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 | Comme Une Image (Look At Me) Director: Agnes Jaoui Rated: M Palace Nova, Now screening  George W Bush won't agree, but thank God for the fiercely independent French and their thriving film industry. The latest example of French cinema at its finest is 'Comme Une Image', a clever and caustic look at the French literary A-List and its sycophants.The film opens with the central character Lolita Cassard (Marilou Berry) in a taxi on her way to a party of literary glitterati, where one of the star guests will be her successful author and publisher father Etienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri). However, unlike Nabokov's namesake, Lolita Cassard is virtually invisible to others, no more so than to her egotistical father who calls the weight conscious Lolita "my big girl" and is so disinterested in her that he barely notices when she is refused entry to the party. Lolita craves acceptance and forlornly battles for her father's attention with her young and gorgeous stepmother Karine (Virginie Dessamauts) and her half-sister. When she receives attention from others, Lolita has to be convinced it is genuine, because of the army of "zeroes" who want to get close to her father. Indeed, Lolita's paranoia becomes so disabling that she spurns a genuine suitor Sebastien (Keine Bouhiza) in favour of the more fashionable Mathieu (Julien Baumgartner). Lolita's hopes are invested entirely in her fledgling classical singing career under the auspices of Sylvia (the Director herself Agnes Jaoui) and her choral group's concert. Unbeknownst to Lolita, she is about to be cut from the group, but Sylvia retreats after discovering that Etienne is Lolita's father and that he has the power to assist her husband Pierre (Laurent Grevill) whose third novel is about to be released. The story then moves to a weekend in the countryside where allegiances are formed and dissolved by the hour and culminates in the choral concert. The joy of this film is its Cannes award-winning screenplay co-written by director Jaoui and Bacri. While she wittily savages the self-obsessed literates she appears to know so well, at the same time Jaoui convinces us to be compelled by Lolita's journey towards self-esteem and Sylvia's battle to rediscover her integrity. Jaoui is ably assisted by her cast, with Bacri the standout as the father from hell, oblivious to his own destructiveness. Jaoui displays deft visual flare at times. Posters of models taunt Lolita like chic gargoyles. However, it is the characters and the snappy dialogue that drive the movie. In the past decade, Hollywood studios have generated big box office by remaking successful European films. I suspect that 'Comme Une Image' won't be on their list. It's simply too French to be Americanised... Thank God!  | |
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