made outside of the Soviet Union just before his defection to the west.

A Russian poet , accompanied by guide and translator, is traveling through Italy researching the life of an 18th century Russian composer. In a ancient spa town, he meets the lunatic Domenico, who years earlier had imprisoned his own family in a barn to save them from the evils of the world. As the guide seeks to tempt him into infidelity, he, seeing some deep truth in Domenico's act, becomes drawn to the lunatic. In a series of dreams, the poet's nostalgia for his homeland and his longing for his wife, his ambivalent feelings for his guide and her Italy, and his sense of kinship with Domenico become intertwined.

With long lingering pans and zooms, this is typical Tarkovsky cinema. His surreal landscapes are meticuously composed and executed. Many of the techniques first seen in Stalker are honed to perfection in the gentle paced exploration of one man's quest for the unobtainable. This is a highly enjoyable visual feast.